Here’s something to keep you up late at night: think about all the questions you can ask but never get answers for. I don’t mean profound, thought-provoking questions like “How many stars are there in the universe?” or “What’s the highest number you can count to?”
No, I mean simple stuff like “How many people on this train with me have never been on it before?” or “What would it be like to be a bird afraid of heights?” Okay, the second one could probably be answered with “It would suck” but for the first one, how would you ever know? Sure, it’s theoretically possible you could find out the answer by simply asking everyone, but you have to make a lot of assumptions for this to work:
- everyone you ask is willing to answer
- everyone speaks the same language as you
- everyone who answers is being truthful or understands the question
- you can meet the above conditions before the next stop where some will get off and others get on, polluting the sample
The reality is you’re very unlikely to ever know and there are an infinite number of these seemingly banal yet unanswerable questions if you stop and think about it for a minute.
I recommend watching YouTube videos of cats instead.
