Cause and effect

It doesn't take a genius to know that the nature of the human mind is frail before the complexity that is our Universe. One topic that I've been giving much thought lately is causality, more casually known as cause and effect. An inquiry into this topic sheds a little light on how fundamentally blind we are to the nature of... uh.. everything.

The water is boiling. Why?

The water is hot. Why?

The water's molecules have a greater density of kinetic energy than the surrounding particles. Why?

The water is on the stove, which is hot. Why is the stove hot? and why is the water on the stove?

I think you guys see what I'm getting at. It is an unavoidable conclusion that every observation is a question, simply by asking, "why"? So at what point along the infinite line of "why's" do we find a satisfactory answer? When we ask "why" and can't even think of a possible answer. This is when we assume we have found causation.

So, is this true?

In a few words: yes and no. Every point along the infinite "why and how" curve is a valid answer to "why did x happen".

So, now that I've managed to fill your head with an amorphous amalgam of aimless abstraction, here's the *ahem* conclusion of this post-

Science seeks to find the "why" behind natural phenomena; inevitably, this will only lead to an exponential increase in the one area of knowledge we can be sure about- what we don't know.