What Is the Purpose of Asking Questions?

[jammieg]

What is a question? Why do people ask questions? What do questions do?
?
Would it be better to ask one's own questions or buy a book of carefully crafted questions by a leading philosophical questioner?

 

[olde drunk]

why do you ask?

 

[Anttech]

hmmm... It is better not to copy other people...

definition: a sentence of inquiry that asks for a reply; "he asked a direct question"; "he had trouble phrasing his interrogations"

 

[Carl1free]

Wouldn't a question be a statement of ignorance?

 

[Imparcticle]

not neccesarily a statement of ignorance...that is, depending on what type of question. A rhetorical question does not depict the speaker's ingnorance.

 

[Stevo]

hmmm... It is better not to copy other people...

definition: a sentence of inquiry that asks for a reply; "he asked a direct question"; "he had trouble phrasing his interrogations"

Careful now... You shouldn't be using "asks" in any definition of a question.

I think the most important thing to decide upon is whether a question necessarily requires an answer to have sense. Does the answer not need to be apparent, is it enough that it is conceivable that the question is able to be answered?

Is there a distinction between a question and a statement of uncertainty or doubt?

 

[Rader]

What is a question? Why do people ask questions? What do questions do?
?
Would it be better to ask one's own questions or buy a book of carefully crafted questions by a leading philosophical questioner?

People ask questions, to know, what might be known already.

Have you ever known a question that someone did not have an answer to?

Questions come up when you have the need for them to be answered.

Do you think your questions are less important than a leading philosophical questioner?

 

[quddusaliquddus]

who?what?when?where?how?hoo?boo? cha-cha-cha! choo-choo!

 

[Imparcticle]

Have you ever known a question that someone did not have an answer to?

Questions come up when you have the need for them to be answered.

Rhetorical questions don't need an answer.

 

[Imparcticle]

Is there a distinction between a question and a statement of uncertaint or doubt?

good question.

Here is a list of the types of questions.]

"1. Factual - Soliciting reasonably simple, straight forward answers based on obvious facts or awareness. These are usually at the lowest level of cognitive or affective processes and answers are frequently either right or wrong.

Example: Name the Shakespeare play about the Prince of Denmark?

2. Convergent - Answers to these types of questions are usually within a very finite range of acceptable accuracy. These may be at several different levels of cognition -- comprehension, application, analysis, or ones where the answerer makes inferences or conjectures based on personal awareness, or on material read, presented or known.

Example: On reflecting over the entirety of the play Hamlet, what were the main reasons why Ophelia went mad? ( This is not specifically stated in one direct statement in the text of Hamlet. Here the reader must make simple inferences as to why she committed suicide.)

3. Divergent - These questions allow students to explore different avenues and create many different variations and alternative answers or scenarios. Correctness may be based on logical projections, may be contextual, or arrived at through basic knowledge, conjecture, inference, projection, creation, intuition, or imagination. These types of questions often require students to analyze, synthesize or evaluate a knowledge base and then project or predict different outcomes. Answering these types of questions may be aided by higher levels of affective functions. Answers to these types of questions generally fall into a wide array of acceptability. Often correctness is determined subjectively based on the possibility or probability. Often the intent of these types of questions is to stimulate imaginative and creative thought, or investigate cause and effect relationships.

Example: In the love relationship of Hamlet and Ophelia, what might have happened to their relationship and their lives if Hamlet had not been so obsessed with the revenge of his father's death? -

4. Evaluative - These types of questions usually require sophisticated levels of cognitive and/or emotional judgment. In attempting to answer these types of questions, students may be combining multiple cognitive and/or affective processes, levels frequently in comparative frameworks. Often an answer is analyzed at multiple levels and from different perspectives before the answerer arrives at newly synthesized information or conclusions.

Examples:

a. Compare and contrast the death of Ophelia with that of Juliet?

b. What are the similarities and differences between Roman gladiatorial games and modern football?

c. Why and how might the concept of Piagetian schema be related to the concepts presented in Jungian personality theory, and why might this be important to consider in teaching and learning?



5. Combinations - These are questions that blend any combination of the above."

And of course rhetorical (my favorite) questions.

 

[Rader]

Rhetorical questions don't need an answer.

Is that the impression you have of me? Did it ever occur to you that it might not be that way, it might be only your interpretation of the question.

 

[Stevo]

Rhetorical questions do have an answer. It is the nature of a rhetorical question that the answer is implied in the way the question is formulated.

I wouldn't classify a rhetorical question as a question, since it is not actually an inquiry into anything. It is a rhetorical device.

 

[wuliheron]

Questions and answers are relative phenomena like up and down, left and right. Together they describe a single dimension we call thought. One person might believe a question sincere while another believes it to be rhetorical. Sometimes, apparently, we ourselves cannot determine whether our own questions and answers are sincere, that is, whether or not they really are questions or answers.

The way to really determine the difference is to be accepting of whatever comes to us.

 

[loseyourname]

Since when is this a linguistics forum?

