Why ‘Why?’ Often Doesn’t Help

One of the most fundamentally important, yet little known, skills for solving all manner of problems both personal and social, private and public, real and abstract lies in the power of asking precise questions. On a moment to moment basis I know of no other skill that will cause you to live better and to work more effectively.

We can consider organisms on a basic level as stimulus and response machines. If thinking existed for basic organisms then a stimulus would cause a question and the answer would come as response, for example, when the stimulus of sunshine falls upon a leaf, autonomic reactions cause photosynthesis as a response. Simpler life forms don’t need the ability to ask questions because they have no options instead they react with little or no control much like machines will always react in the same way to the pushing of buttons, assuming that a power supply exists and that the machine can still function properly.

More complex organisms that have various options available for responding to a stimulus need thinking to make decisions over how to respond. I do not know whether these organisms have a primitive form of language that allows them to consciously weigh up options and consequences. I suspect that the majority of the responses happen immediately and instinctively but since cats and dogs and similar higher evolved animals can hesitate and give the impression of considering what to do then some form of higher level thinking takes place that assesses risks and rewards against primal needs.

Humans differ due to language and between stimulus and response we can consider options and weigh up the consequences before acting. We consciously and unconsciously respond to stimuli with questions and the answers that we come up with determine our responses. For example, in the morning when you are asleep your alarm sounds. The nervous system reacts,

Question: “What do I hear?”

Answer: “An Alarm”

Question: “How shall I respond?”

Answer: “Wake up and turn off the alarm”

Action: You awake and turn off the alarm

Question: “Now what?”

Answer: “Consider getting up”

Question: “I have a choice about getting up?”

Answer: “Yes, if I don’t want to I don’t have to get up yet”

Question: “How do I feel right now?”

Answer: Hung-over and lousy

Question: “Do I want to get up?”

Answer: “No, but if I don’t I’ll get into trouble at work”

Action: Get out of bed, rub eyes, yawn, scratch

Question: “Now what?”

Answer: “Have a shower”

And on it goes. Most of the time this process happens automatically and without conscious regard for the questioning process or the response to answers yet this process of questioning and answering, consciously or unconsciously definitely happens all of the time.

The brain effectively works as a massive stimulus and response processing machine. Questions make up a large part of the software that runs the processor. This machine always responds questions and will do whatever it can to come out with answers to the questions, in fact it will always come up with answers, without fail, even if those answers make no sense or don’t offer us a useful explanation. As the old adage goes, “If you want a better answer then ask a better question,” a very fine and accurate truism. Conscious control of our questioning can prove one of the most amazing tools for personal benefit – if done correctly. If done incorrectly it can prove one of the most debilitating things that you can inflict upon yourself as an infinite number of unanswerable questions exist which, if you ask them of yourself, the brain will spend an eternity trying to answer and always to no avail. Indulging in answering those kinds of questions will ruin you.

Non-Sense Questions

Certain words exist that tend to make for confusing, unanswerable questions: why, should or ought, right and wrong, and sometimes how and cause.

People who become absorbed with problem oriented thinking tend to occupy themselves with questions such as “Why did this have to happen to me?” “Why does nobody like me?” “Why was I born?” “Should I get married?” “Should a woman have a career or a family?” “Is it right to make a lot of money?” “Am I doing wrong if I don’t give to charity?” “How can I be popular?” “How can I be a good parent?” and so on. They also frequently concern themselves with questions such as “What is my mission in life?” “What is the meaning of life?” “Am I a Failure?” and other such ‘is’ questions which include one or more hopelessly vague terms.

Such questions contain ‘unlimited’ terms. The terms why, should, cause, is, etc., get used in such a way that no limits to their meaning become defined. Therefore no one can know if any particular answer has relevance or validity.

Asking Better Questions

The standard questions have the form: how, what, where, when, why so let look at those first. Where and when generally present no difficulties unless you receive dumb answers e.g. “When and where do we meet?” “We meet at the junction of Infinity and Desire, at the end of Eternity.” unless, of course, you live in a town with those place names.

Why often presents the most danger because for casually constructed why questions often no answer exists or else the answer will prove impossible to properly determine. For example “Why is the sky blue?” would be better framed as “What makes the sky blue?” and then a solution answer can be given about how colloidal dispersions in the atmosphere refract light so that we experience a blue sky. An insistence on asking “Why is the sky blue (as opposed to any other colour)?” would never produce a satisfactory answer. Only factors of chance have determined that we live in a world where the amount of colloids in the atmosphere gives us a blue sky. Why focuses on the problem and the only way to deal properly with a problem is to formulate a solution. People who do well in life spend most of their time working on solutions to problems. People who do poorly in life spend most of their time thinking about the problem.

