Sam Harris

C’mon Sander. Everyone knows the only antidote for Celine Dion is Judas Priest. Sheesh!

The most important question of all time is well known to 3 year old children, and it’s simply “why?”. 
This most important of questions is metaphysically beaten out of children if they pursue, or have the misfortune of being born into, a faith.

ooo - 02 September 2008 10:39 PM

The most important question of all time is well known to 3 year old children, and it’s simply “why?”. 
This most important of questions is metaphysically beaten out of children if they pursue, or have the misfortune of being born into, a faith.

This response simply takes the cake. I love it.

The thread can now be closed.

I know I’m joining this a little late, but it interested me.  I think the most important question is simply “Why?”  And not “Why?” in a limited perspective, but rather the infinite instances of when such a question is applied.  Look around us, everything we do is constantly trying to answer the question of “Why?”

Not the most important question but how to identify a good question: Back in about 1976 I was invited to a strange meeting and when I arrived nobody there knew why they had received invitations to a “meeting on education” from a middle aged Arab guy from Kuwait who had talked his way into a graduate program in psychology with apparently little academic background.  He introduced somebody he called Shamshar, an eighty year old Norwegian from Seattle who looked rather angelic and then he babbled on for a while about starting a sufi school.  After 15 or 20 minutes of this he stopped and Shamshar asked if there were any questions.  I was wondering what the hell was going on, and what sort of question was being looked for so I asked: “What’s a good question.”  Shamshar responded with total intensity: “A good question is one that grabs you right in the gut and doesn’t let go until you have an answer.”

burt - 19 April 2009 03:24 PM

“A good question is one that grabs you right in the gut and doesn’t let go until you have an answer.”

So ... you’re saying that “Is this diarrhea or just indigestion?” is the most important question of all time?

Byron

SkepticX - 19 April 2009 03:27 PM

burt - 19 April 2009 03:24 PM

“A good question is one that grabs you right in the gut and doesn’t let go until you have an answer.”

So ... you’re saying that “Is this diarrhea or just indigestion?” is the most important question of all time?

Byron

If that’s where you’re at. 

burt - 20 April 2009 12:34 AM

SkepticX - 19 April 2009 03:27 PM

burt - 19 April 2009 03:24 PM

“A good question is one that grabs you right in the gut and doesn’t let go until you have an answer.”

So ... you’re saying that “Is this diarrhea or just indigestion?” is the most important question of all time?

If that’s where you’re at. 

Ha!

Nice ...

Okay, you won that round, no question about it.

Well done!

Bastard.

SkepticX - 20 April 2009 01:55 AM

burt - 20 April 2009 12:34 AM

SkepticX - 19 April 2009 03:27 PM

burt - 19 April 2009 03:24 PM

“A good question is one that grabs you right in the gut and doesn’t let go until you have an answer.”

So ... you’re saying that “Is this diarrhea or just indigestion?” is the most important question of all time?

If that’s where you’re at. 

Ha!

Nice ...

Okay, you won that round, no question about it.

Well done!

Bastard.

eudemonia - 01 September 2008 01:40 PM

It’s rather obvious although this question gets asked all the time.

The most important question of all time is-drum roll please-

Where did the elements that caused the big bang come from or how did they come into existence, might be a better way to ask it.

Believe it or not, cosmologists Joel Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams answer this in their book, ‘The View from the Center of the Universe’.  They were interviewed by McLaughlin on PBS.  Would be great if I understood their answer.  “Science has pushed back the borders of mystery and expanded the known universe immeasurably.”

Eternal inflation . . . let’s see, “the energy of eternal inflation is so awesome that the smallest possible amount of it. . .”, the Planck length?  no, um, “the smallest possible amount of it, so small that it fell below eternity’s minimum threshhold and disappeared through the floor - that subminimal bit became our entire universe.”

So, I creep back to the Garden of Eden and the talking snake for a good night’s rest.  I’ll tackle eternal inflation again tomorrow.  Perhaps one of you can read the book and explain it to me without touching on the time it takes light to travel the width of a particle.  That’s unsettling!  That really isn’t much time at all.  I mean, it’s hard enough to see how an athlete can lose a race by 3/100 of a second.  That used to be called a tie.  I mean, how would you like to win the gold medal because of a mole on the tip of your nose?

K, then I want to change my answer.

I think the most important question ever to ask is…...........................................................................

Should I change my moniker and when?

Sorry, I realize that was actually 2 questions. However, Get over it!

When I was a teenager, the most important question was “Will you buy me beer?” 

Well, that and “Will she go all the way with me?” 

Now that I’m older, the questions have changed.

bigredfutbol - 17 June 2009 04:10 PM

When I was a teenager, the most important question was “Will you buy me beer?” 

Well, that and “Will she go all the way with me?” 

Now that I’m older, the questions have changed.

1.  Can I buy you a beer?

2.  I wonder if I can go all the way with her?

I suspect that it’s wrong to think of questions in this way, as though there’s some sort of hierarchy of the things.
The desire to put one big question at the top of the pile is probably a function of how the brain works (and bears a certain amount of similarity to the desire to put one big supernatural entity there).

I suspect that there’s also a tendency to confuse difficult questions with important ones. Is the question “How did the universe begin?” actually more important than “Where’s my next meal going to come from?”?

chris madden - 21 June 2009 05:47 PM

Is the question “How did the universe begin?” actually more important than “Where’s my next meal going to come from?”?

I wonder if Bank of America’s CEO ever asks this question?  What was his take-home pay last year?  20 million?

Maybe the most important question of all time is . . .

Kidding.  I agree.  This thing about our next meal has been the most important question for the last 3.5 billion years.  Fatcats are a very recent blip on the screen.  The vegetable kingdom might be on to something.  They have more time for philosophical questions.

(Though evolution suggests that vegetables spend a lot of time wondering how to get more light than the guy next to them, and working on techniques for invading new territory.  Scotch broom probably fired the first explosive device a million years before we did).