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Not quite. It was declared useless to think about precisely because physics can't answer the most fundamental question of "Why". Richard Feynman went off on an

Not quite. It was declared useless to think about precisely because physics can't answer the most fundamental question of "Why". Richard Feynman went off on an interviewer for asking "Why are they doing that?" (regarding magnetic attraction/repulsion) precisely for this reason. [0] He considers it a waste of time to consider, because you fundamentally can't make meaningful progress on the problem with our current tools and understanding, and it's possible that no amount of tools or understanding can reach the bottom-most turtle. There are some things we may simply never know. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1lL-hXO27Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1lL-hXO27Q

GoblinSlayer 2y ago
That you can't make progress is not a fact, but an opinion. But it's a fact that you won't make progress if you don't try to solve problems. As another example, Lee Smolin disagrees with anthropic principle, because he believes anthropic principle doesn't allow to study such fundamental problems. At least he thinks solving these fundamental problems is science's business.
- soulofmischief 2y ago
  I agree that it's worth pursuing, but it turns into a metaphysical journey, and metaphysics is a branch of philosophy, not physics. We have to establish that it's even possible to answer these questions.
  - ValentinA23 2y ago
    >Physics isn't unable to touch the problem "Why is there anything at all?" >Not quite. It was declared useless to think about precisely because physics can't answer the most fundamental question of "Why". Richard Feynman went off on an interviewer for asking "Why are they doing that?" In Chinese, Korean or Japanese, "how" and "why" are the same word. A "why" after all, always decomposes into a "there is" (fields, particles, properties such as mass) and a "how" (the associated laws). Physics is restricted to the latter but hasn't been able to find a definitive frontier between the two. A "there is" often decomposes into another "how" and another "there is" after progress is made. Example: mass and the higgs field.
  - GoblinSlayer 2y ago
    >We have to establish that it's even possible to answer these questions. We won't know until we try. Like Poincaré conjecture was pending for a century.

GoblinSlayer 2y ago

That you can't make progress is not a fact, but an opinion. But it's a fact that you won't make progress if you don't try to solve problems. As another example, Lee Smolin disagrees with anthropic principle, because he believes anthropic principle doesn't allow to study such fundamental problems. At least he thinks solving these fundamental problems is science's business.

soulofmischief 2y ago
I agree that it's worth pursuing, but it turns into a metaphysical journey, and metaphysics is a branch of philosophy, not physics. We have to establish that it's even possible to answer these questions.
- ValentinA23 2y ago
  >Physics isn't unable to touch the problem "Why is there anything at all?" >Not quite. It was declared useless to think about precisely because physics can't answer the most fundamental question of "Why". Richard Feynman went off on an interviewer for asking "Why are they doing that?" In Chinese, Korean or Japanese, "how" and "why" are the same word. A "why" after all, always decomposes into a "there is" (fields, particles, properties such as mass) and a "how" (the associated laws). Physics is restricted to the latter but hasn't been able to find a definitive frontier between the two. A "there is" often decomposes into another "how" and another "there is" after progress is made. Example: mass and the higgs field.
- GoblinSlayer 2y ago
  >We have to establish that it's even possible to answer these questions. We won't know until we try. Like Poincaré conjecture was pending for a century.