Slashdot | Science's 125 Big Questions

Slashdot | Science's 125 Big Questions:

"Being able to classify questions as 'irrelevant' and 'not answerable' for various reasons is a part of 'knowing what you don't know' and the rather tricky subset, 'knowing what you can't know'. Wisdom (and a lot of saved time) lies in a deeper understanding of how to determine the value of questions.

I must admit that about 12 years ago, I got comfortable with saying 'I don't know' along with the realization that people are capable of asking bad questions as if they were the most important questions around. My favorite is 'Why are we here?' It's worthless because it begs about four other questions that have no objective answer.

The interesting form of the question is, 'Why am I here?' and it can only be conclusively answered by exactly one person: the same person who asked the question. What's really tragic is how many people are afraid of answering it themselves and accept someone else's answer out of fear of 'getting it wrong'. *sigh*
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