thequestion

The question

by Bob on June 11, 2007

The Question.

It's not really "to be or not to be" as William Shakespeare posed, even though that's one of the most profound questions in life.

It's not really the great 1970 song by the Moody Blues, called "Question", either, although that is an incredible meditation if one listens carefully to the lyrics.

It's not really the singer of the band who played the proto-punk song "96 Tears": ? and the Mysterians. And even according to the pundits at the time, the first band to be called punk rock.

It's not really the question that a man asks his girlfriend, either, although that is really a cool question when answered in the affirmative and keeps the human species going.

It is all about the apparent astute observation that most people know the answer before they pose it or as they pose it, despite or even in lieu of the actual answer given by the questioned.

Garden variety one of this syndrome. One person asks another which of two pairs of shoes he should buy. Pretty much, no matter what the questioned answers, the questioner knows and weaves the answer and dialogue around to the answer he wanted for the shoes.

Example two. Many times someone will say something to someone else fleetingly and the person says "What did you say?". 99.9% of the time the person either consciously or unconsciously knows what was precisely said. I have experiemented with this and it is true. It's like there's another level of meaning to the words "What did you say?" unrelated to the conversation.

The most important variety of this thread of thinking is the hugely important philosophical and metaphysical question (which of course is a paradox in and of itself): if someone can pose a question, then they, by logical necessity, must have some idea of the answer or possible answers, if not the answer, and the whole dialectic is just noise of restitution or reinforcement of the person's original belief.

Then, of course, there was the Riddler in the original "Batman" TV series in the 1960s. One wonders if he always knew the answer anyway.

Then there's Immanuel Kant and his "Critique of Pure Reason". Let's leave that one alone and go with Ludwig Wittgenstein and "The world is all that is the case" as his first proposition. One wonders if that is the same as "It is what it is". Or it was was it was. Or Que Sera Sera -- what will be will be -- as the 1956 song goes. Especially since it was featured in the Alfred Hitchcock 1956 re-make of his own 1934 film "The Man Who Knew Too Much".

So it goes. We are left with a question. Or perhaps not.