 

[wuliheron]

Since when is this a linguistics forum?

You might want to study Wittgenstein and modern philosophy if you are completely ignorant of the importance of linguistics.

 

[loseyourname]

I'm not ignorant of why Wittgenstein thought it was important, but I do think he badly overstates his case. Besides, if he is correct, there is really no point in these attempts at dialogue. I would like to think he is not correct.

 

[wuliheron]

Oh contraire, if he is correct there is a point to such dialogues, but it is more spiritual and psychological than rational. More personal. It is through our attachments and attractions to certain points of view that our personalities express their individuality. Through the surrender of such things that we find inner peace and acceptance of what is.

 

[loseyourname]

You're going to be hard pressed to explain how that has anything to do with this thread.

 

[Stevo]

What relationship does a question have with reality? I think that is how early Wittgenstein would put it.

 

[wuliheron]

I have already explained how it is pertinent. Genuine questions are a form of surrender, an attitude we adopt, rather than merely a set of external characteristics.

Am I being sarcastic? You can either just decide for yourself or ask me a question. Am I being honest about my sincerity? Again, there is no way to tell. For all I know, I am lying to myself, lost in denial. Again, asking genuine questions without any demands or anticipations is one of the few ways of resolving such issues.

Is the world flat? No matter how much evidence I accumulate, if I really am not open to the answer it remains a rhetorical question (ie a statement) and I need not ever accept the reality that the world is round.

 

[quddusaliquddus]

There is was thinking this was a joke thread ... lol

 

[wuliheron]

There is was thinking this was a joke thread ... lol

It is that and much, much more.

 

[loseyourname]

Oh contraire, if he is correct there is a point to such dialogues, but it is more spiritual and psychological than rational. More personal. It is through our attachments and attractions to certain points of view that our personalities express their individuality. Through the surrender of such things that we find inner peace and acceptance of what is.

So what you're saying is that this is what a question is? Or that a genuine question, as you are calling it, requires such a surrender of all bias. That isn't what I got from this post initially, but if that's what you're saying, then I can see how it's pertinent.

 

[wuliheron]

Yes, that is exactly what I was saying all along. When we have no bias, no judgements, no expectations or anticipations... then we can ask the most sincere questions of all and, equally important, we can hear the answers when they come.

 

[TENYEARS]

jammieg, there is no answer to that question. It is not the same for every person. What one needs is not what another needs. True need is what I speak. Not relative object collection. Jam, are you walking a tightrope or is it a finner thread? Have you cut your feet or does it not touch them? If you are lost in the mist smell the air that will lead you home.

 

[jammieg]

"True need"...you're never alone with a poet... How can a child come to understand basic things without ever knowing how to speak with questions or use logic or know to seek the truth? Of the type of true question that seeks knowing without motive for power or money or other conflicts of interest and surrenders to the unknown what would the raw essence and wordless function of this be like? Could an answer come in a wordless form as well and only felt in an intuitive sense? When I look at those wonderful paintings of clouds I don't have to ask myself to generate a new set of pattern recognitions, I just do it and relax and enjoy it, that's the best analogy I could come up with so far of what I suspect is part of the non-verbal questioning process, it could be that to reach a further understanding of the underlying process of what a question is and how it works leads to better and even more annoying questions and answers or nothing much. Is it possible to ask a question without saying a word? If so what would it be like?

"For all men strive to grasp what they do not know, while none strive to grasp what they already know; and strive to discredit what they do not excel in, while none strive to discredit what they do excel in. This is why there is chaos." Chuang-tzu

 

[TENYEARS]

Jammieg, I never addressed the first three only the last, but the first springs from a torrent of waters swishing around, the mind creates the illusion of asking, but what is it that really provides the seeing(question and answer)? Kid, dam you have potential. The course is to continue, you are on a path that you don't even know. Even if these were not your own thoughts, you knew enough to select them in this manner which point to the recognition of the path, but these are your thoughts. I have a riddle for you, it is simple. "What is a 'true' question asked?". If you answer this question you will become enlightened.

 

[Moonrat]

What is a question? Why do people ask questions? What do questions do?
?
Would it be better to ask one's own questions or buy a book of carefully crafted questions by a leading philosophical questioner?

A question is the mind linguisticaly performing it's natural function of creating an objective map of the environment outside of us to solve a problem or create an oppurtunity, i.e create order in the chaos of information around us.

The question itself is a co-ordinate inside of a map that the mind is creating that requires a specific amount of information to become complete or have order or a functioning way to navigate.

there are five natural questions the mind asks to be objective or honest, and these are who, what, where , when, and how. Notice that all of these questions ask for a specific co-ordiante in all of objective enviroment, i.e all information outside of use can be understood by asking these five questions.

I suggest this is only the mind's natural function, and the more we understand about how we work the more we will understand how it is we come to ask these questions in the first place.


*it is not the answer that enlightens but the question* ( i forget who said that)



moonrat

 

[Moonrat]

"What is a 'true' question asked?". .

