Are there any easy answers to the big questions?

Question

People seem to be obsessed with giving and finding easy answers to questions about Life, The universe and everything, but do these answers actually provide anything of value? Isn't it more useful to look at the challenging answers and see what they can add to (or take away from) your world-view?

Answer 1

Easy answers serve their purpose as do more complex ones. Oftentimes easy answers leave something else to be desired, however in the same respect complex answers often only lead to more mysterious questions. The root of your question I feel stems in how we "know" something or guage it's value. For some, easy answers make more sense, and they are good enough to fullfill the person's intrigue. While for others, a more complex answer is more satisfying. I say use whatever answer you feel has more value TO YOU. The bottom line is, life is such a strange and mysterious enigma, NO ONE REALLY HAS THE ANSWER ANYWAY. So any answer, simple or complex, could be all wrong or all right. Even so-called "facts" which humankind has developed as a standard for the basic context of the physical world is limited to humankind's perception. A fact is really relative to the beings we are. I think the most fundamental simple answer to everything in life is easily put as "Life IS". Our existence just IS. That's really all we can say as any real fact or basis for the material beings we are.

Answer 2

Very good questions. I responded to a simiilar question this morning. I find that people who ask this is looking for an easy way out - a road map if you will of life that can guide them through it. Life is a journey for every single individual on this earth and we must all learn as we go along - no hard and fast answers to the Big Questions. That's one lesson they could all learn and get on with it! Our personal experiences in life guides our path and no one else can experience them 4 us.

Answer 3

Assonance is repetition of vowel sounds to create inner rhyming interior words or sentences, and jointly with alliteration and consonance If alliteration takes position on the starting up of a be conscious and rhyme on the top, assonance takes the middle territory. Assonance takes position at the same time as the vowel sound interior a be conscious matches an similar sound in a close-by be conscious, notwithstanding the encircling consonant sounds are diverse. "track" and "June" are rhymes; "track" and "foodstuff" are assonant. The function of assonance is many times an similar as end rhyme or alliteration: All serve to grant a experience of continuity or fluidity to the verse. Assonance will be extraordinarily helpful at the same time as rhyme is absent. It provides the poet extra flexibility, and it isn't many times used as area of a predetermined progression.

Answer 4

Yes you are right.
I want to say that peple has to know what they know and don't know about life, a map i suppose of the big picture and what they have in terms of what they want to know about Life!
Only if we look at these question:
what is the nature of the creator?
what is it's purpose in creating me and the universe?
what is the mind composed of?
what is the body composed of?
What is Consciousness?
What is the relation of the atom to Consciousness ?
What is my creator's purpose is in creating me?
Why are my parents my parents, why not someone else?
What is my education, my work and my relationships got to do
with my being here, my purpose, my goal?

These are questions we need to answer. We need to have information to answer these questions. Is it important for us to
answer them, if it is, where do i get the correct data?

i believe to answer big questions, we should know first the question, what we don't know that we need to know....this is like solving a crime or a puzzle, and of course we need all the answers we can get to be able to enjoy life and co-create a life of happiness!

Janaki

Answer 5

Yes. Occam's Razor states that the simpliest answer, no matter how improbable, is usually correct.
The more weighted down one get's with the details in life the more likely the great picture will become distorted and lost.

Answer 6

why do challenging answers have to be challenging? why can't they be easy? it's all in prespective. i may find something easy that you find challenging.
and with what we know about the universe, which is really next to nothing, how do we know that a simple answer would not suffice?

Answer 7

easy answers can also add value to your world view. Didn't they say "Everything you need to know you have learned in kindergarten" ?

Answer 8

Easy answers are not, they just seem that way after you accept them

Answer 9

No.

