[marginalium]
Asking the right questions
13 Mar 2025
On asking the right questions. This guy approaches the concept from the perspective of troubleshooting. What makes good troubleshooting? I approach very similar questions from a different angle. I’ve talked about the ‘language problem’, ‘naming problem’, and most relevant, the ‘question problem’ before (see also this). This is where whatever you’re trying to get after might be quite straightforward, but you’re suffering from either:
- The language you’re using is stopping people from understanding. You know this one is true because someone else will suggest the same thing with different words, and everyone will love their idea, but not yours.
- The fact that you’ve named something makes you feel like you’ve explained it. We have a ‘mind’, and maybe you think you understand the mind by naming it, but actually no one really knows how this thing works (or even if it exists).
- Simply asking the wrong question. You want to get people ‘to the next level’, but actually there aren’t levels, and so seeking the next ‘level’ ends up being a wild goose chase (this is something that actually happened to me).
Anyway. Since the language problem is the thing that bothers me the most, here is an article that uses different language to explain similar stuff. The language of troubleshooting.
Anthologies: Gratification, Connection, Wealth Architecture, On Culture, On Leadership, On Thinking and Reasoning, Noetik