Page updated 01/02/2022 Previous Version 13/06/2020 
I was at the Hyatt for Friday happy hour drinks, there were many people there enjoying the regular event. I started a conversation with a person and asked them what they did. He said he was a philosopher.
I asked what
do philosophers do?
He said “We think of the questions”.
There seem to
be many people who know the answers or the wrong questions. I think it is much
more interesting to discover good questions and examine them.
Obviously there are some questions which are just simple and don’t really require a lot of effort.
“What time is
it?”
This is a
deep and philosophical question that we could spend the rest of our lives on.
In reality the person who asked that question just wants to make sure they are
not late for their next appointment.
It must be
confusing if you have a room full of philosophers at a philosopher conference
and someone asks that question.
Questions
seem to be multi-purpose –
- for
getting answers to help decide (maybe re-enforcing mental models)
- for
provoking thought and discussion with a recognition that there may be no
answers just more questions.
Some good sources for questions –
Ask a Humanist – https://www.askahumanist.com/tools/qa/Bo/AskAHumanist
Principia Cybernetica Web – http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/
The Edge – What are the last questions – https://www.edge.org/annual-questions
| Are Tautologies Inevitable? (Does the unknown always end well a self referencing Answer e.g. Is because it is? Church’s Theorem, Circular Argument, ) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_D._Klein |
| Social Darwinism? Eugenic, survival of the fittest (If less people die from disease and human errors – natural death/intervention, life creation, – will humanity survive?) |
| What should be the goal of humanity? (Survive & live) |
| Where does your self-worth come from? (Self & experience) |
| Is free will real or just an illusion? (Choice & future, fatalism) |
| Why is there something rather than nothing? (Exist?) |
| Can you really experience anything objectively? (Feel, Think, Hypothsis, Prediction, Measure, Experience, History, Science, Validation, Epistemology, Agrippa’s trilemma) |
| Do imaginary creatures exist? (Tautology – circular) |
| Should Books Be Censored (Why Censor?) |
| Moral Good Is Always Claimed By One Group over another, Why? (Better for all of us if … Right/Wrong/Good/Better/Worst, Absolute/division-identity/- Diverse) |
| What are the arguments humans will always have? (Patterns and themes) |
| Should Schools have the same curriculum? (Universities, age, safe, tools for thinking, ideas, self paced learning, dogmas) |
| What is the difference between faith, belief, facts, truth, lie, knowledge? (Hypothsis, reason, choices, miricales, proof,science, intuition, semantics, Knowledge – why know anything?) |
| Questions For Humanists (Ask a Humanist (USA humanist society)) |
https://www.askahumanist.com/tools/qa/Bo/AskAHumanist |
| Should any group be special and different? (Laws and exceptions) |
| Because nothing is absolutely certain are all theories equally useful? (Purpose of .. Truth, validity, Hyposthesis, Science, Prediction) |
| Why Believe Anything? (Use of Knowledge – what is knowledge for? IS Belief the same as Working Hypothesis? Thesis, Plan, Thought – good working theories) |
| Are all imaginary Things Equal? (ideas, thoughts, theory, hypothesis, unproved, belief, know unknowns, unknown unknowns) |
| Are Games, Tactics and Strategies Ethical? (Ethics, ends justifies the means, consequentialism, Games Theory, War, transparency, discussion, argument) |
| Should some people’s votes be more important than others? (Knowledge, thought, Democracy, Lynch Mobs, Popularism, Resonsibilities, destruction of society) |
| What is a good high level framework for viewing the World? (Exists?, Why, Future, Good, Morals, Action practicalities, Truth, Knowledge) |
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/ECCO-paradigm.pdf |
| Can you ever be certain that nothing can be certain? (No) (Knowledge, Certainty, Limits) |
https://humanistman.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Absolute-Certainty.pdf |
| What are the best Math Distributions to model human activity and characteristics (Pareto, Normal, Bayes, Gamma, Poisson, Eulers identity, Benford) |
http://www.math.wm.edu/~leemis/chart/UDR/UDR.html |
| What is The First Question? (Answers inform us. This may be another recursion example which helps understand the beginning problem.First gives us ORDER (sequence)) |
| Why Not A Humanist Manifesto (Dogmatic Certainty – suggestions – too much detail – too clear – insufficiently vague) |