Answer 10

No - the bigger the question, the more complicated the answers. The reason is because the more complicated a system is, the more stable it is. Most people say there are simple answers because it is 'wishful thinking' - with the hopes that they understand. How's this for a more challenging answer;
For example, people say there are easy solutions to the energy problems. They say, 'Just recycle, use bio-degradable products, stop using so much hydrocarbon fuel, etc.' The real fact is that the more you try to solve the problem, the worse it gets. My degrees, Thermodynamic Engineering and Environmental Engineering (fancy names for Energy Engineer), were only being taken seriously 20 years ago. There is a genuine interest in the mind boggling numbers associated with exponential growth, I hope you find this even more mind boggling. The energy used to put a deck of cards in order far exceeds knocking them out of order is nothing compared what is happening as we go through the J-curve of the effects of Entropy (a good indicator of Entropy is money, as the world economy inflates, so goes money – and Entropy). (In my views) the Laws of Thermodynamics reign supreme over the Universe. We are already using 20% more energy than the Earth can provide. If all greenhouse causing agents are stopped being used today, it would take at least 100 years to get the global warming momentum to settle. While the masses wait for the Engineers and Scientists to save the world with a “by the time I get cancer there will be a cure for it” attitude, this is an example of what is;
Nobel chemist Frederick Soddy pointed out over 70 years ago: “Debts are subject to the laws of mathematics rather than physics. Unlike wealth, which is subject to the laws of thermodynamics, debts do not rot away with old age and are not consumed in the process of living. On the contrary, they grow at so much per cent per annum, by the well known mathematical laws of simple and compound interest”
Economist Herman Daly explains the inevitable consequences that result when society pits the mathematical notions of compound interest against the physical reality of thermodynamics. He says that while debt can grow at compound interest forever, real physical wealth cannot continue to grow at the same speed “because its physical dimension is subject to the destructive forces of entropy.” He concludes: “Since wealth cannot continually grow as fast as debt, the one to one relation between the two will at some point in time be broken- i.e. there must be some repudiation or cancellation of debt. The positive feedback of compound interest must be offset by counter acting forces of debt repudiation, such as inflation, bankruptcy, or confiscatory taxation, all of which breed violence.”
At every step in the entire production and exchange process, work is done; namely, energy is expended by both humans and machines. Part of that energy is absorbed into the product and part is wasted. This means that the more stages in the economic process, the more energy is lost. The same principle is at work in the production process as in the simple food chain. In highly industrial societies the stages of the economic process continue to proliferate, meaning more and more energy is dissipated all along the line; and the resultant disorders create even greater long-range problems for society.
Take, for example, your morning English muffin. The very process of modern petrochemical agriculture used to grow the wheat is extremely energy inefficient. But once grown and harvested, the folly is compounded many times thanks to our national mania for processed food. Here are just some of the energy steps that go into making your English muffin. (1) The wheat is taken by a fossil-fuel-driven truck made of nonrenewable resources to (2) a large, centralized bakery housing numerous machines that very inefficiently refine, enrich, bake, and package English muffins. At the bakery, the wheat is (3) refined and often (4) bleached. These processes make for nice white bread, but rob the wheat of vital nutrients, so (5) the flour is then enriched with niacin, iron, thiamine, and riboflavin. Next, to insure that the English muffins will be able to withstand long truck journeys to stores where they will be kept on shelves for many days, or even weeks, preservative (6) calcium propionate is added, along with (7) dough conditioners such as calcium sulfate, monocalcium phosphate, ammonium sulfate, fungal enzyme, potassium bromate, and potassium iodate. Then the bread is (8) baked and placed in (9) a cardboard box which has been (10) printed in several colors to catch your eye on the shelf.
The box and muffins are placed within (11) a plastic bag (made of petrochemicals), which is then sealed with (12) a plastic tie (made of more petrochemicals). The packages of English muffins are then loaded into (13) a truck which hauls them to the (14) air-conditioned, florescent-lit, Muzak filled grocery store. Finally, you (15) drive two tons of automobile to the store and back and then (16) pop the muffins in the toaster. Eventually, you will throw away the cardboard and plastic packaging, which will then have to be disposed of as (17) solid waste. All of this for just 130 calories per serving of muffin.
Not only have tens of thousands of energy calories gone into the entire process, but medical evidence suggest that both the additives and the lack of fiber in refined breads may pose a serious hazard to your health. In the end, the energy that was added to the muffins at each step of the process was insignificant compared with the energy that was dissipated at each step of the process.
Of the total amount of energy used in the food system, less than 20 percent actually goes into the growing of food. The other 80 percent is consumed by the processing, packaging, distribution, and preparation of the foodstuff. Almost twice as much energy is used to process your English muffin (33 percent) as was used to grow the grain it was made from (18 percent).
The food processing industry is now the fourth largest industrial energy user in the nation—after metals, chemicals, and oil. Some sources estimate that food processing currently consumes nearly 6 percent of the country’s energy budget. As far as the industry is concerned, apparently, the more the better. For example, between 1963 and 1971 the per capita food consumption in the United States increased by 2.3 percent. But the tonnage of packaging grew by 33.3 percent and the number of packages by 38.8 percent. I apologize for such old statistics, but that is when I first started to put information as this together, these are 30 year old figures, one can only imagine the statistics today.
