I have been asked to write, or try to answer one of life's great unanswerable questions, so here it is. my question is, "why do we ask unanswerable questions?"
Throughout humanity's lifetime, we have been piling up a nice stack of questions without an answer, lots of questions, truly magnificent questions that many people have asked to themselves or somebody else, but have never gotten an answer. Only recently did it ever occur to me, why do we care? And, do we really want an answer? Why should we worry ahead of time if there are aliens a gazillion light years away? It's not like we could do anything about it if confirmed or denied, I am not saying we should stop looking for an answer, I'm just saying that, if you think about, that kind of question has very little importance. Almost all of life's great unanswerable questions are simply pointless to wonder about, and we are truly better not knowing.
Let's start off with one of the most controversial questions, is there a god?. This question has two obvious possible answers, it's either yes, or no, and honestly, both answers suck in their own way. If the answer were to be yes, that would mean we should stick to some list of rules in order to avoid divine punishment, it would mean we would be constantly worshiping him/her, all of these conditions would ultimately take our freedom, is an answer really worth it?. If the answer were no, then a lot of people would be lost, the purpose of gods or some sort of religion is to give life meaning to some extent, it gives you a goal, reaching Nirvana, getting to Heaven, becoming one with the universe, etc. without this we would have to simply hang on, to simply keep doing our best without any real purpose, which honestly doesn't sound that appealing either. Now another big question, what is the purpose of life, why are we here? This question isn't any better, no matter what answer you get, unless it is "to do whatever we want", would also suck, it would limit what we should do, for example, if the purpose were to discover alien life, any and all efforts that didn't go into that would be considered worthless, once again, taking our freedom. Another part of the questions said something like "is god a male or a female?" Although this one's answer wouldn't be that bad, whatever it might be, does it really matter? Why do we care if it is male or female? What are we gonna do with that knowledge, probably start some sort of gender war, which would suck. That question is an example of how close minded we can be sometimes, why does it HAVE to be male or female? Why does it need a gender, what if somewhere, there are more than those two genders, why can't god be one of those?. That in a nutshell is why asking that kind of question is pointless, most of the time, we don't want to know the answer, or our closed minds and our language is simply not up to the task of answering it. Why can't we just live, be nice to each other and not be divided into 196 countries and 19 major religions?
In my opinion some questions are simply better left unanswered, Ignorance is bliss, at least to some extent, some things you do need to know, you must learn to communicate and do math and lots of other things, only those are necessary. But I believe that it's precisely those unanswerable questions that have halted humanity's progress and started all kinds of war, pain and suffering. I have given this thought for a while (yes I realize that I am a little bit of a hypocrite, thinking about an unanswerable question) and have found nothing, I cannot come up with a better system of organization because, in order for the world to be the way I imagine it in my head so idealistically, people would just simply need to get along, which is something that nobody can achieve. Although the human brain is brilliant, and its infinite curiosity has lots of uses, it should be put to a better use, to brilliant studies dedicated to unraveling the secrets of the universe, to hardworking people building houses and sewers, and cars so we can be more comfortable and artists making art that touches your very soul, not to hate, war, anger or sadness. I believe that in order to achieve such a world we need to stop creating divisions among ourselves with those questions and the political, religious, and philosophical debates they bring and although there is no way to force people to get along, and trying to do so would be wrong, maybe not wondering so much about those kinds of pointless questions and instead, focusing on life and on being nice to others without expecting any kind of eternal happiness, would bring us one step closer to that peaceful, kind, forgiving, and beautiful united world.
Throughout humanity's lifetime, we have been piling up a nice stack of questions without an answer, lots of questions, truly magnificent questions that many people have asked to themselves or somebody else, but have never gotten an answer. Only recently did it ever occur to me, why do we care? And, do we really want an answer? Why should we worry ahead of time if there are aliens a gazillion light years away? It's not like we could do anything about it if confirmed or denied, I am not saying we should stop looking for an answer, I'm just saying that, if you think about, that kind of question has very little importance. Almost all of life's great unanswerable questions are simply pointless to wonder about, and we are truly better not knowing.
Let's start off with one of the most controversial questions, is there a god?. This question has two obvious possible answers, it's either yes, or no, and honestly, both answers suck in their own way. If the answer were to be yes, that would mean we should stick to some list of rules in order to avoid divine punishment, it would mean we would be constantly worshiping him/her, all of these conditions would ultimately take our freedom, is an answer really worth it?. If the answer were no, then a lot of people would be lost, the purpose of gods or some sort of religion is to give life meaning to some extent, it gives you a goal, reaching Nirvana, getting to Heaven, becoming one with the universe, etc. without this we would have to simply hang on, to simply keep doing our best without any real purpose, which honestly doesn't sound that appealing either. Now another big question, what is the purpose of life, why are we here? This question isn't any better, no matter what answer you get, unless it is "to do whatever we want", would also suck, it would limit what we should do, for example, if the purpose were to discover alien life, any and all efforts that didn't go into that would be considered worthless, once again, taking our freedom. Another part of the questions said something like "is god a male or a female?" Although this one's answer wouldn't be that bad, whatever it might be, does it really matter? Why do we care if it is male or female? What are we gonna do with that knowledge, probably start some sort of gender war, which would suck. That question is an example of how close minded we can be sometimes, why does it HAVE to be male or female? Why does it need a gender, what if somewhere, there are more than those two genders, why can't god be one of those?. That in a nutshell is why asking that kind of question is pointless, most of the time, we don't want to know the answer, or our closed minds and our language is simply not up to the task of answering it. Why can't we just live, be nice to each other and not be divided into 196 countries and 19 major religions?
In my opinion some questions are simply better left unanswered, Ignorance is bliss, at least to some extent, some things you do need to know, you must learn to communicate and do math and lots of other things, only those are necessary. But I believe that it's precisely those unanswerable questions that have halted humanity's progress and started all kinds of war, pain and suffering. I have given this thought for a while (yes I realize that I am a little bit of a hypocrite, thinking about an unanswerable question) and have found nothing, I cannot come up with a better system of organization because, in order for the world to be the way I imagine it in my head so idealistically, people would just simply need to get along, which is something that nobody can achieve. Although the human brain is brilliant, and its infinite curiosity has lots of uses, it should be put to a better use, to brilliant studies dedicated to unraveling the secrets of the universe, to hardworking people building houses and sewers, and cars so we can be more comfortable and artists making art that touches your very soul, not to hate, war, anger or sadness. I believe that in order to achieve such a world we need to stop creating divisions among ourselves with those questions and the political, religious, and philosophical debates they bring and although there is no way to force people to get along, and trying to do so would be wrong, maybe not wondering so much about those kinds of pointless questions and instead, focusing on life and on being nice to others without expecting any kind of eternal happiness, would bring us one step closer to that peaceful, kind, forgiving, and beautiful united world.