By Barbara Dee
Which is More Valuable: Good Information or Good Questions?
“If we would have new knowledge, we must get a whole world of new questions.” – Susanne Langer, Born Dec. 20, 1895
I’m going to put the bottom line of this article right here: “Thinking” is different from having thoughts. It’s an intentional act, one that is like a muscle in that it needs to be exercised in order to work optimally. As you start to experiment with the use of AI, remember that it may give great information and even serve as a substitute for having to be a great writer—but do not ever abdicate your role as a thinker.
If you heed that advice, you’ll likely be in the minority. You’ll be a level above others in leadership roles who are letting their thinking skills atrophy.
With today’s internet, vast information is instantaneous and free. If you set up a stand offering both lemonade and general information, you’d be collecting quarters only from lemonade sales. This extreme abundance of info, some say, is making us lazy in terms of using our brains to think.
For our purposes, let’s define “thinking” as simply formulating a good question and riding a train of thought that stems from considering that question (and the other questions that will be spawned).
The philosopher most famous for valuing questions is Socrates. The “Socratic Method” relies on asking probing questions to stimulate critical thinking.
Ways to Generate Good Questions
The top-rated way is through DOING. Through experience, whether for play or work. You must try to do things you have not done. And perhaps don’t even know how to do. You’ll DISCOVER what you didn’t know you didn’t know. You’ll be stimulated to think, to wonder, to question.
Here’s a true story about how one experience led to a line of life-changing questions for a renowned marine scientist I know, G.P.
G.P., how did you decide to major in Marine Biology?
“Two college buddies and I were snorkeling, hunting for bay scallops. It was my first time and they told me the most fun way to find them is to look through your mask as you slowly swim over the seagrass beds…it’s only knee-deep water.
I wasn’t collecting very many, but each one was like finding gold. But there were so many other treasures to see also…sea urchins, fast swimming sea trout, small stingrays, very large snails…but most plentiful were the horseshoe crabs. I swam up on an especially large one in a sandy-bottom area and started following it. We passed by one I assumed was dead as it was on its back in the sand, only moving with the gentle water currents. Its underside was shockingly weird. The more I studied it, the stranger it seemed. It could play a starring role in a sci-fi movie. I knew it wasn’t really a “crab,” but I could sort of see why its first name was “horseshoe” because of its shape (not counting its long spiny tail).
I floated, hovering over it for an eternity, the water rocking me, the world disappearing, my snorkel breath loud to my ears. Then my peripheral vision spied a scallop clapping its way toward some seagrass and, remembering my mission, I followed in pursuit. I realized my attention had been completely hijacked and I’d forgotten all about filling my net bag. I began to wonder why that happened.
I had always been drawn to natural bodies of water and the hidden world under the surface. Since I grew up in Florida, I’ve had countless aquatic adventures. But that day, I was mesmerized like never before, and I didn’t have a good explanation.
That night after eating my fill of broiled scallops and fried hushpuppies, I found myself dwelling on the horseshoe crabs. Like I’d glimpsed a beauty queen in my biochemistry class or something, I was distracted by the image to the point that I had to find out more. Within seconds, I was reading about horseshoe crabs on Wikipedia—I know, too lame to call “research.” But the information, shallow as it was, sparked my curiosity even more. I started to have good questions.
I wondered: Why are these “living fossils” so unchanged after 250 million years? Why are the females always larger than same-aged males? Why do experts fight over whether it’s related to a spider or not? Why does the medical industry harvest its bright blue blood?
The stars lined up for me that day in Apalachicola Bay—I finally stopped resisting my strong attraction to the environment I’d felt most at home in all of my life. Surrendering to that burning curiosity led me to getting approved for an independent study of horseshoe crabs, which helped me get into grad school…and eventually, get my PhD in Marine Biology.”
G.P.’s first scalloping adventure left him curious about something he’d never before given much thought. Then, he employed another highly effective way to stimulate thinking: Reading.
Effective, that is, if you’re intentional about what you read and keep your mind open to discovery as you read.
What is the key sentence in G.P.’s story? “I started to have good questions.”
What is the moment when the course of his life changed? When he noticed how deeply his love for marine life ran and stopped fighting the urge to commit to it.
Another surefire way to give your thinking muscle a great workout and unearth good questions is by writing. As a writer (magazine columns, articles, blogs, poems, and books), I know first-hand that writing is a kind of thinking.
“What word comes next?” is a brilliant question to pose to your mind. Where you end up after writing for a few minutes is almost never just where you could have predicted—therefore, writing generates thinking vs. being only a process to put your thoughts onto paper. The exercise can be highly creative, not just recording words.
Also, externalizing your thoughts has you face them, see them more clearly, and bring your whole mind to consider them. This leads to more clarity and improves your intended communication.
Seeing your writing appear on a page doesn’t just tell you what you already think somewhere in the attic of your brain: Writing actively helps you to generate new and better thoughts and ideas as you do it.
Often (but not always) the best way to stimulate your thinking is through conversation. Thinking never requires you to be alone on a mountaintop. When in conversation, you are already in the mode of formulating and answering questions.
Many of history’s most important thinkers, including Socrates and Plato, held that conversation was a much better mode for thinking than writing was. In fact, Plato was suspicious of writing as a tool for thinking because it reduces the need to memorize. And unlike in conversation, a piece of writing cannot talk back to the reader—which he regarded as supremely important.
Thinking is a choice. If you simply drift along through life, you may not encounter many events that actually call for formulating good questions or that demand focus and thinking.
Your brain and ability to think is a gift. Do not neglect it nor abdicate responsibility to other people or AI. Instead, be sure that every day you are devoted to thinking—reading, writing, conversation, and new experiences.
Consider: What is more valuable, good information or good questions?
How is this devotion useful to you, a leader in your business, home, and/or community? Newly discovered answers to those good questions will give you value as an expert. It will give you skills that others don’t have. It will give you rarer experiences than your competitors or anyone you wish to influence. It will give you wisdom that is uniquely your own… that no one could get from anyone else but you.
