FAQ

There are naive questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every question is a cry to understand the world. There is no such thing as a dumb question, unless:

• Those questions have already been answered, but the inquirer wasn't listening or paying attention.
• Questions can be answered with a scant amount of research and less than a minute of time.
• Questions of which the answer should be painfully obvious to any person with a pulse who has lived on this earth for more than a decade.

The principal use of questions is to elicit information from the person being addressed by indicating the information which the speaker or writer desires. However, questions can also be used for a number of other purposes. Questions may be asked for the purpose of testing someone's knowledge, as in a quiz or examination. Raising a question may guide the questioner along an avenue of research (Socratic Method).

A research question is an interrogative statement that manifests the objective or line of scholarly or scientific inquiry designed to address a specific gap in knowledge. Research questions are expressed in a language that is appropriate for the academic community that has the greatest interest in answers that would address said gap. These interrogative statements serve as launching points for the academic pursuit of new knowledge by directing and delimiting an investigation of a topic, a set of studies, or an entire program of research.

A rhetorical question is asked to make a point, and does not expect an answer (often the answer is implied or obvious). Some questions are used principally as polite requests, as with "Would you pass the salt?"

Pre-suppositional or loaded questions, such as "Have you stopped beating your wife?" may be used as a joke or to embarrass an audience, because any answer a person could give would imply more information than he was willing to affirm.

Various categorizations of questions have been proposed:

• Descriptive questions, used primarily with the aim of describing the existence of some thing or process;
• relational questions, designed to look at the relationships between two or more variables;
• causal questions, designed to determine whether certain variables affect one or more outcome variables.

For the purpose of surveys, one type of question asked is the closed-ended (also closed or dichotomous) question, usually requiring a yes/no answer or the choice of an option(s) from a list (see also multiple choice). There are also nominal questions, designed to inquire about a level of quantitative measure, usually making connections between a number and a concept (as in "1 = Moderate; 2 = Severe; 3 = ..."). Open-ended or open questions give the respondent greater freedom to provide information or opinions on a topic. (The distinction between closed and open questions is applied in a variety of other contexts too, such as job interviewing.) Surveys also often contain qualifying questions (also called filter questions or contingency questions), which serve to determine whether the respondent needs to continue on to answer subsequent questions.

Strategic studies also took into consideration the questioning process. In Humint (Human Intelligence), a taxonomy of questions includes:

• Direct questions: basic questions normally beginning with an interrogative (who, what, where, when, how, or why) and requiring a narrative answer. They are brief, precise, and simply worded to avoid confusion.
• Initial questions: directed toward obtaining the basic information on the topic. In other words, they are the “who, what, where, when, how, and why” of each topic.
• Follow-up questions: used to expand on and complete the information obtained from the initial questions.
• Non-pertinent questions: questions that do not pertain to the collection objectives. They are used to conceal the collection objectives or to strengthen rapport with the source.
• Repeat questions: ask the source for the same information obtained in response to earlier questions.
• Control questions: developed from recently confirmed information from other sources that is not likely to have changed.
• Prepared questions developed by the HUMINT collector, normally in writing, prior to the questioning.
• Prepared questions: used primarily when dealing with information of a technical nature or specific topic.
• Negative questions: questions that contain a negative word in the question itself such as, "Didn’t you go to the pick-up point?”
• Compound questions: consist of two questions asked at the same time; for example, “Where were you going after work and who were you to meet there?”
• Vague questions: do not have enough information for the source to understand exactly what the HUMINT collector is asking. They may be incomplete, general, or otherwise nonspecific.

Questions are used from the most elementary stage of learning to original research. In the scientific method, a question often forms the basis of the investigation and can be considered a transition between the observation and hypothesis stages. Students of all ages use questions in their learning of topics, and the skill of having learners creating "investigatable" questions is a central part of inquiry education. The Socratic method of questioning student responses may be used by a teacher to lead the student towards the truth without direct instruction, and also helps students to form logical conclusions.

