What is a question?

Hold on for a second. Give this letter a chance.

What is the universe?… is a question.

What is consciousness?… is a question.

Why am I writing this letter?… is a question.

But what is… a question? Have you ever asked this question? Probably when you were little. At some point, you had to learn the word, right?

I'm asking what a question is because I am curious. We use this thing called "question" quite a lot, but it's an interesting concept to explore. At the heart of it lies the most meaningful aspect of human life, I suspect. It's a hunch, and because of that, I want to explore it.

I'm extremely interested in gaining wisdom about the hardest questions of existence.

• What is the universe?

• Why does the universe exist?

• What is consciousness?

• Is consciousness everything that exists?

• Is the world that I'm experiencing truly a "material" world, or is it pure consciousness?

• What's the difference between matter and consciousness?

• What is matter made of?

• Does infinity exist?

• Is it possible to be conscious of consciousness, or will this mystery forever be unsolved?

• What does it mean to be alive?

• How does lifeless matter turn into biological life?

• Will robots destroy us once they become truly alive like we are?

• Will robots become truly alive like we are?

• How does a dog experience the world?

• How does a cat experience the world?

• Do they think?

• Where is the limit of human potential in terms of physical, mental, and technological abilities?

• What does God mean?

• Are universe and God the same thing?

• Is there an infinite creator that is separate from the universe, has created it, and has no other relation to it than to control its fate?

• Is there one true religion, and are all other religions false?

• Are paradise and hell literal realities, or are they exaggerations to teach man that his actions influence the rest of time, and that work towards paradise for a world oneself will never experience is the most fundamental and sacred instinct of the human animal, because of which these actions (good deeds) cause meaning: the sweetest of all perceptions?

• Are paradise and hell descriptions of states of consciousness?

• Is God a description of a state of consciousness, and if so, is that consciousness separate from human consciousness, or is there only one consciousness?

• Again, what is consciousness?

• Do I have free will, or rather, does my perception of free will prove the existence of my free will?

I'm running out of questions. But there are endless ones. I think you understand why I want to explore what a question itself is now. It's packed with so much energy, this question.

I am deeply curious about what the hell is going on. We live our lives and do stuff, but most of the time we forget to reflect on existence. It's insane to be alive. I don't even know if it's a miracle to be alive since it's simply a fact, but it truly is amazing. For some people, life is terrible, but still, their lives as an occurrence are amazing. Everything is INSANE.

But I digress. Back to the question.

What is a question?

Well, a question is the formulation of a bunch of words that might lead to knowledge. When you ask a question, you're not just formulating some random words that have no meaning. You're making the first step to more knowledge and success.

Who is asked?

Most of the time, we ask other human beings, and can extract information from them in that process.

Sometimes we ask ourselves, like I'm doing right now. I'm sitting at my desk in front of my computer writing these words in an attempt to answer the question of what a question is, as if I already know the answer and simply have to make the unconscious conscious. Well, the alchemical master Carl Jung talks a lot about that process and how it is the purpose of life. In his book, Psychology and Alchemy, he clearly proves how an alchemist's outer work on material things was an internal quest for enlightenment, and in some way, we're all alchemists.

Is that what we all try to achieve? The highest possible state of wisdom? Wisdom is knowledge plus application of knowledge, so even if the possession of knowledge itself isn't attractive to you (which I would find very weird), its implementation would also enable material success.

Since other human beings are as unconscious from the perspective of your ego as your own inner unconscious, asking questions, in general, is the quest for the Lapis (Philosopher's Stone). As far as I understand, the Lapis stands for wisdom as such. The Lapis is not only the answer to all questions, but also the solution to all problems, which means that it is applied knowledge. Applied knowledge seems to be the best definition of wisdom, and exactly what the purpose of questions is.

A philosopher who isn't also a utilitarian is a lame yapper. A mental masturbator. Knowledge is joyful in itself, but it's joyful for a reason. Positive emotion is a tool to identify if one is on the right path. When making progress towards a meaningful goal, positive emotion is experienced (this is literally how dopamine is produced). The joy of getting answers to your questions is therefore only 50% of the equation, and is meant to motivate proper implementation. Proper implementation follows from knowledge of good and evil, and hopefully leads to the implementation of good, as well as the avoidance of evil.

For all these reasons, I think it's fair to claim that a question is potential wisdom. By asking a question, you might acquire knowledge (truthful facts), and if you implement the implied positive action items and avoid the negative ones that the knowledge proposes, it is a wise act, or the creation of wisdom.

I think that wisdom is the most valuable thing. If you take it to the extreme, and ask what infinite wisdom would mean, it would be perfect knowledge plus perfect action, so infinite wisdom would necessarily lead to the most positive state possible, e.g., paradise (If my definition of wisdom is correct).

Now, if a question is potential wisdom, what does that knowledge imply?

It implies that you should ask more questions if you want a positive life instead of a negative one.

So, what's the most positive question one can possibly ask?

It's probably:

What is the most positive thing?

Since I already concluded that this most positive thing seems to be wisdom to me, it means that whole question would be: What is good and what is evil?

It's hard to tell if you have no first principle to explore such questions with. A first principle is an undeniable truth, which means that it can't be falsified, and that it is already proven. Consciousness (or perception, awareness, presence, experience, etc.) fills these two criteria. No one could logically prove that your consciousness doesn't exist, because it simply does, and no one has to logically prove that it exists, because it simply does. The world might not exist without consciousness, but even if it does, your perception of it might be a complete delusion. For this reason, consciousness is an undeniable fact.

What I consider to be good is therefore the expansion of consciousness, and evil the reduction of consciousness. I call this the consciousness game. To play it, however, you can't focus on consciousness itself. If logic deserves respect, it would be impossible to be conscious of consciousness, just as it would be impossible for you to eat yourself. You can't eat yourself. The mass would remain. And similarly, if you try to be conscious of consciousness, you're just conscious of a thought about consciousness. The consciousness game is, therefore, logically about playing with the world that is perceived through consciousness.

This world that is perceived from the singular point in the center can be divided into 4 elements for practical purposes. You perceive a body. You perceive a mind. You perceive emotions. And you perceive non-ego. Non-ego is the feeling of there being things outside of your body, mind, and emotions. The most dominant perception of non-ego is other human beings. They aren't merely sensory perceptions which are gathered through the body and processed by the mind, but it feels as if there's another consciousness sitting inside of that body looking back at you.

My answer to the question: What's the most positive thing?, is therefore, to do things that are positive for body, mind, emotions, and non-ego, and also to avoid doing the things that harm them. This is best achieved by committing to a game for a certain period so that you carve that wisdom into your soul.

Taken to the extreme, a question is therefore the beginning of a hero's journey, which leads to the ordering of what is perceived through consciousness, which in turn leads to the expansion of consciousness via continual transcendence to higher-level problems.

A question shows you which sacrifice to make for paradise.

Ömer, powered by Ozmania