WJ

Are questions worth asking? Are answers worth giving?

Firstly, to answer no to either question is paradoxical. For if you think that questions are not worth asking or that answers are not worth giving you would not even bother asking or answering.

Secondly, answering yes to the question-are questions worth asking-is also paradoxical. Asking any question presupposes questions are worth asking, and answering any question presupposes answers are worth giving. Though when we ask a question we assume that the answer is somewhat controversial, or at least, not trivial and obvious, otherwise we would not ask the question. Hence, asking the question-are questions worth asking-- also presupposes that its answer may be controversial. Whether we answer no or yes to the question-are questions worth asking-presupposes that however we answer is not trivial or obvious. But that presupposition contradicts the other presupposition that we wouldn't ask the question-are questions worth asking-unless we presupposed that it is obvious that questions are worth asking.

Thirdly, answering yes to the question-are answers worth giving-is paradoxical as well. Seeking answers presupposes that answers are obviously worth giving. However, when we give an answer to the question, we presume that the answer is not obvious, or we would not bother giving the answer. But this presumption contradicts the presupposition that when asking the question-are answers worth giving-that we would not bother even trying to answer if we did not think that obviously answers are worth giving.

The three paradoxes are similar to what are called paradoxes of self-reference. For instance, the famous liar's paradox goes as follows. 'I am a liar, and this sentence is true.' If true, then I would be a liar, and then the sentence must be false. However, if false, I cannot be a liar, but then the sentence would be true..and I must be liar..and so we go on in circles. Self-referential paradoxes are either admitted as fringe occurrences due to the nested or recursive nature of language and mathematics, where parts refer to the whole of which they are parts. For instance, grammatical rules apply to the statement of grammatical rules. Or description of very complex processes that cannot be further reduced are their own descriptions.

However, the most common route out of the paradoxes of self-reference is to disallow self-reference. There are various layers or hierarchies of language and mathematics. Rules of grammar describe how to form sentences in the language. However, we need higher level rules governing how to form rules of grammar. Similarly, in mathematics we have rules for proof that describe the rules of generating proofs; and we have another level of mathematics that refers to the rules of proof alone-i.e. proof theory or logic.

Both routes-admitting self-referential paradox as a consequence of the complex nature of language-or ruling out self-referential paradox by imposing hierarchies of reference, seems rather an excessive sophistication for questioning the worthwhileness of asking questions and giving answers. However, there is something problematic and not very obvious to the questions of the worthwhileness of asking questions and giving answers. We know that asking questions can be very risky-either make us appear foolish or ignorant. Even worse, asking questions can arouse some people to anger or self-defensiveness. The question may seem pertinent to some, and challenging to others. Also, giving answers has its own risks as well. We risk making a mistake. We risk upsetting others because our answer contradicts their own. We risk ridicule because our answer appears to conflict with common sense, or the well known and apparently tried and true answer. Hence, it may be safest to avoid asking questions and avoid giving answers.


We have to weigh the costs and benefits of asking questions and giving answers. In general, the benefits are greater than the costs. This is how we learn as individuals, as a species, and as diverse cultures and civilizations. Without asking questions and giving answers we, individually, biologically, and culturally, remain ignorant. We might not have survived as a species if we had given up on asking questions and giving answers. The costs are well known. Some questions and answers are revolutionary and destructive-not only on the intellectual, but also on the political, social, and economic levels. Hence, the cost is that though many have much to gain in the process of such revolutions, also others have much to lose; and those who are about to lose, hold on, or form counter-revolutions. Is there any way we can have massive intellectual changes without resulting in political, social and economic revolutions? Or, can we have a social system that allows for continual intellectual revolution-where everyone can gain from all questions and answers?

Asking and giving questions would be most worthwhile in a social system where everyone can gain no matter what the questions and answers. Hence, such a social system would in and of itself require asking and answering questions. This social system would need to be diverse, dynamic and fairly egalitarian in power and wealth. Moreover, information and knowledge would need to be both available, and accessible-understandable, without jargon, and without insiders and outsiders. When we achieve that state, asking questions and giving answer will be a genuinely worthwhile endeavour. How we can achieve a social world where we all gain from all questions and answers is a worthy question.

[end quote]

Can anyone come up with a concise word/concept that describes or captures that phenomenon of 'existence' as conscious human Beings?

Walrus

[ July 22, 2002: Message edited by: WJ ]</p>

John Page

I'll duck the consciousness question for now but with regard to the issue of questions:

1. We should talk about specific questions first, otherwise we shall not be able to arrive at a response for questions in aggregate.
2. For any specific question, we don't know whether it is worth asking apriori. So, my answer to both your questions is "It depends".
3. Having suspended the response to a non-specific question we can explore what the answer depends upon. I can come up with a lot of dependencies here, what is the circumsatnce of the asker, how difficult is the answer to obtain etc.

Cheers, John

jpbrooks

Hi, Walrus. Nice post!

What about asking and answering questions because it's fun (or habitual)? If these activities can be engaged in without regard to the issues surroundng their worth, why would a self-referential paradox necessarily result?