Along with the growth in packaging has come a new industry; an entire army of “food technologists” now busy themselves making sure that our food supply is given just the right artificial color, scent, flavor, texture, and so on. Nothing can be left to chance. As one food technologist puts it, “It’s hard to compete with God, but we’re making headway.” Indeed they are. Some $500 million in synthetic chemicals is added to our food every year—2,500 additives. In 1979, each American consumed an average of nine pounds of additives, nearly double the amount in 1970. Four million pounds of dyes wind up in the food supply annually, a full sixteen times the amount used in 1940. Today, we eat more synthetic and artificial foods than the real thing.
Convenience and processed foods, which are promoted as ways to liberate the individual from the “drudgery” of spending more time in the kitchen in food preparation, are in reality chaining humanity to the effects of ever greater entropy. The little time saved in the kitchen is more than outweighed by the amount of work time (human energy) given over to earning the money to pay for the increasing prices of the processed foods. Each step of the food processing takes energy, and as the energy flows through the food chain we witness a concentration of power in fewer and fewer food technology corporations, the decline in the healthfulness of the American diet, and the increased use of nonrenewable energy.
Food processing is representative of other major industries—such as petrochemicals, auto, truck and air transportation, and synthetic fibers—that grew up in the era of high energy flow. All appear to be generating greater value (more products, more “convenience”) while all the time they are actually squandering the precious energy resources of the planet. Again, the economic system fosters the illusion of creating a more ordered, more materially valuable world, because consideration is given primarily to value added or entropy decreases, but rarely ever to energy dissipation and entropy increases.
If the Entropy Law were fully acknowledged, society would have to face up to the notion that every time we use part of the stock of available matter and energy it means two things: first, that one way or another, the individual, the institutions, the community, or the society ends up paying more for the disorder created in making the product than the value derived from the use of the product; second, less energy is available to be used by other people and creatures sometime in the future. This reality flies in the face of the way we have viewed the world for the past several hundred years. The entire Enlightenment world view is inspired by the principles of Newtonian mechanics, Cartesian mathematics and Baconian scientific methodology. Capitalist and socialist systems attempt to organize the physical world on the basis of these basic conceptualizations. Central to all three ideas is the notion of absolute repeatability of observation (the scientific method) and the absolute reversibility of all processes (universal mathematics and mechanical processes). In the real world, however, nothing is observable in the same manner twice and no occurrence is reversible. The Entropy Law tells us that all physical reality unfolds in only one direction and that while there must be a -X for every +X in math, there is no such reversibility in the physical sojourn of the world around us. It is indeed bewildering that we have been attempting to organize the world for these past few centuries on the basis of mechanics, mathematics and the scientific method, when the real world simply does not conform to the central assumptions of reversibility and absolute repeatability. The reality is that when we leave this world, we leave it less well endowed as a result of our presence. When we glorify high energy production, then, what we are really promoting is an ever greater consumption of the finite store of resources of the planet. Seen in this way, the gross national product is more accurately the gross national cost, since every time resources are consumed they become unavailable for future use.
Actually, the term consumption is a misnomer, for nothing is ever consumed. A thing is used, usually for a very short period of time, and then discarded. Any way you look at them, the statistics are mind-boggling. As a nation, we annually discard 11 million tons of iron and steel; 800,000 tons of aluminum; 400,000 tons of other metals; 13 million tons of glass; and 60 million tons of paper. Add to this 17 billion cans, 38 billion bottles and jars, 7.6 million discarded TV sets, and 7 million junked automobiles. The figures are no less awesome on the personal level. In 1974 the average American used 10 tons of mineral resources, including 1,340 pounds of metal and 18,900 pounds of nonmetallic minerals. In a lifetime, each American uses on an average approximately 700 tons of mineral resources, including nearly 50 tons of metals. If we add fossil fuels and wood, the per capita usage more than doubles to 1,400 tons. And this amount excludes water and food needs. Again, these are 1974 figures, you can imagine where these numbers are now.
It has been said before that the world could not possibly support another America. Looking at these figures, it becomes apparent that even one America is more than the world can afford now. Imagine if the entire world tried to produce and consume as Americans do. It has been estimated that a middle-class American lives a style of life that is equivalent to the work produced by 200 human slaves. Buckminister Fuller refers to us as possessing 200 “energy slaves” that run on nonrenewable resources. Another way of looking at it is in terms of number of calories needed to sustain life. An average human diet consists of 2,000 calories a day. Yet the amount of energy calories we individually consume every day – in our cars, our electricity, our processes foods, and so on – amounts to about 200,000 calories, or more than a hundred times the quantity we absolutely need. In terms of energy consumption, though Americans number only 225 million people, our energy needs are equivalent to that of over 22 billion individuals. How do we explain to future generations what we have done?