Monday, May 20, 2013

Pointless questions? Or do they aid us?

Often while we are having discussions regarding knowledge issues (and I've noticed this in small groups where people speak more) questions tend to be posed that have seemingly little or no importance that may have some correlation to the topic but entirely they tend to distract the persons focus from what they're trying to answer. Such questions can be mind boggling. For instance, something very vague like do we share the same reality with someone else, is something that can make you really think about it because we never know if we see the same shade of a colour or hear a sound at the same volume and frequency as another. One specific scenario where such a question was roused was when we were discussing whether inanimate objects begin acting on their own accord when not being monitored by humans. This reminded me of a personal experience when as a kid, a little girl in my class insisted that her sleep was interrupted by the commotion caused by her barbies and that they were behaving as we do. She told everyone that very few people get to witness catching barbies in the act as they are very skilful and only come to life when they are certain their 'owners' are asleep. Even then this sounded stupid to me and it made me embarrassed of my own kind when other girls became so fascinated by this and discussed schemes they would implement to spy on the barbies. Now that I come to think of it, although this scenario was a little too absurd, there are various things I am ready to ponder about that are still realistic such as cats seeing the world differently than I do in terms of senses or even whether we see people differently and what one person looks like to another could be different from the way I see them. However, are these questions of any use to us? Using the pragmatic theory, these are situations that do not affect our lives in any way, and trying to figure this out is simply a waste of time and won't help us gain any form of truth as what it isn't useful to us isn't knowledge. 

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