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Asking good questions is so important because they open up the door for experimentation—testing one’s hypothesis—which often overpowers rationalism (link to the rational versus reasonable note). If you have the right question you can get to revolutionary discoveries with the aid of reality. The question allows you to make the "jump." The discovery is what's in between.
Isn't it connected to Einstein's quote about imagination? Imagination is everything is what he said, because without it we cannot create anything new. There has to be a leap of faith before one can make a new discovery. There has to be a slight recklessness, boldness, daringness, foolishness, and eccentricity because one has to reach beyond the boundary of what's rational.
When you ask a question nobody has yet answered you can't expect a response from your or the collective intellect. You have to seek the answer in reality. How then can you "ask" reality a question?
Empiricism. Defining a hypothesis (i.e., your question) and testing it through experiment is a way to have a conversation with mother nature.
The question allows you to make the jump, the leap of faith; the experiment is the means of making the jump; the result is, might be, a discovery of something new.
What's more, usually when you set out to speak to nature and transform a hypothesis into action, you're likely to find unexpected things. Columbus set out to find an alternative route to India and he found America; Viagra was designed to cure angina but ended out being the go to drug to igniting erections; Chinese scientists wanted to create an elixir for eternal life and accidentally invented gun powder.
tk P: New discoveries usually reside in the gap between the map and territory, our idealized version of the world and reality.
Relevant notes (PN: )
This connects to the adjacent possible PN: What is the adjacent possible One has to be bold to reach the boundaries of possibilities.
It also connects to doing things you're afraid to do. If you're doing scary things, you're risking more in some form or fashion. The riskier a thing the greater the potential reward. One caveat, however, you shouldn't risk when the failure can kill you. You must apply the barbell strategy—avoiding things that can severely hurt you and looking for positive asymmetry.
Don't get me wrong, theory is sometimes useful and necessary. Heck, the ability to theoretize is what makes us different from animals (P: Collective imagination made us human (intersubjectivity)). When is theory useful then? To make a leap of faith, to create a hypothesis. (connected P: You can make great discoveries by "asking" reality a question)
In the complex reality, and the information industry is such, you don't get to the truth by thinking, you get there by doing. By putting your ideas into action and seeing what will happen. You have to talk P: You can make great discoveries by "asking" reality a question reality. Once you have the feedback, you have to reiterate your assumptions and repeat. You should do this until you achieve what you've set out to achieve—whether it's answering a question you had, completing a task, reaching a KPI, etc.