What do you Question?

"There's no real answer here, you know."

Aimee said that in the tail end of last week's conversation about freedom, rights and responsibilities regarding creative thinking.

It sounds like a conversation ender. It sounds almost depressing.

But it’s not.

It's the point.

Well, part of the point anyway. Even if there isn't an answer, you learn how to think by discussing things. Knowing you will come to an answer, or requiring an answer limits your creativity in thinking. By not assuming there even is an answer, you can explore a topic thoroughly.

I wish more of my students did this.

I cannot keep count of how many papers I receive where a student will assume s/he (at the enlightened age of 18-22) has THE ANSWER, so the paper doesn't explore a topic, it rehashes "known" information.

Hell, I'm guilty of that. Someone on LiveJournal called me on it. A statistic I'd heard from three different people who I generally trust to "know" things: Wrong. And I didn't even think to question it because I believed I had an answer. Or at least a fact, which is an answer to something.

The thing about questions - questions rather than answers - is that they can disturb the status quo more than answers.

"This is how it's done."

"Why?"

"This is what it is."

"How is it like that?"

By being willing to ask, to question, we can find logical fallacies, incorrect facts, causes as opposed to correlations.

And maybe answers. Or at least a little closer to answers because, at this level of evolution and comprehension, it's possible that we CANNOT know the answers.

So, what do you think you know?

What do you question?