I've come to realize that many of my concepts are highly intuitive and sometimes that works out well, but some other concepts are more complex and require a more elaborated mental model to support good conclusions.
That is the case of questions. What is a question? I'll call this formulation WIQ
The first thing I realize when thinking about it is that is really difficult to analyze. First for the breadth and deepness of the ideas that come to my mind and second because my lake of known methodologies to approach endevours like this.
So I decide to go for it letting the flow of information in order to sink in my meaning of it. My intention is to create necessary conditions for the analysis but by no means I try to be exhaustive. It's beyond the current scope.
Second thing I note is my language limits (I recall Ludwig Wittgenstein aphorism: "Los límites de mi lenguaje son los límites de mi mundo" - I like the quote more in Spanish). When I noticed that WIQ is a self-referential formulation, then I inmediately fall into an ontological problem --> Is there something I can compare to convey the idea of a self-referential formulation in the WIQ?
Narratives!!
Perhaps is really hard to synthetize a comparable example for what I'm thinking and trying to communicate but narratives are great at transmitting highly dimensional-complex ideas!!
So, let's simplify it using a narrative because that is how I think I could undertand this situation better. Let's call a question X and an answer Y.
I'm something X whose existance is instanciated by a certain formulation of symbols (think of a symbol as a representation of some packet of information) that happend to be understood by other beings and generated by them in the first place. So I X, exist, conceptually but I'm only realized when formulated, and my essence is inferred by the realized instances. When I'm realized, many potential related questions coexist and are waiting to be formulated. Also, every time I'm formulated, infinite instances of something called Y, Y's are potentially created that are connected to my current formulation X' and intend to provide further information about X'.
Analysis
I will not attempt to define what is X beyond saying that is a concept. I know that X exists because I create instances of it whose particular formulations are different from each other.
So I'll naively assume that I can know X via instances of it, and perhaps know better the nature of X exploring and analyzing instances of it that boils down to the realm of language. In different languages the particular symbols and syntactic rules change but let's focus on the two languages I know better. Let's forget in this approach about strict grammatical rules so to advance faster. More strict consideration will not invalidate the main arguments.
- In Spanish we formulate a question simply by preappending a ¿ and postappending a ? symbols to a sentence: ¿Es esto una pregunta? Respuesta: Sí
- In English, let's simplify and formulate the question using only the symbol ? at the end. Is this a question? Answer: Yes
So there we have it. Let's explore X and their related Y's via instances of it. One particular interesting instance of it is the WIQ formulation:
What is a question?
Now I think is more clear to see that is a self-referential question. A particular instance of the concept that is asking for its own meaning. Is like X being forced (via me writing the formulation) to say: What am I? (Let's not question whether X is capable of instanciating itself or is only subjected to the will of the users of it, us, humans formulating questions... I'll assume the latter).
Ok, so now I have a mental model on which I can think about questions, i.e. A concept I can explore and analyze via instances of it that I formulate. And this heuristic turns out to be sufficient to give an answer to the WIQ.
What is a question? Answer: It is a concept whose realization is via instances I formulate and can be explored analyzing those instances, the product of the analysis is one or more instances of connected information intended to further inform about the formulated question, we call these later instances answers.
Great, now I have a better mental model to explore questions!!!
For example, will programming web applications be completely automated?
Thinking of a question as a concept whose nature can be examined via particular instances of it, we can see that this particular question is an instance of a concept whose nature can be examined via particular instances of formulated questions. In this case the instance is: Will programming web applications be completely automated?
Each question instantiated can be related to multiple instance questions whose core concept is the same. Answering those questions will inform more about the nature of the concepts I'm trying to know about. I'm not saying that all knowledge should ultimately be a concept that abstracts an intuition or perception, but I'm saying that we can try to condensate information towards concepts via questions and see the whole process as an exploration of an unknown abstract idea.
Now with solid mental model to explore and analyze questions, and one that encourages us to think about answering question as an explorative and always expanding process, fearless of uncertainty instead of static answers.