Provocative Questions

Fandango’s Provocative Question #15

Fandango13 Comments

FPQEach week I will pose what I think is a provocative question for your consideration. By provocative, I don’t mean a question that will cause annoyance or anger. Nor do I mean a question intended to arouse sexual desire or interest.

What I do mean is a question that is likely to get you to think, to be creative, and to provoke a response. Hopefully a positive response.

This week’s provocative question is based upon a quote by Bertrand Russell, the British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, essayist, social critic, political activist, and Nobel laureate. Whew, that’s a lot of cred. Anyway, Russell, who died in 1970, suggested that…

“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that, in the modern world, the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubts.”

Do you concur with Mr. Russell’s perspective? Why or why not?

If you choose to participate, write a post with your response to the question. Once you are done, tag your post with #FPQ and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments.

And most important, have fun.

Fandango’s Provocative Question #14

Fandango20 Comments

FPQEach week I will pose what I think is a provocative question for your consideration. By provocative, I don’t mean a question that will cause annoyance or anger. Nor do I mean a question intended to arouse sexual desire or interest.

What I do mean is a question that is likely to get you to think, to be creative, and to provoke a response. Hopefully a positive response.

This week’s provocative question asks about how we perceive the world in which we live. There is a philosophical and psychological concept called qualia, which states that our surroundings can only be observed through the filter of our senses and the ruminations of our minds.

Examples of qualia are the pain of a headache, the taste of wine, or the perceived redness of an evening sky. In other words, everything you know, everything you’ve touched, seen, and smelled, has been filtered through any number of physiological and cognitive processes. And that brings me to this week’s question:

“Do you believe that anyone can really experience anything objectively? Why or why not?”

If you choose to participate, write a post with your response to the question. Once you are done, tag your post with #FPQ and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments.

And most important, have fun.

Why I Don’t Answer My Own Questions

Fandango12 Comments

Ursula, at An Upturned Soul, asked me a question in a post that included her response to my weekly prompt, Fandango’s Provocative Question. This week’s question was, “does size matter?” She asked, “Do you believe that size matters, Fandango? Please explain your response.”

And Melanie at Sparks From a Combustible Mind, commented, “I don’t see YOUR thoughts on this Mr. Fandango. What say YOU???”

Okay, those are fair criticisms. Let me start off by saying that I view my role in posting these questions as soliciting the thoughts of others on the topic of the question. I certainly have my own opinions, but I don’t think it’s my place, as the person posing the questions, to offer up my own answers. My interest is learning what the blogging community thinks, not what I think.

Second, I don’t want to influence how others might respond to the question by answering it myself. I know that readers here on WordPress have their own reasoned opinions on provocative matters, but, given that Donald Trump is the POTUS, it’s clear to me that many Americans (around 40%, anyway) are susceptible to the wild rantings of a demented moron and are apparently easily swayed by the expressed opinions of others.

Third, as I read the responses that people post in their own blogs or in the comments on my post, most have already expressed opinions that I share as well, so why pile on with an answer to the question that someone else has already posted?

And one last comment. I am concerned that when I ask a question like “Do you believe that size matters?” some might simply respond with either “yes” or “no.” And so I add “Please explain your response” or “Please elaborate.”

I hope that sufficiently answers the question of why I don’t answer my own FPQ questions.

For what it’s worth, my answer to the question of whether size matters would be that it depends upon the context. In some cases, size doesn’t matter at all, whereas in other cases, it matters a lot.

Fandango’s Provocative Question #13

Fandango33 Comments

FPQEach week I will pose what I think is a provocative question for your consideration. By provocative, I don’t mean a question that will cause annoyance or anger. Nor do I mean a question intended to arouse sexual desire or interest.

What I do mean is a question that is likely to get you to think, to be creative, and to provoke a response. Hopefully a positive response.

This week’s provocative question asks an age old question that has stumped philosophers across the ages. Interpret this question any way you want.

“Do you believe that size matters? Please explain your response.”

If you choose to participate, write a post with your response to the question. Once you are done, tag your post with #FPQ and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments.

And most important, have fun.

Fandango’s Provocative Question #12

Fandango26 Comments

FPQEach week I will pose what I think is a provocative question for your consideration. By provocative, I don’t mean a question that will cause annoyance or anger. Nor do I mean a question intended to arouse sexual desire or interest.

What I do mean is a question that is likely to get you to think, to be creative, and to provoke a response. Hopefully a positive response.

This week’s provocative question deals with exaggerations, embellishments, and lies.

“How do you feel about people who always seem to exaggerate when relating a story? Do you equate embellishment with lying? As a blogger, when, if ever, is stretching the truth, other than when writing fiction, permissible?”

I wrote a post about this back in September 2017. You can read it HERE if you want to, although I’m more interested in your perspective, so feel free to skip the link.

If you choose to participate, write a post with your response to the question. Once you are done, tag your post with #FPQ and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments.

And most important, have fun.