Are questions unnatural?

Question

Is the act of questioning something only human beings do? Do rabbits ask "when" their next meal will come from? Do flies ask "why" a spider is devouring them? Do birds wonder "where" they are when they are flying about? Do bears ask "how" to climb a tree to get the honey? Do white corpuscles question "what" it is they are devouring?

Is it unnatural or even silly to ask questions at all? We humans have higher brain functions, something that separates us from other creatures. It would seem that this gives us an extraordinary perspective on the universe, and thus this need to ask questions about, well, everything!

But is it possible that the rest of the Wild Kingdom has it right? Why bother asking questions at all? Do you see the irony in all the questions I've asked? :)

Answer 1

I think that asking questions is natural, it's the part where we expect there to be simple, coherent, logical answers for everything that seems wholly unnatural to me. The universe isn't always a place of neat and well defined edges and boundaries and often an answer will only make sense in context and will vary depending on how you look at the world.

Also I think it's kinda pointless to ask what animals think, how can we ever know without being that animal? Certainly though they seem to display a fair amount of curiousity and I'm of the opinion that the difference between them and us is a difference of degree rather than kind... so perhaps they do ask questions, but we'll never know?

Answer 2

Mr. Allen, I know there is a deeper point you are trying to emphasis other than the obvous. but the very fact that you are asking, emphasises the obvious. and the rabbit is busy avoiding being a meal, the fly is paralyzed, birds do now where they are going, at least some ducks and geese?.!!.whew, and the pope is catholic, (regarding the bear) maybe that covers the corpuscles part also,silly, compared to what, this yanswer?, second paragraph, you were lost also buddy, and as far as the wild kingdom having it rite, well, if you want to chase the rabbit for dinner and hope the bird can deliver mail! and live with bear!, I;ll ask what button to press to make some change or what button to press to turn off the security cameras. no questions are not unnatural, now a "yask" this is very weird and loaded with multiple ..yasks!! i think i covered most, and yes there is irony in you yask. But is there iron in your word? ...??

Answer 3

Firstly it cannot be unnatural to ask questions, because anything with is not natural cannot be done.
I do not think other animals think in words, they see danger, recognize danger and take what evasive action they can. They see, or smell food, and they work out how to get the food.
We made an obstacle course for ants which were coming into our house. We put honey where they could only reach it by climbing up a pencel, across a length of thin thread, and through various obstacles, they had to go away from the honey to get to it. They found their way to the honey, if humans had done that we would say they asked themselves the question and resolved it.
All the things which humans do are natural, because humans are part of nature living by the same rules. The human way of doing things is not better than that of other animals, but it works for humans.
You state we have higher brain functions, I would say we have more human brain functions, the brains of other creatures serve them perfectly, we judge 'higher' by how human it is. We cannot think like an ant, but an ants way of thinking is better for an ant than our way of thinking would be for ants.
Other creatures probably do not ask the questions, but they nevertheless find the solution.

Answer 4

questions come from curiosity, which all animals feel, curiosity is a natural instinct. we are the only species who can express it in words, but when a cat looks in a box, it is the physical expression of 'what's in there then?'
a pack of Meer cats out in the open, there will always be some of them stood up looking around, 'are we safe here?'
in many labs there are scientists who have taught Chimpanzees a limited vocab in sign lanuage. they don't ask Existentialist questions, but they do express curiosity. we are not alone in questioning.
and without questions, would we have found a way to make fire? would we have stepped out of the cave and built a home? civilisation is the child of curiosity. So is the resulting cat sat in the box.

kstarryeyed, words have a natural progression, a fridge is called a fridge because the word fridgid means cold. if you want to ask a questions about words then maybe you should take notice of how the english language is constantly borrowing from other languages. all words have a flow. they're not random. watch a movie with subtitles in another language sometime and read them, you see how many french, german, greek and italian words that our language has either evolved from, or other languages we've stolen from, that is what is so great about the english language, it's always expanding and evolving.
as for the genisis of the spoken word, we'll never know without a time machine.

Answer 5

How do we know animals don't ask questions? They're just not verbal ones. Letting a question be a requested exchange of information known only to one party...

Then a male dog sniffing a female dog is essentially saying "Are you ready to jump on one leg and bump uglies?". The females scent provides the answer (not in a direct response to the question though).

I wouldn't be surprised if higher animals could ask eachother something like "where is the food?". Monkeys learning how to use tools probably functions in a similar fashion. Monkey A sticks the reed in the termite hole and quizzically looks at Monkey B. Monkey B is like "Nah, Dawg, you got it all wrong. Do it like this".

I'd have to actually look into science literature to find out if I'm just BSing, but it seems perfectly reasonable that information exchange occurs in any animal capable of communication.

Answer 6

Most animals have no opportunity or reason to question the origin of things. However they ask and find answers. When a predator hears a strange vice... "Where does it come from?".. asks he since his pray is there, so he must find the origin of the voice in order to survive. It is not because they are animals and we are humans, since we are animals as well. To ask and answer questions concerning WHY, requires an incredible brainpower and today, only human beings have a brain advanced enough to create, analyze and recreate thoughts or objects on this level.

Answer 7

Contentment that is known to human mind as a quality is innate in the general nature of all things non-human. If we humanly personify a stone and give it a purpose than that purpose would be just to be, shapes forms, textures and location is irrelevant for a thing to be a stone; they come in countless different shapes, sizes and colours. Then if we humanly consider the purpose of a tree, for instance, then the purpose of a tree is not only to exist but also to grow, and spread across land. These are the things classed into the general nature of all things in existence. The there is human nature, partly general and partly specific. The purpose in human nature is to exist and thrive in a best possible way. This search for the best is the source of all our questioning.

All other things in nature have reached their zenith in existence for all things the way to think is the way to be. There is no question of I thinking this is better than that, or if I do this that things might happen. But human beings do as if they are displace, or cast away from their home, far off into a labyrinth of many treacherous paths in mingling.

Questioning is not only natural in human mind but also essential, as each question has in its structures hidden the answer that that question is a realistic representation of. This is because the entire human life comes to human mind as question if we think about it, as question that in fact is an answer we find when we live through life.

Answer 8

Well from my perspective, humans themselves are natural, thus anything we do is also natural. We often think of our species as somehow separate from nature, but our differences from the lower animals are only by degree. While we do possess the ability to think rationally and to question, a large number of humans are still driven primarily by their emotions, i.e. by instinct.

BTW while we possess the language to enunciate our questions, many animals nonetheless still have an innate sense of curiosity. Animals question, they just don't ASK their questions.

Answer 9

What you've said is really interesting. I think its natural for humans to ask questions, because as we do not have to follow our instincts, we have to ask questions about our choices so that we can decide what to do. Sometimes I think I should listen to my instincts a lot more though, because most of the time I go against my instincts and later decide it would have been much better if I'd followed them.

Answer 10

The 'trouble-maker' is the self-awareness within !
Humans are destined to exercise the choice of 'life' positive or negative actions, thoughts etc consciously every living moment. That is why we 'form' certain traditions, rules, ethics, etc .......for not only just the self-preservation, but to ensure optimum utilisation of our life-span, productively, progressively etc...
Again, it is this self awareness that is the key to the "Ultimate", the perception beyond sensory level, a stage where not just the questions, the questioner too dissolves conclusively !