3 ms·

I voted this up because I agree with the first paragraph, but I don't like most of the specific big questions you list here. I can't think of any way of saying

by kkim 19y ago

I voted this up because I agree with the first paragraph, but I don't like most of the specific big questions you list here. I can't think of any way of saying this without sounding mean, but the type of big questions you list here are the stuff of pseudo-intellectuals. These are Omni magazine big questions (if anyone here remembers that). I'd prefer Economist big questions.

hhm 19y ago
I agree, but I'd prefer questions like the kind that are asked at Edge.org: related to technology, physics, mathematics, biology, logic, astronomy, etc.
jey 19y ago
A question being permanently unanswerable or currently out of reach (or "too big") doesn't make it a poor question. I agree that academics focus on questions at the edge of reach with currently available tools, and that's fine and important from a practical standpoint. But I don't think that the validity of the question is determined by whether or not we currently have the tools to attack it. If you're interested in the important political and economic questions that face us today, that's fine, and I agree that in practice it's more immediately valuable to debate and resolve those questions. But I do think that the larger (and possibly unanswerable) questions are interesting to ponder. Maybe I picked a poor list as I wrote the original comment, but as the sibling poster said, the types of questions asked at edge.org are what I'd like to see more of. I'm surprised that everyone is responding to my list of questions instead of the meat of the post. I just threw that list out there as an illustrative list, the real point I'm trying to make is in the body of the post. I also think that all of those questions I listed have mostly settled answers in academia that aren't popularly accepted by society. (e.g. people still cling to the idea of a "soul" separate from the information content of your brain) EDIT: I also think that the most interesting work happens when asking questions that are at the edge of being taken seriously.
- Goladus 19y ago
  I highly recommend reading up on linguistics, if you're interested to know why people responded the way they did: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics Writing is hard.
yters 19y ago
The answer lies somewhere in between. The problem with big questions is lack of traction, whereas the problem with small questions is lack of vision. The insightful questions latch onto the pivot points between these two realms, either reshaping the big questions in light of the small answers or visa versa.

by kkim 19y ago

hhm 19y ago

I agree, but I'd prefer questions like the kind that are asked at Edge.org: related to technology, physics, mathematics, biology, logic, astronomy, etc.

jey 19y ago

A question being permanently unanswerable or currently out of reach (or "too big") doesn't make it a poor question. I agree that academics focus on questions at the edge of reach with currently available tools, and that's fine and important from a practical standpoint. But I don't think that the validity of the question is determined by whether or not we currently have the tools to attack it. If you're interested in the important political and economic questions that face us today, that's fine, and I agree that in practice it's more immediately valuable to debate and resolve those questions. But I do think that the larger (and possibly unanswerable) questions are interesting to ponder. Maybe I picked a poor list as I wrote the original comment, but as the sibling poster said, the types of questions asked at edge.org are what I'd like to see more of. I'm surprised that everyone is responding to my list of questions instead of the meat of the post. I just threw that list out there as an illustrative list, the real point I'm trying to make is in the body of the post. I also think that all of those questions I listed have mostly settled answers in academia that aren't popularly accepted by society. (e.g. people still cling to the idea of a "soul" separate from the information content of your brain) EDIT: I also think that the most interesting work happens when asking questions that are at the edge of being taken seriously.

Goladus 19y ago
I highly recommend reading up on linguistics, if you're interested to know why people responded the way they did: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics Writing is hard.

yters 19y ago

The answer lies somewhere in between. The problem with big questions is lack of traction, whereas the problem with small questions is lack of vision. The insightful questions latch onto the pivot points between these two realms, either reshaping the big questions in light of the small answers or visa versa.