Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for August 16, 2022

Wise men

My daughter tried that on me once. she asked why the sky was blue. I explained about rayleigh scattering, and how it leads to diffraction of the air. After 15 minutes, there were no more ‘Whys’

Final exam in the philosophy course the students are asked to write an essay on the topic. They have three hours. The topic " Why "

One student writes " Why not " gets up and turns in his paper and leaves. He got top mark

My dad always let us go around a few times and then would say “Because of the inexorableness of the passage of time.” Which was the reason that he had stopped playing that game.

As my parents used to reply after too many “Why’s”:

“Because if there weren’t no “Why”, there would be no “Zed”, and there wouldn’t be an end to the alphabet!"

This is why you learn quiet meditation.

At the end of every chain of proofs lies an assumption.

? . . . !!!

In philosophy, we are told it isn’t necessarily to know the right answer, but to know the right question. Just love Wiley kids, and this cartoon just proves it!!

Of course, Gurus aren’t supposed to have children, on account of they’re celibate. Oh, yeah, it is to laugh!!

“Because whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?”

They don’t care about the answer, They just want the attention.

The kid will likely become a scandal-investigation reporter. The habit of digging out deep boogers in childhood is practice for it.

The kid keeps digging into his nose, eventually, he will be more interested in what he finds than what he hears.

Y … Why? … Because we like you …

I often chuckle but rarely actually LOL at comics, but this one completely cracked me up! Thank you.

“Because the finger pointing to the moon is not the moon. Now go out and play, Grasshopper.”

Because I said so, that’s why!

where’s he keep the candles

You know … I used to wonder about that once in a while! Thanks, Wiley!

As Darth Vader would have said, “I’m the daddy, Thats why.”

If you ever wonder why kids don’t like school, don’t think learning is important, or refuse to try anything new suggested by an adult, maybe it has something to do with curiosity being shut down early; with being ‘taught’ that wondering about stuff is stupid and irritating and for ‘later’; with learning that asking questions is just a pain in the butt; that it’s all about the grown-up, never about the kid.

This is when you ask, “Why do you think?” If they don’t know, you tell them to think about it and come back to you when they have an idea.

Here’s a behavioral experiment you can try on an unsuspecting child: Answer every question with “because God made it that way.” See if eventually the child goes into either science or the clergy.

Why?……..Why not???

That’s the youngest person ever to climb that mountain solo, with no water. Impressive!

That kid is just a “why’s” guy.

I remember a kid who employed a perfect tag team of questions, starting with “What’s that?” and finishing with “Why?”

Graham Kerr, “The Galloping Gourmet” used to have a glass of wine and tell a story while waiting for a dish to cook.

He told an elaborate story of a man who sought the meaning of life. After calamitous adventures in searches around the world, he made his way through a blizzard to the cave of a hermit guru, who told him, “Life is a fountain.”

The half-dead man struggled to his feet, recounted the grueling search on which he had wasted his youth and his fortune and shouted, “After all this you have the audacity to tell me, ‘Life is a Fountain’?”

The guru considered him quietly, as puzzlement, then tears appeared on his face. “Life is not a fountain?”

I’ll give them 3 whys in a row and then I stop. No further talking required.

I think it is the other way round – having answered questions from their children, they’ve reach a level of enlightenment themselves.

That or they became hermits to contemplate the significance of “Why 12 o clock?”

When a child asks “Why?”,“Because I’m Bigger Than You” is NOT an acceptable answer.

A really wise man will say “No one knows.”

Why ? is what separates us from the most clever of other animals. Lots of critters understand cause and effect, but don’t ask, why?

I had 3 kids and went through the why stage with each one. Kinda fun to BS them from time ti time!

Reasons

(imagines some of the writing in this cartoon (except its writing of, “WHY?”) appearing in each other’s place in the cartoon)

My entire adult working life revolved around fixing borked technology. To me, knowing why something quit working correctly meant I could fix it so it wouldn’t happen again (hopefully!).

But over the years I’ve worked with way too many that just flat refused to delve into why a problem occurred. They were satisfied with simply getting the system working again and didn’t care why it broke in the first place. I have never really understood that thought process.

Not surprising to me, but these same folk would often end up complaining when what they fixed kept breaking, often in a similar way each time. They just couldn’t understand why I needed to know why and, unfortunately, I was never able to explain it so they could understand. Why something broke simply wasn’t important, just getting it going again was all that mattered and nothing I said about it made sense (to them).

My take has always been that why is important and understanding why is important. Once you know and understand why, you can build on that knowledge and understanding to learn and understand even more about how stuff works.

There is a saying that goes around that those that know, do and those that don’t, teach. I don’t know where that kind of garbage comes from (well I do, but I really don’t). The quote that makes much more sense to me is:

Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach. — Aristotle

A failed attempt at Socratic dialogue?

left field

When you stop asking “why”, you haven’t grown up. You’ve given up.

Tomorrow, the kiddo runs off and is taken care of by the Whyley Bears.

Why Knot?

You can really do some deep thinking that way, though.