Just wanted to engage in the riddle if you don't mind.

A true question is an honest question. an acceptance of the truth, which is we don't know what 'it' is...

 

[Moonrat]

"True need"...you're never alone with a poet... How can a child come to understand basic things without ever knowing how to speak with questions or use logic or know to seek the truth?

we are born with two functions, one in full development, and one which forms over the years. These two functions are the mind (thinking, asking questions) and feelings. as a baby, we are born into mystery, we only have our being or feeling as our only source of information. we make no disctinction between true and false, or, objective and subjective, or us from the environment outside of us, there is no inside outside, true or false, all is mystery, pure and powerful.

The first word a baby says it makes when it begins to distinquish itself from its enviroment. A baby's first word is 'ma' it asks no questions such as 'who are you' but the mind of the baby has taken it's first step in becoming objective, which is natural for the mind for survival (instinct) once the baby knows that it is a 'thing' or an 'am', it then distinguishes 'am' from 'ma', naturally.

feelings are that which i nspires and engerise the mind to perform this function. the more sluggish the feeling, the less inspired the mind. as kids, we ask questions a mile a minute, always bursting with energy...

hehe, good questions! thanks!


moonrat

 

[TENYEARS]

Moonrat, so you think a child takes steps toward greater objectivity? In an absolute sense(I doubt anyone one the forum will understand this), but in a relative sense(human form) it is in reverse. You think becoming an adult makes one more intelligent, it does not. Actually you are less intelligent.

 

[Moonrat]

Moonrat, so you think a child takes steps toward greater objectivity?

Not only do I think this ,but this is also an observation. A child is born with zero objectivity, cannot even distinguish inside from outside..only natural a child engages in natural objectivity as they learn to perform functions..

In an absolute sense(I doubt anyone one the forum will understand this), but in a relative sense(human form) it is in reverse. You think becoming an adult makes one more intelligent, it does not. Actually you are less intelligent.

Objectivity does not equal intelligence, although intelligent thinkers are naturally objective in rational thought...


being objective, or degrees of it, are neccesary to function in the world. Those that do not have even a little bit objectivity are called schizophrenic or sociopathic...

 

[TENYEARS]

I have reverse definition of what you speak. When a child realizes the world as separate from himself, would that make him subjective rather than objective? Glub, glub, glub where did this bowl come from?

There are two things in life I have found, those who agree with me now and those who agree with me later. I don't mean to be arrogant, I am only being truthful(I try never to say what I don't know and separate what I say I believe from what I know). The question and answer post was a direct experience of my own life, not from a book. This is why I many times do not like to post logic. It does nothing. It helps no one and may actually hinder individual development. That we learn the process of logic through our trials and error and we learn that we can truly learn real knowlege. That is what is truly awsome. To experiece that which you believed you could not do and then do. To break the barriers, of you own "mind".

 

[Moonrat]

I have reverse definition of what you speak. When a child realizes the world as separate from himself, would that make him subjective rather than objective? Glub, glub, glub where did this bowl come from?

.

Hmm, I like that, and yes, the baby does learn to become subjective in universe as we all do, but still, the baby can distinguish the 'bowl' which is an object in objective reality and not the baby's imagination. The baby may think the bowl is something that it is not, but the baby still sees the bowl none the less, as do we...i.e. we can all agree that it is the bowl we are talking about..

and the baby does have to ask, 'what's dat?' in the first place to know it is even called a bowl. He has to refer to an object outside of itself, which it cannot do until it can learn to become objective (which does lead to subjectivity, yes, naturally so, and I love that angle you put on it, perhaps a baby is being 100 percent objective at birth! however, zero percent subjective, and the baby does not know that it is objective until it can distinguish between objective and subjective...nice twist!)

There are two things in life I have found, those who agree with me now and those who agree with me later.

really? you have only found those two things and have excluded all else ;-)

I don't mean to be arrogant, I am only being truthful(I try never to say what I don't know and separate what I say I believe from what I know). The question and answer post was a direct experience of my own life, not from a book. This is why I many times do not like to post logic. It does nothing.

hehe, tell that to Nico!

It helps no one and may actually hinder individual development.

I agree with what you are saying already!

That we learn the process of logic through our trials and error and we learn that we can truly learn real knowlege. That is what is truly awsome. To experiece that which you believed you could not do and then do. To break the barriers, of you own "mind"

I agree with you again! Logic, or aristolian map making as I refer to it as, although objective to it's map, does not contain co-ordinates for all in reality, It often insists that it's map is the territory, and can often delete information or force information into a category that otherwise belongs elsewhere...OOPS!


Moonrat

 

[omin]

A question is the symbol points to matter or a type of causual relation concept. A points to B. A is given as a symbol (the question) and B is requested (the answer).

When a question is asked, one portion of the equation is given, and an inference to what it points to is the request.

 

[wuliheron]

Symbols are not questions, anymore than the word "pickle" is the actual food it symbolizes.