Hard questions
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This document discusses different types of questions from easiest to hardest and what makes a question easy or hard. The easiest questions have readily available answers that can be easily validated. Easy questions provide factual information that is known. Hard questions have answers that are difficult or impossible to find with current means or validate as being true. The hardest questions deal with existential topics that may have no answer. Engineering aims to answer easy questions while research tries to make harder questions easier to solve.
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Hard questions
- 1. Easy Questions? Hard Questions! WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE? (WAS THAT A HARD QUESTION?)
- 3. Easiest Questions HOW LARGE IS AFRICA COMPARED TO EUROPE? WHAT IS THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF DJIBOUTI? HOW MANY WORDS ARE THERE IN QURAN?
- 4. Easy Questions HOW MANY PEOPLE COMMUTE INTO LONDON EVERY DAY? WHAT’S ON THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON? CAN A TARDIGRADE WITHSTAND A NUCLEAR BLAST?
- 5. Hard Questions HOW MANY PEOPLE COMMUTED INTO LONDON YESTERDAY? IS IT GOING TO RAIN ON THIS DAY NEXT YEAR? WHY ARE YOU CRYING, BABY?
- 6. Hard Questions (2) HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO BUILD A SOFTWARE PRODUCT? DID ANY ANIMALS ACTUALLY EVOLVE? ARE MY OPINIONS ABOUT SOME SUBJECT CORRECT?
- 7. Hardest Questions What’s outside the universe? Why does a seed grow? What happens after death?
- 8. What’s the difference? Easy Questions • We have the means to find the answer • We have the means to validate the answer Hard Questions • We lack the means to find the answer • We lack the means to validate the answer
- 9. Final Thoughts ENGINEERING IS AN EFFORT TO ANSWER EASY QUESTIONS RESEARCH IS AN EFFORT TO MAKE QUESTIONS EASIER
- 10. Recommended Reading THE FIVE ORDERS OF IGNORANCE, BY PHILLIP G. ARMOUR
Editor's Notes
- Hi! Thank you for attending this talk. I like to let my mind wander off sometimes. A couple of weeks ago, I got this idea, which I want to share with you.
- Questions are everywhere. What’s the weather today? Is the train on time? What do I work on next? Obviously, some questions are easier than others, and what’s easy for you might not be easy for a child. But is it possible to categorise questions in an absolute way that transcends our momentary differences? Maybe. Let’s see.
- These questions are easy because the answers are known. They lie within the body of knowledge of humanity.
- These questions are harder because we might not already know the answer. But they are still easy: we know how to get the information. It might take time, effort, and resources, and it might not even be practical, but it’s still easy because we have a process to find out the answers.
- These questions are hard because we can’t really know the answer. We can try to provide an estimate, but that’s all it’s going to be: a level of confidence less than 100%.
- Hard questions are prolific. The harder ones are about the assessment of our knowledge. How do we know that what we know is correct? How do we know what we need to know?
- A favourite of mine is about whether time is multi-dimensional. These questions cannot be answered within the human body of knowledge. We simply don’t have a way to find an answer. The only possible source of answers is divine inspiration from the creator of the universe.
- Hand in hand, they make our life better.