My least favorite question

It's a little uncomfortable for a free thinking skeptic to realize that there are questions he hates. That seems like a terrible attitude. Questions ought to be my bread and butter. But then again, I also hate the phrase "bread and butter," so where does that leave me?

Maybe it has to do with my interest in language and writing. In literature, we scour words for meaning and significance. Meanings piggyback on other meanings and we often pick up messages that aren't explicitly stated in what we read. Sometimes those meanings really aren't there at all, and we end up reacting to literary pareidolia. Still, even those erroneous reactions are important, because the reactions are real even if the message isn't. This is why I hate "Why?"

"Why?" is such a fundamental question. In many ways, it is the prototypical Big Question. Unfortunately, this tiny word hides a huge number of false, or at least unnecessary, assumptions, and to answer it may require the acceptance of falsehoods.


"Why" is often a stand-in for a slightly more complicated question. "Why won't my dog eat his food?" is my question of the day, but what I'd really like to know is more detailed. I'd like to know if his medication is affecting his appetite, or if he's in too much pain from his surgery despite the medication. Maybe he's just nervous because my schedule has changed in the last few days and he isn't sure what's happening. Maybe when I chose to move his food bowl over by his bed so he wouldn't have to walk so far, that threw him off. In this case, "Why" isn't that great an offense, because I'm still talking about a living mammal with a working brain, who can make decisions in some way. Dante is an agent who can have reasons for his actions. When I ask "Why" about something more abstract, the question loses the usefulness of an agent, but I'm still begging the question by implying agency.

Say I ask a child's question about the world, "Why does the sun shine?"* It's no wonder we have this stereotype of the repetitive "Why" from children. Any sensible, useful answer will give a description of nuclear physics and gravity, and it should be little surprise that this answer will often be met with, "Why does it work that way?" This is a perfectly valid question, in that theoretical physicists pursue the underlying laws of nature by asking it, but science escapes from the question of "Why" by looking at "How" and "In what way?"

"Why" gives a Mindy-like infinite regress when we examine nature, because there is no agent. There is no dog deciding not to eat for a reason, and physics are not a rule book. "Why" leads us to think that the laws of physics are the way they are for a reason. Why is there something rather than nothing? That's a nonsense question, because you can't even show that nothing is an option. Why are the laws of physics the way they are? They are a description of processes that we have made through observation and testing, not a constitution of reality we all have to obey. "Why" holds the hidden assumption of agency, and even when there is an agent, it's probably not the question you want answered.

It's not just the interpretation of the grand scale of reality where "Why" falls apart. I see it every day in retail. Here are two recent conversations, one with one of my employees, one with a customer.

Scenario 1 - This took place over the radio. "Alice" was at the register while I was in the office doing paperwork.

Alice: Can I have a manager to the front? I have a rewards card that doesn't come up by email, but when I look it up by phone number, I get a card number different from the card the customer has. That card has the same email I tried to look up. Why is the card doing that?


Me: That's not something we can fix in the store. That has to be a database error. The customer probably tried to merge two accounts online and screwed something up.


Alice: Why would there be two cards with the same email?


Me: Because computers aren't perfect, and computer users are even less perfect. I have no idea. Just give the customer the 800 number for customer service.


Alice: Can you come up to the register and explain to the customer why this is happening?


Me: No. I have no idea why. Because something screwed up in the card database. I wasn't there when it was screwed up, so I have no possible way of answering that question. Besides, the answer won't fix anything. Just give them the phone number, because if I come up there, all I'll do is give them the phone number. I can't fix it here.

Scenario 2 - This time, I was on register. A customer was buying a pack of Magic: the Gathering cards.

Customer: Why are your cards so expensive?


Kyle: I've never seen them any cheaper than this. Where did you see a lower price?


Customer: I dunno, I just wonder why you charge so much for them.


Kyle: Um...because that's the price we set on them. I don't know what you really want to know here. The price is set by the corporate office based on how much they cost us.


Customer: I just don't like paying so much.

In neither of those conversations was "Why" the question they wanted answered. The only relevant information in the first one was "How can I fix this?" There is no why. The reason that something was broken was that someone or something broke it. Was it done on purpose? Highly doubtful, since that would benefit no one and hurt all parties involved. If not on purpose, it was either a human accident or a computing accident, both of which are meaningless as "why" answers. Without deliberate agency, the ultimate answer is "Because." Useless!

