Opus 2026-059: Answers

There are a lot of questions that I cannot answer.  Why?

One reason I can’t answer a question is because it is incoherent.  My grandson is still having trouble with his pronunciation.  He’s constantly asking me questions and for the life of me I can’t figure out what he’s asking.  Then I have friends who have weird theological ideas.  They ask questions that make no sense.  Have you had the experience where you know every single word and can define every single word in a statement, but you still don’t have a clue as to what the statement is about?

I might not know the answer because of ignorance.  There are many things that are out there that I have no experience with and no comprehension of.  The encyclopedia is full of information that I don’t know.  It is available.  If I want to look hard enough, I might be able to find it.  Ultimately at this stage, though, I don’t know the answer.

Sometimes the answer is not known by anyone.  There are probably many questions in physics and biology that are still being researched.  So far many of them lack closure.  They are being pursued, but the answer keeps moving away.  Others have not yet been pursued.  The questions are on a long list that maybe someday they will get to and when they are addressed answers will be forthcoming.

Some things cannot be known.  They are beyond our capability of human beings.  We don’t like to admit that, but it’s true.  We have our limitations.  There are some lines that we will never cross.  We may approach them.  We may bang our heads against them.  Somehow, we will never be able to put together what we need to go across.  In some areas I think we’ve already reached that in mathematics where we have mathematical formulas the computers can work, but we can’t, but that’s possibly just my imagination.

One of my favorite quotes is, “Any fool can ask a question that a wise man cannot answer.”  Of course, I like to identify with a wise man more than the fool.

homo unius libri