Friday, February 7, 2014

Why

Why? It's a question of spectacular importance. Something we club with the other 'w' questions, but it has infinitely more significance than any other question that we ever ask.

"Why so?" you may be thinking. Let me explain.

'Why' gives us the power to question and understand the functioning of everything around us ranging from celestial bodies to the alarm clock to the government to safety pins. It enables us to question status quo and to bring about (at times) much needed change. It is versatile enough to actually substitute most of the other 'w' questions if used appropriately.

We ask, and in most cases we get a definitive answer, since most of us don't bother to question things that don't bother us or cost us money on a regular basis. Some of us whose gamut of operation requires more skill than having a pulse, frequently encounter theories in response to their 'whys'. And sometimes there just isn't an answer yet, not even a theory, so the rational admit to this fact and get to work figuring out the why.

This is where the regular rational use of why ceases. And things get very interesting.

The fundamental assumption that was made when presenting this potent thought weapon to us was that we would use it to drill down into matters that do have a known and understood underlying cause, having taken into account all the assumptions (even unstated ones).  When you ask why and you're questioning something and stop short in your inquisition of the matter because you accepted the first answer that came along or worse still, you forget that either your question or the answer are riding on unstated assumptions you have to be lucky to wind up with just the stigma of having done something idiotic. In most cases it causes people to lose track of reality, develop delusional behaviour and do something idiotic on a regular basis, without even being aware of the degree of idiocy. The best (or worst) part is they have plenty of company.

For example I may ask 'why is my skin wheatish?' The answer I would receive is 'because you're Indian', coming from an extrapolation of the probability of finding wheatish Indians with confusing the Indian subcontinent for India. But I'm still okay. Now this is the part where the system has averted its eyes, and is hoping that I have the good sense to follow up correctly. A correct follow up question in this case is (and yes there is a need for a follow up question because a lot of Indians aren't wheatish) 'why does being Indian mean my skin is wheatish?' I would hear a variety of responses, most of which would factor in the genetic make up of Indians and the environmental factors which lead to that range of skin tones, and the initial answer would be refined to include Pakistan and other neighbouring regions, and exclude the South of India, where wheatish complexion isn't very common. So I'm home safe, with my rational mind intact, and a little tidbit of information added to my mental database. I could drill deeper still, depending on my reason for asking in the first place and wind up tracking population mixing and movement and eventually continental drift. But this line of questioning is safe.

The Hatter joins the party when I ask a follow up question like 'why was I born Indian?' What I would have done to the scientific process here, is akin to moving manure with a ladle before stirring my soup with it. And as is the case with every process known to man, garbage in garbage out is the one clear rule of the game. (I'm choosing to ignore processes specially designed to deal with garbage because this isn't one of them.) The only real thing one can compare this with is probably a random number generator, where essentially the output is required to be (what can be easily mistaken for) garbage. The key factor to be considered here is that there is no machine involved in most cases. A human does the answering. And the second most dangerous human tendency (second only to asking questions and accepting random answers as correct without question) is the complementary one - the need to appear more knowing and intelligent than one really is, by denying the fact that some questions cannot yet be answered. If random bullshit must be conjured to fill the gap, so be it. If more random bullshit must be conjured to fill the holes in the previous theory, of course it must be done. And if entire mythologies must be created to simplify and reinforce the underlying 'lessons', even  better. What could be better than vague and equivocal stories about pretty women and strong men, and magic and non existent places and creatures, supposedly meant to drive home a lesson ?

The right response to the question would be to explain that the question draws from the misguided belief that 'I am actually the immortal soul' which was the malicious response to a similar question many millennia ago. In many ways the soul is equivalent to the imaginary number 'i', the square root of negative one, which is used to explain many a concept. Except scientists are very aware that they cannot buy 'i' apples or divide their estate into 'i' parts or travel 'i' kilometers. Hence 'i' serves the very useful purpose of serving as a catalyst in the process of explanation and demonstrating many physical and mathematical concepts, without talking over our lives. The soul on the other hand, well we all know how that one went.

