Questions and Answers

Is it better to seach for the questions or the answers?

Originally posted by joe shmo
Is it better to seach for the questions or the answers?

Well, you can't find an answer without first knowing the question, so finding the right question to ask is key.

No. Wait, what? Sure, go ahead. Why not?

Originally posted by coquette
No. Wait, what? Sure, go ahead. Why not?

But what is is you are questioning?

Originally posted by forkedknight
Well, you can't find an answer without first knowing the question, so finding the right question to ask is key.

but usually ( actually i'd suspect always, but i'm never quite sure on anything) the answer to a previous question is just another question...so why then does scientific rhetoric lead us to believe we are searching for the answers, when in fact we are really just searching for the questions?

Originally posted by joe shmo
but usually ( actually i'd suspect always, but i'm never quite sure on anything) the answer to a previous question is just another question...so why then does scientific rhetoric lead us to believe we are searching for the answers, when in fact we are really just searching for the questions?

No I would say that the answers to our questions usually suggest more questions to ask
but we do still get answers to questions.

And the questions are not written for us to find, we have to think of them.

The quality of scientist is usually determined by how good are the questions they think to ask.

It's not something that scientists search for, its what they think of.

Originally posted by forkedknight
Well, you can't find an answer without first knowing the question, so finding the right question to ask is key.

the right question to ask is given by an answer as well.


without answers, what good are questions?

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
the right question to ask is given by an answer as well.


without answers, what good are questions?

Seems like a logical paradox to me, anyone else agree?

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
the right question to ask is given by an answer as well.


without answers, what good are questions?

Is the Riemann Hypothesis worth anything, it certainly is a question without an answer. However, I guarantee it has led countless mathematician's into the wild (so to speak) creating exciting new mathematics along each of their journeys. Is it the answer that drives them or the question?

Originally posted by joe shmo
Is the Riemann Hypothesis worth anything, it certainly is a question without an answer. However, I guarantee it has led countless mathematician's into the wild (so to speak) creating exciting new mathematics along each of their journeys. Is it the answer that drives them or the question?

The wikipedia page on the riemannn hypothesis gave me a headache. I do not know enough (or even little) about mathematics to understand it.

i would venture to claim this is a false "the question drives me". an unproven statement cannot be the basis for new knowledge. so this hypothesis was merely the starting point of a road on which the traveler discovered something else. kind of like how an alchemist looking for gold discovered phosphorus

Originally posted by joe shmo
Seems like a logical paradox to me, anyone else agree?

i think it is a paradox only if you try to romanticize science. you can assume scientists are knights battling with questions, but at the end of the day, research grants are expensive, and people demand results. one can accept knowledge without [immediate][profitable] applications, but nobody will accept questions.


i am not trying to lessen the importance of a well asked question, but it is only the road to an answer from which we may take other roads to more answers.

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
The wikipedia page on the riemannn hypothesis gave me a headache. I do not know enough (or even little) about mathematics to understand it.

i would venture to claim this is a false "the question drives me". an unproven statement cannot be the basis for new knowledge. so this hypothesis was merely the starting point of a road on which the traveler discovered something else. kind of like how an alchemist looking for gold discovered phosphorus

Well, if it could be traced back cleanly...I feel would see the seed of all knowledge began with a few questions, not answers. The funny thing about answers is that as time continues, all answers are or can be revisited and revised, but the question remains the same.

I don't think there is a good answer to that question.

Originally posted by joe shmo
Is it better to seach for the questions or the answers?

Every answer seems to evoke new questions.