Patterns of Randomness

I envision a future post speculating on whether anything is truly random, but I'll leave that for another day. The issue today is this - within my "random" ruminations, you will almost certainly begin to see patterns develop. One such pattern is the asking of questions.

I ask questions for several reason. First, it is an attempt, in this disconnected world, to engage in dialog. You are welcomed, even encouraged, to place your responses in a comment. If you have questions of your own, I will do my best to respond to those. (Unfortunately, my ability to do so is limited by available time. My blog - indeed all my writing - is currently a hobby, not my full-time career.)

Secondly, I'm genuinely curious. I don't know all the answers, so I ask questions. I'm certain there is someone out there who has an answer for every question I can perceive. (Whether the person or persons with the answer to my question actually reads my blog is a different matter altogether.)

Finally, I fully believe the following quote...

"Questions make people think; answers make people question."  -- Author Unknown

I first heard this (or something similar) around the time I was in high school. At that age many of us focused on the latter half of the quotation. For every answer we received, we had questions - most commonly "Why?" or "Why not?" Occasionally the question was "How?"

In college, I had a professor whose standard response to most student questions was "Well, what do you think?" Many students were frustrated by this approach, but eventually we realized an important lesson. To truly appreciate some lessons we have to think through them ourselves. Far less is learned and the learning doesn't last if we simply memorize an answer provided by someone else. Much more is learned when we are forced (or allowed) to think it through on our own. We then see it as a process and can repeat the process to get an answer even when our memory fails. Our professor wasn't unwilling to provide an answer, he was simply unwilling to deprive us of the learning experience.

Think of it this way... If I simply write a bunch of information and never ask a question, isn't it human nature to begin asking questions? What do you know about it? What's your experience or expertise? Why should I care what you have to say? On the other hand, if I ask you a question or allow you to ask me a question, then I can provide information that's useful or at least interesting to you.

So, what do you think? Are you more inclined to ponder a question or an answer?

Questions: Is anything truly random? Do limited patterns imply lack of randomness in the whole? Does anyone know the author of the above quote?

By the way, the answer to "What do I know?" is "I know a little about a lot and a lot about very little."