The Kings of yore were wise. They understood that men stay busy in times of war, but with nothing to make them feel heroic and keep them occupied in times of peace, they needed distractions. Or they would create their own, ones which would more often than not end in the death of the royal family (SIC Tyrrione Lannister from Game of Thrones). They also couldn't make it obvious that they were the source of this distraction, so an entire class of holy men was born.

They started need basis, replying to stupid questions with stupid answers. Slowly but surely they wove all their stupid answers into a single web called their religion. They created a God, an omnipotent being creating and running the whole show. Of course no mere human could be assigned credit for all the collective mess. Also someone high up in the sky and no one has ever seen, is the best candidate for assignment of blame, since he's that much harder for the mob to lynch.

They used the made up entity to explain everything, right from why there is light in the day, to why there is famine in the land, to inconsequential personal descriptors such as poverty, stupidity, disability etc. Thus the angry God took hold of the people. The vengeful God whose arbitrary whims and guidelines had to be followed. The God who would smite you if you disobeyed, and leave you alone if you obeyed.  The God you could 'pray' to and have your petty issues resolved, without needing to seek audience with him (of course there was the matter of the medium's fee). People's sense of purpose was back. There was peace in the land again. There was a need to celebrate. How does one celebrate someone one can't perceive? Idols were born. The more passionate men grew about their own idols, the easier it was to convince them to go destroy the idols of others (and to waste their men and rape their women). The balance was restored again.

There was just one issue. Men started to notice that more often than not their prayers went unanswered. And the holy men never ran out of freshly farted logic or stories to explain misfortune. There were always explanations, but no action, so the God who was now one immobile piece of rock, was swiftly dealt with. But the comfort and convenience of having someone to blame everything on, and someone to pin your unreasonable hopes on is very addictive.

The holy men realised this right under the rocks that they were hiding beneath. They quickly modified the deal, repackaged and came out to sell again, like nothing had happened. And men who were reeling under the withdrawal of having their God taken away, quickly ran in to buy, like nothing had happened.

This time the package was different. They had  made up stories, to make it easy to relate to and to give the theories some roots in ancient civilization. And most importantly, the God now was benevolent. He was your friend and he would reward good behaviour and would always be around to guide you through your life. (The fact that he supposedly put you in this position for a variety of arbitrary reasons was to be discounted. As was the fact that he would screw your happiness, with no chance for redemption if you died, even by accident without having met the requirements). We of course had to invent the soul, else who would the benevolent God be talking to at the time of judgement, since you were long  deceased (or recently, depending on the shape of your particular holy man's hat).

Things have undergone a little change, but the large picture remains the same. People still ask stupid questions and and we run and find answers in the vague texts of religious scripture. What happens when we die? Correct answer - no one knows. But where's the fun in that? Where is the drama, the possibility of control and manipulation? How do I look smart when saying something like that? No. That cannot do. Let's cook up a story. Let's make up a thing called a soul (because we've all seen the body isn't very responsive post mortem, and definitely not very mobile), which goes to one of two imaginary places, post judgement by some imaginary self appointed judge. If we can weave control of people's entire lives in by pretending that they are a soul, which either plays harps sitting on clouds in the company of innumerable half naked, spectacularly beautiful women (or whatever makes your holy man tick) or is boiled in oil and/or roasted in fires at regular intervals (or whatever your holy man thinks scares you shitless) depending on whether they acted in accordance to a set of rules that they created on whim, or for the benefit of the realm, why not?

Of course with the advancement of science, the earliest set of questions that were provided a stupid answer to have been covered. Questions like the nature of the sun and stars and the earth have been answered, as have a lot of other questions that we were utterly clueless about in the beginning.

So may we give time a chance? Wait till we actually know answers before we go about announcing them? God forbid, No!! Let's make some up! Should we not intelligently question responses to our questions, especially when they concern matters like death which no one has come back from yet and others like the meaning of life which may not have a one size fits all answer?

Sadly, most of us would rather be misguided than lost.

No comments:

Post a Comment