Furthermore, the paradoxes that were noted above don't render the whole issue of the value of asking and answering questions paradoxical as a whole because they involve different issues. The paradox involved in answering no to both questions is one that directly relates to value, while the paradox involved in answering yes to both questions involves the (epistemological) priority of assumptions.
Thus, your assessment seems to suggest that 1) it is (generally) worthwhile to ask and answer questions, and 2) that that "worthwhileness" is "presupposed".

What about "living"? (Or perhaps that's too simplistic.)

(I have to run.)

[ July 22, 2002: Message edited by: jpbrooks ]</p>

Clutch

No. The most familiar tactic for the semantic paradoxes is to avoid representing fragments of natural language via "semantically closed" formal languages.

Disallowing self-reference is recognized as *not* being a defensible solution to the paradoxes, since most uses of self-reference are perfectly acceptable.

AtlanticCitySlave

"Are questions worth asking? Are answers worth giving?"

-I don't see any paradox in answering either of these questions with "no". Someone can easily think questions are not worth asking or answers not worth giving, yet tell someone "no" when they ask such questions to be nice, because you like them, etc., and find being nice to someone to b worth more than their position that questions are not worth answering or answers are not worth giving.

WJ

JP/all!

I think that asking questions, and the value associated with them, cannot be excluded from one or the other. I think that if it could, then self-reference paradox would not present itself. I think a common example might be the tactful use of rhetorical questions. They are implicitly valuable to the one who asks the question, though it appears that they are not because in some cases the questions ommit the antecedent. But I really can't think of any example that specificaly excludes issues [legit questions]of self-reference.(?)

Maybe a start would be something like:

"Kant himself [went on] to say that the business of philosophy is to answer three questions: What can I know? What ought I to do? What may I hope for? He considered, however, that the answer to the second and third depends on the answer to the first; our duty and our destiny can be determined only after a thorough study of human knowledge."

I am not convinced that our duty and destiny requires a thourough study of human knowledge particularly when human knowledge is incapable of answering the deepest questions of existence in terms of proofs. Perhaps one must take reason to its limits before one becomes convinced that what I said is even true. But that "presupposes" that self-reference and self-interest will eventually surface, and when it does, it seems paradoxical. And it surfaces because a complete theory of knowledge is not absolute in terms of proofs.

...and thus the statement; there are only questions, no answers. Perhaps in an ethical sense, life is a predication of our own existence in that it is a journey. This is so because we must think to ask the right questions, yet at times knowing there may not be adequate answers to satisfy self-interest and/or reference. It is then somewhat inevitable that life is paradox and to a large degree an unresolved contradiction. In other words, what comprises the 'right' questions?

In that regard, perhaps the ego can somehow be transcendended towards something that is, greater.
Kant had something to say about that...

the apeman

Keith Russell

Greetings:

Are questions worth asking?

Depends on the question.

Are answers worth giving?

Depends on the question.

(Or, perhaps, the questioner...)

Keith.

John Page

Dear Mr. Sapiens:

I fear you drift toward regress with no need. Regarding paradoxes that reference the self, let me offer the example "I think therefore I am".

Let me ask the question as to what 'I' is doing the thinking and what is the 'I' that am. In posing this question I would observe that sentences that contain references to body parts of the self don't seem to generate controversy - the sentence "I lost my leg" makes sense but clearly your body is not the same physical 'I' before and after losing the leg. Anyway, it serves to locate that instance of 'I' in the remainder of the body, not the lost leg.

Back to "I think therefore I am". Here's an interpretation that gives rise to a paradox. Suppose that the 'I' that is doing the thinking can be identified on this occasion as a specific brain area. Suppose that the 'am' in this example is learned to refer to the I's body. This results in the use of the word I twice to refer to different meanings rendering the sentence unintelligible to analysis using formal logic - hence the apparent paradox due to a conflict with the Law of Identity for propositions.

If, on the other hand, the 'am' represents the same entity that is doing the thinking there is no problem. One might therefore claim justification in restating "I think therefore I am" as "Thinking exists". Descartes' statement provokes us to consider the nature of the conscious 'I' by suggesting dualism of that 'I'.

Thus, there is no pure reason for deducing the existence of any transcendent essence. We merely need to be careful about what our first person conscious accounts are of. That we do not know how consciousness occurs is no reason to suppose that we cannot become consciously aware of how we become consciously aware.

Thus I argue that questions that reference to the self does not seem to present a problem, you just carefully define the sub-part of reality that constitutes the 'self' in question.

My best regards to the NeanderKants, wonderful family, lots of fun.

Cheers, Die Ubermenschen

WJ

Hi John!

You said:

"...We merely need to be careful about what our first person conscious accounts are of. That we do not know how consciousness occurs is no reason to suppose that we cannot become consciously aware of how we become consciously aware."

I'm not sure how we would proceed with your notion of possible discovery? Here are a few tidbits:


"We cannot truly know who we are in part or in whole."

Ethics: "Most people are subjective toward themselves and objective toward all others, frightfully objective sometimes--but the task is precisely to be objective toward oneself and subjective toward all others."

Epistemology/Ontology: "Since we are the knowers trying to be the known at the same time, we need to get outside of ourselves, otherwise we would have no space to know who we are. Yet by getting outside of ourselves, without considering its probability, we cease to be ourselves; and by ceasing to be ourselves we have no grounds to know who we are because there is no who we are to know. Hence, whether as ourselves (internalism) or outside of ourselves (externalism), we cannot truly know who we are."



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