What question(s) have no right answer?

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by wegs, Jul 15, 2021.

  1. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    What comes to your mind?
     
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  3. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    Is it better to rent or to buy?

    Are your thoughts liberal or conservative?

    What is the best color?

    Is there life beyond Earth?

    Is Tampa nice or seedy?
     
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  5. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    The probability for that is very high and will be answered someday as our knowledge of the universe and possible ways for the abiogenesis of life grows.
     
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  7. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    The list of possibilities is endless....
     
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  8. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    But as of right now, is there a right or wrong answer? Is there such a thing as a non-answer answer that ever seems sufficient?
     
  9. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    "probably" ?
     
  10. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Lol - good “answer.”

    Everything is up for questioning/debate, until it isn’t. I remember a few years back on here, someone asked if 2+2 always equals 4, and the answers varied.
     
  11. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    I agree but it's hard to speak in terms of probabilities with a known case of 1. It's also hard to describe that question in common meaningful terms. It's possible that life is everywhere but that it is primitive as it was on Earth for most of our history.

    It's possible that it's still early and we are it. It's possible that advanced life has existed but currently we are it. It's possible that it's fairly well developed but limited to something like whales in the oceans.

    What people generally are envisioning is other civilizations like the human civilizations found on Earth over the last million years or less. It's possible that isn't the way it commonly develops.

    There are reasonable scenarios for almost any position you want to take on this subject.
     
  12. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Point taken. But according to Robert Hazen, the earth is just an average planet with "sufficient" resources "necessary" for abiogenesis. It is by no means unique in the universe.

    Abiogenesis, biology
    Kara Rogers is the senior editor of biomedical sciences at Encyclopædia Britannica, where she oversees a range of content from medicine and genetics to microorganisms. She joined Britannica in 2006 and...

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    archaea; Yellowstone National Park
    Archaea, such as those found at Midway Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, are primitive prokaryotes capable of thriving in extreme environments with conditions similar to those that may have existed billions of years ago on early Earth, when life is thought to have arisen from nonlife.
    © Gary718 /Shutterstock.com
    The Oparin-Haldane theory
    In the 1920s British scientist J.B.S. Haldane and Russian biochemist Aleksandr Oparin independently set forth similar ideas concerning the conditions required for the origin of life on Earth. Both believed that organic molecules could be formed from abiogenic materials in the presence of an external energy source (e.g., ultraviolet radiation) and that the primitive atmosphere was reducing (having very low amounts of free oxygen) and contained ammonia
    and water vapour, among other gases. [/quote]
    https://www.britannica.com/science/abiogenesis

    The Science of Abiogenesis has advanced drastically, since these early speculations.

    Robert Hazen of the Carnegie Institute for Science has extensively written and presented many lectures on the subject, accompanied by much evidence, including evidence that biochemistry already happens in cosmic clouds where radiation causes the formation of complex carbon-based biomolecules.

    Cosmic Carbon Chemistry: From the Interstellar Medium to the Early Earth

    Abstract

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2982172/
     
  13. river

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    To OP . NONE .
     
  14. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    It's not my thread and I am answering a direct question. If the question is off-topic then my answer will also be OT.
     
  15. river

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    There is No question we have no right to answer .
     
  16. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    You are misinterpreting the question!!!!!!! Read it again and pay attention this time.
     
  17. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    As the thread unfolds, therein lies the answer to my OP.

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    A few replies and all of the answers are somewhat equally valuable, even if none of them are “right” or “wrong.”

    The purpose of this thread is somewhat of an experiment to see if we decide what’s right or wrong based on our own bias towards either.
     
  18. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Rather than right or wrong perhaps correct or incorrect accurate?

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  19. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    Aren't "correct or incorrect" in this case just synonyms for "right or wrong"? I don't get what point you are trying to make?
     
  20. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    ''Right'' or ''wrong'' can be subjective, whereas ''incorrect'' or ''correct'' seem to be used when we're dealing with facts. Opinions can be based on facts, but not always. Can there be right or wrong opinions? I guess, depending on how one arrives at a certain opinion.
     
  21. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    I'm thinking more along the lines of these definitions

    Right
    morally good, justified, or acceptable.

    Correct
    free from error; in accordance with fact or truth

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  22. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    I think they're just synonyms.

    2+2=4. That's right isn't it? Correct me if I'm wrong.

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  23. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Unless we're talking about abstract algebra or something...that's correct.

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    However, it's an equation that has somehow become the poster child of objective truth, when really it's too simplistic.
     

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