Research Questions
Knowledge
How you know what you think you know.
Opening your questions…
Research Questions
Knowledge
How you know what you think you know.
16 questions
Where to begin
Convinced or worn down?Have you ever given in to an argument because you were tired, not because you were wrong?
- Discovery without a discovererA machine can solve problems that people have left unanswered for centuries, without caring about any of them. What should we let it work on?Pick one of 4
- How do you know any of this is real?Descartes noticed that his dreams could feel as real as his days. Now some people wonder whether the whole world is a simulation.
- How do you know the future will be like the past?Bertrand Russell's chicken is fed every morning of its life, and grows surer each day that the farmer means well. Then one morning the farmer wrings its neck.
- How do you look for something when you don't know what it is?Searching seems to require knowing what to look for, yet discovery means finding what you did not know.
- If a truth would hurt you and change nothing, would you want to know it?A partner's old betrayal, a parent's secret, a diagnosis nothing can treat. Some truths only cost you, and some people want them anyway.Pick one of 4
- If no one can tell the difference, does it matter whether you really understand?When sounding knowledgeable becomes easy, understanding must find another way to matter.
- Only you saw itWhat have you seen with your own eyes and never said out loud, because you were the only one who saw it?
- Should disagreement change your mind?Someone as informed, careful and honest as you looks at the same evidence and lands on the opposite side.Pick one of 3
- Should you trust experts?Most of what you know rests on someone else's word: a doctor, a textbook, a map, and now a machine that answers anything.Pick one of 3
- What can you do well that you could never explain?Knowing how to do something need not include being able to explain how you do it.
- What did you only understand because nobody would give you the answer?Being given an answer and becoming able to find it can leave you with different kinds of knowledge.
- What makes a good question?A question can invite discovery, demand a performance, or quietly decide its own answer.
- What would it take to change your mind about the thing you're surest of?A belief can guide your life and protect itself from every test at the same time.
- Which argument on your own side do you secretly think is weak?Loyalty to a cause can make a bad argument expensive to challenge.
- Which do you need more right now to think well: reading or dialogue?Private study and being challenged by another person expose different kinds of ignorance.Pick one of 2
