Which Question?

Out of the myriad of potentially interesting questions, how do I decide which ones I am interested in? There are many times I think: good question but I am not interested right now. There are lines of argument I never follow. How do I make the choice? What set of principles guides my selections?

It’s a scary thought because now I know that something exists there, it is plausible I could be under the control of some belief or theory (or being?) that I am not aware of.

On encountering a new question, it seems I make an instinctive value judgment on the expected benefit answering a question will yield me. But how can I evaluate what I don’t yet know? One alternative is that I am interested in things I know just enough about to approach them, or feel like I could approach them. And initially I learn because I have had to. So I am basically interested in the questions in or around the area of knowledge I have already been exposed to, feel relatively secure around, an area that was seeded by things I have had to learn in the first place, perhaps for other reasons.

Maybe falling in love with someone will make me more open to listen to and learn from them. Maybe being in a life-threatening situation will open the mind up to rapid assimilation of knowledge. After learning, a number of questions become appealing as I struggle to make all my knowledge consistent. So maybe the search for consistency is a major driving force. To do that, I may have to learn more and read more and think more. But if I never had the knowledge to start with, if the accident had not happened, would I have had the questions that followed?

An improvement to my thought process that I have recently put to action is to write down any thoughts I have even if they are not complete, partially out of stressing that I will forget them. This way I free my mind to think other things while keeping a record of what I found even a little interesting at any point in time. This allows me to later group and add these thoughts gradually using them to better define the questions, even finding and recording some answers. I have been surprised to see how these seemingly random thoughts cluster into groups, areas I am interested in but did not know I was. I see this as a great improvement in the organization of my thought, perhaps even my intelligence. But this does not answer the question. It merely makes it less pressing as I can now reflect on a wider set of questions. Alternatively, it may make it more pressing as I see the value of thoughts I would have otherwise discarded. What else do I discard, that I do not know about? What knowledge do I forego?

An interesting observation is that knowledge and observations lead to questions as well as the other way around. It is this dance of succession that iteratively leads us to decipher the world around us or at least go as far as our resources of time, courage and patience allow us. This sheds some light, but still I have no satisfactory answer: how do I decide which roads of thought to walk on? How do I measure that which I do not yet know? In geek-speak: What is my search algorithm? Can I examine it? How do I know it is any good? Can I improve it?

Of course making progress is by itself is a good thing. It is perhaps reassuring that all knowledge (we know about) seems interconnected. So starting from anywhere can get you anywhere, as long as you persist long enough. Assuming the knowledge is there to be found, it will, eventually, be found. But maybe not in my lifetime. This is then a question of efficiency. How do I make sure I do not waste time by learning derivative knowledge rather than going for the basic and more valuable knowledge? How do I make sure I am spending my thinking-time efficiently? Learning all the possible weapons available in World of Warcraft is certainly knowledge, but its value seems comparatively low. Maybe this is a good principle by itself, aiming for the higher level of knowledge possible. Why spend time learning something that someone else who doesn’t know it but knows something else can absolutely contain? Why not go for the higher level knowledge in the first place?

This seems to be a good algorithm but I still don’t know if it is mine, I don’t know how to read mine and I don’t know how to change mine. I guess I have to observe myself a bit longer and see what comes up. It is a fresh though afterall. This is an interesting question my criterion selflessly but suicidally judges. At least I now know it is not selfish, otherwise it would not question itself.