not 
Unasked questions
Posted by Aphra Behn on March 28, 2007
Very occasionally something interesting turns up on the list of search terms people have used to find my blog. A couple of days ago someone searched for “question NLP never asks”. It’s almost a zen koan, and it’s certainly an interesting search term for a thinking NLPer. All NLPers should be thinkers, though sadly this is not so.
There are of course two sorts of questions one never asks. Actually, make that three.
The first sort are the ones which there is no point in asking because if, by happy chance you are told the truth, you won’t believe it: Does my bum look big in this? Have you stopped seeing her? Do you really love me?
The second sort are the questions which will rock the boat. The US Military has made not asking questions its official policy on homosexuals in the military: “Don’t ask, don’t tell” indeed. In these cases, it is better not to know the truth. These are the questions that Tessa Jowell presumably didn’t ask her husband.
The third sort though are the interesting ones. These are the ones we don’t ask because we don’t think in those terms. These are the questions that inhabit our blind-spots, whatever they might be.
It’s been a while since I’ve had a koan to play with, and without getting too thought-for-the-day about it, I am now asking myself “what questions don’t I ask?”
It’s easier to see the back of your own head without a mirror.
September 13, 2007 at 8:45 am
If the third sort of questions are not asked because by definition we cannot conceive of them, in what way can they be said to exist? They can, by definition, never be asked by us. It occurs to me that the second sort of questions might also include ones such as: “Are you a serial killer?” though presumably that also inhabits group 1 as well, the sort that even if you were answered with the truth you wouldn’t believe it. Hang on. That seems to cover rather a lot of questions. Perhaps there are only two sorts of questions: those to which you think you know the answer and those to which . . . hang on . . .
September 13, 2007 at 3:55 pm
“If the third sort of questions are not asked because by definition we cannot conceive of them, in what way can they be said to exist?”
They exist because you are not the only entity capable of asking questions.
If your car stops working, the extent of your ability to question may begin and end with “I wonder why the bloody thing has broken down?”. My stepbrother, however, has access to a whole panoply of questions you wouldn’t be able to conceive of, such as “is it the cylinder head gasket?”.
The implication is that the question exists, and we are merely not asking it. Reasons may include simple ignorance or may be deeper and harder to remedy. Does a devout believer ever *really* ask the question “Does God exist”?
September 13, 2007 at 5:51 pm
>> If the third sort of questions are not asked because by definition we cannot conceive of them, in what way can they be said to exist?
Ah, but I did not say they were unasked because we cannot conceive of them, I said they are unasked because we do not think in those terms. Different.
As SoRB implies, the questions I was talking about exist in potentia. (If I have the Latin right, that is. SoRB, I know you’ll correct me if I haven’t).
For example, I know bugger all about particle physics and cannot conceive of questions to ask which would take the field forward. It is outside my abilities to do so. More than that: if someone else, SoRB here for example, asked such a question I would not understand it.
By contrast, I do not think in terms of personal popularity - I am perfectly capable of asking whether or not people will like me more or like me less if I buy a pink iPod. These are concepts I can link together to form a syntactically and logically coherent question. However, I simply do not think in those terms and so it never occurs to me to ask whether or not a purchase will move me forward or backward in some popularity poll. To ask such a question would be a matter of using my existing capabilities in new ways, rather than learning something outside my current capabilities.
Aphra’s top tip: If you want to understand what I have said, consider the words I have used, not some paraphrase that you’ve devised.
September 18, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Mmmm. Ouch? “Physician heal thyself”?
My post concerned one’s own capability to ask questions that reside outside of our ability to conceive of. That something exists for someone else does not mean it exists in any meaningful sense for ourselves.
We are all misunderstood, most of all by ourselves! Confrontation is in the end subject to Newton’s Laws. Questions are our most powerful ally to reconcile difference. What questions could you have asked? Or are they perhaps outside of your ability to conceive of?
Did you really mean what I understood?