"Whenever we ask “why?” we generally mean “How?”, because why implies a sense of purpose that we have no reason to believe actually exists. When we ask “Why are there 8 planets orbiting the Sun?” we really mean “How are there 8 planets?”—namely how did the evolution of the solar system allow the formation and stable evolution of 8 large bodies orbiting the Sun. And thus, as I also emphasize, we may never be able to discern if there is actually some underlying universal purpose to the universe, although there is absolutely no scientific evidence of such purpose at this point, what is really important to understanding ourselves and our place in the universe is not trying to parse vague philosophical questions about something and nothing, but rather to try and operationally understand how our universe evolved, and what the future might bring. Progress in physics in the past century has taken us to the threshold of addressing questions we might never have thought were approachable within the domain of science. We may never fully resolve them, but the very fact that we can plausibly address them is worth celebrating. That is the purpose of my book. And it is this intellectual quest that I find so very exciting, and which I want to share more broadly, because it represents to me the very best about what it means to be human."
[The Blog : Everything and Nothing :
Sam Harris](http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/everything-and-nothing/)