A widespread and accepted use of questions in an educational context is the assessment of students' knowledge through exams.

The philosophical questions are conceptual, not factual questions. There are questions that are not fully answered by any other. Philosophy deals with questions that arise when people reflect on their lives and their world.

Truth is most often used to mean being in accord with fact or reality.

The truth predicate has great practical value in human language, allowing us to efficiently endorse or impeach claims made by others, to emphasize the truth or falsity of a statement, or to enable various indirect (Gricean) conversational implications. Individuals or societies will sometime punish "false" statements to deter falsehoods; the oldest surviving law text, the Code of Ur-Nammu, lists penalties for false accusations of sorcery or adultery, as well as for committing perjury in court. Even four-year-old children can pass simple "false belief" tests and successfully assess that another individual's belief diverges from reality in a specific way; by adulthood we have strong implicit intuitions about "truth" that form a "folk theory" of truth. These intuitions include:

• Non-contradiction: A statement can't be both true and false
• Normativity: It is usually good to believe what is true
• False beliefs: The notion that believing a statement doesn't necessarily make it true

Like many folk theories, our folk theory of truth is useful in everyday life but, upon deep analysis, turns out to be technically self-contradictory; in particular, any formal system that fully obeys 'Capture and Release' semantics for truth, and that also respects classical logic, is provably inconsistent and succumbs to the liar paradox or to a similar contradiction.

The concept of doubt as a suspense between two contradictory propositions covers a range of phenomena: on a level of the mind it involves reasoning, examination of facts and evidence and on an emotional level believing and disbelieving

In premodern theology doubt was "the voice of an uncertain conscience" and important to realize, because when in doubt "the safer way is not to act at all"

Doubt sometimes tends to call on reason. Doubt may encourage people to hesitate before acting, and/or to apply more rigorous methods. Doubt may have particular importance as leading towards disbelief or non-acceptance.

Politics, ethics and law, with decisions that often determine the course of individual life, place great importance on doubt, and often foster elaborate adversarial processes to carefully sort through all available evidence.

Societally, doubt creates an atmosphere of distrust, being accusatory in nature and de facto alleging either foolishness or deceit on the part of another. Such a stance has been fostered in Western European society since the Enlightenment, in opposition to tradition and authority.

Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory attributes doubt (which may be interpreted as a symptom of a phobia emanating from the ego) to childhood, when the ego develops. Childhood experiences, these theories maintain, can plant doubt about one's abilities and even about one's very identity.

Descartes employed Cartesian doubt as a pre-eminent methodological tool in his fundamental philosophical investigations. Branches of philosophy like logic devote much effort to distinguish the dubious, the probable and the certain. Much of illogic rests on dubious assumptions, dubious data or dubious conclusions, with rhetoric, whitewashing, and deception playing their accustomed roles.

Doubt that God(s) exist may form the basis of agnosticism, the belief that one cannot determine the existence or non-existence of God(s). It may also form other brands of scepticism, such as Peronism, which do not take a positive stance in regard to the existence of God(s), but remain negative.

Therefore, the ‘Frequently Avoided Questions’, depend on your circumstances, situation, environment, culture, statehood, belief, and willingness to accept the answers, more importantly the truth!

Today, far too many people put all their faith in misleading books of reference, deceitful academics, political, and religious leaders to tell them the truth and consequently are dreadfully misinformed.

President Trump, a part from all his misgivings is a challenger who had the courage to face the mass Media with the factual social reality of ‘Fake News’ hopping people would carry-on addressing the other realities of ‘Fake History and Beliefs’, but then that would have led to a total social disorder, wouldn’t it?

As life has been an uncertain morphing of the beautiful and devastating, the reckless and ordained, the inconsequential and cataclysmal, to that I say: Do not restrict your quest to strictly asking but seek as much the truth in answers you’ve been deprived of, for in today’s day and age, most answers are in plain sight to depict among a avalanches of information before you.

Food for thought!