How and what can end up used in unanswerable questions, e.g. “How can I know for sure if she loves me?” “What is art?” but if used intelligently these questions can direct the brain to create the solutions that we need to solve our problems. Should questions denote the need for a decision over choices where a sense of obligation exists but where not carrying out the obligation also proves acceptable, although often disappointing due the expectations involved with one or other of the options.

In order to prevent ourselves from pursuing common place but senseless quests to answer the unanswerable then we must take great care over how we formulate the questions over which we choose to ponder. We want to create statements about a problem that gives a high likelihood of finding usable and pragmatic solutions that we can implement to relieve ourselves from the effects of the problem. Initially it takes some skill to discern whether a question has an answer or not. The terminology of the question determines the terminology of the answer. We can never get a clear or precise answer to a vague question. We want to create clear questions as this ensures that we can find a valid answer. We can check whether the questions that we pose have a clear or factually meaningful sense by asking, in response to the question, “What specifically does the question mean?” and in doing so we check the validity of each part of the question. The more precise and unambiguous the question, the easier it becomes to answer the question precisely. Follow up with this question, “On what assumptions does this question depend?” as this checks the assumptions upon which we build the premise. Consider next this question, “By exactly what procedures might I/we find a reliable and factual answer?” If no answer to this question comes forth then the original question has no answer and does not warrant further thought. Instead we must reformulate the question until we devise fresh, meaningful, clear, answerable questions.

A question stated precisely can clearly indicate the means for answering it. From a well structured question we can infer the observations and conditions needed to derive accurate answers. If we find ourselves often perplexed and confused then we must adopt a new task. We must seek not to focus on the problem and instead focus on finding ways to frame questions about the problem in such ways that the observations made in the search for causes will prove worth making, and will prove reliable and relevant to creating highly effective solutions. From these questions we can direct ourselves or others to new observations that no one has ever made before. This problem solving process requires thought, observation and analysis before synthesising new theories that continue the process until we find suitable solutions.

If you end up absorbed with questions that never find resolution and serve only to immobilise you, generating tension and conflict and confusion then discard those questions and come up with new questions that support you to find contentment and to take action upon whatever problems you need to deal with.

Using the questions and method stated above I analyse in detail a long term unanswerable question that I used to preoccupy myself with in the article – Formulating a Better Question. I have not included it within this article due to its length but I recommend that you read it.

Application

If we direct the brain to determine the reason for things then, unless we take care to ask questions about things that we can properly determine, we take a great risk of spending much time and effort on fruitless pursuits that solve nothing and yet keep us unhappy.

When faced with a problem look for the cause to find for ways to prevent such things happening again but stop thinking about the reasons for the cause as you will probably never find the answer and knowing the answer doesn’t necessarily help you anyway. We do ourselves credit when we form questions that tend to make us learn rapidly and well. We do ourselves a disservice when we form questions that tend to lead us into every deepening confusion and poor behaviour.

Benefits

Questions run the brain and the brain has phenomenally good abilities at coming up with answers. Understanding this allows us to construct our questions with care so that we work with the brain to its best effect. Precise questions lead to precise answers and accuracy of thought unlocks our potential to do brilliantly well in everything that we do.

Answers help us to relax and our brain functions primarily to produce answers. Give the brain any stimulus and it will give a response. Ask it a question and it will search continuously for an answer even if the task proves impossible – it simply doesn’t know any better. In the same way that we can run a computer to perform a program containing endless loops that will never come to a resolution and do nothing but generate a lot of heat, many of us do the same things with our brains through asking unanswerable questions.

When people with persistent behavioural problems state their problems in the form of highly answerable, clear and precise questions they frequently find that their stress quickly disappears. As with many problems, we often already know the answers but vague questions obscure those answers and vague questions oblige us to attempt to solve or do the impossible; a situation which guarantees the creation of stress and immobilisation.

Loss through not changing

If we do not actively control the formation of our questions then we end up at the mercy of slipshod thinking that creates as many, if not more, problems than it solves. We also end up immobilised, perplexed and demoralised by the impenetrability of things. Such a process saddens us on a continuous basis.

We cannot more extravagantly waste our energy and our time than in the persistent effort to answer conclusively questions of a vague and meaningless nature!