In the second conversation, the customer didn't really even want an answer to a question. He just wanted to spend less money on his game, but knew he couldn't. He was even using a coupon to make the cards cheaper than the list price, so there was no real reason for complaint, except that he probably spends a lot of money on those cards (I remember the days...).

"Why" is just a surrogate for other thoughts, other questions, other complaints. Unless you're talking about intelligent agency with deliberate intent, it is not only meaningless, it's counterproductive. Think before you ask why. It probably won't give you what you're looking for. If you don't know what you're looking for, then you should definitely think before you ask anything at all.




*Spot my hidden assumption in that sentence for bonus points.

“What sort of evidence would you accept?”

There are a great number of things I don't believe. Discussions about these with people who do believe tend toward a familiar impasse. They can't understand my rejection of their beliefs, and I can't understand their definition of evidence. Eventually it comes to this question. This is one of a few questions I hate, the worst of which is “Why?” but more on that another day.

Whenever someone asks me “What sort of evidence would you accept?” I find myself giving a clumsily qualified answer in order not to sound unreasonable. The things I disbelieve lack evidence that meets any useful definition of the word evidence. That's the primary reason that I disbelieve. In most cases, there really is evidence, and it all says no. Trying to explain that dimension to this problem leaves the believer with the impression that I'm dismissing their evidence unfairly. I asked for evidence, and they brought me some! How can I say they don't have any evidence? It's right there! OK, true believers, to make sense of this failure to communicate, I take you to a court room in session.

Judge: Is the defense prepared to enter a plea?

Defense Attorney: I'm sorry Your Honor, but I don't know what's going on here. We don't have a client.

Judge: What are you talking about? State vs. Credence Woo, I've got the papers right here. Where's the defendant?

Defense Attorney: Seriously, Your Honor, we've been trying to figure this out for a while now. There doesn't seem to be anyone named Credence Woo. Honestly, we're not even sure how the DA managed to bring this case in the first place.

Prosecuting Attorney: That's ridiculous! We have sworn affidavits that he murdered three people in broad daylight.

Defense Attorney: We've looked through those as well. None of them agree about the facts of the case, and anyway, they aren't sworn affidavits. They're anonymous descriptions. One of them seems to be mostly plagiarized off another, with a few contradictory additions.

Judge: How are we even having a trial if the defendant doesn't exist?

Prosecuting Attorney: He does! There's plenty of other evidence. Haven't you seen the photographs?

Defense Attorney: Those aren't photographs. They're drawings. And they don't even look particularly similar to one another. Oh, except that one, but that's a photo of Brad Pitt that's been Photoshopped quite badly. Anyway, that's not even the real problem. We can't even confirm that this murder actually took place at all. We do know that two of the victims named in the case did exist and are dead, but as far as we can discover, they died several years apart in different states, not at the mall downtown two months ago. On top of that, the prosecution's proposed method of murder is physically impossible.

Prosecuting Attorney: No it's not. Look, if you understand quantum mechanics, you'll see that--

Judge: OK, I'm just going to stop you right there. If I don't let you finish that sentence, it will remain in a state of superposition, so there's a 50% chance it's not bullshit. It can be Schroedinger's argument, both bullshit and not bullshit until an observer collapses it into nonsense. Now someone please tell me what we're doing here if there's no defendant and no confirmed murder.

Defense Attorney: Actually we did find evidence of a murder at the mall on that day, Your Honor. Well, it was near the mall, and took place very early in the morning. There were four victims, not three, none of them the ones named in this case, and it looks like it was done by a small group, not a single person. Tragic, but it looks like an interesting case, and no one is currently investigating it except us.

Prosecuting Attorney: No, stop dismissing me! You're just not looking at the evidence. You need to keep an open mind and really dig into the evidence I've got here.

Judge: I'm getting the impression you don't understand what evidence is. Are you even familiar with standards of evidence?

Prosecuting Attorney: Fine then. What sort of evidence would you accept?

Judge: At this point, you've demonstrated that you don't know how evidence works. There is zero real evidence in favor of your case, and the defense has uncovered a different case that you're not working on. That seems irresponsibly close to obstruction of justice if you're letting someone else get away with murder in favor of this nonsense. I'm going to throw out this whole case as a mistrial. You would not only have to bring good evidence in favor of your case, but now you would have to find evidence that contradicts confirmed facts that we've already established. Case dismissed.

If it helps you to interpret who is analogically who here, I'm the Judge. I'll let you figure out the rest.