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There are certain things that are so seemingly natural and obvious that it is difficult to stop and investigate them with a straight face. Even when faced with the question we find ourselves giving answers that really barely go beyond begging the question. In fact, it is rare to see anyone even get to the point of raising the question in the first place. But doing so can start one on a path that will eventually expose us to things that challenge some of our most cherish beliefs.

So in that spirit I would like to report that I once ask my mother the following question:

1) "Why is it that I cannot see you when I shut my eyes or turn the lights out?"


She had no answer other than an incredulous assertion that the reasons were obvious. Or at best things like "because you can't see without the lights on".

The question can be the starting point that leads to absurdities in her own religious/supernatural ideas.

I also once asked my cousin (A woman of 50+ years who holds advanced degrees and a manifestly high IQ) the following question:

2) "Why is sugar sweet?"
(I pursued things with more refined and often leading questions like "what constitutes the sweetness of sugar?" "Is it an intrinsic property of sugar?" "How, in detail, do I come to know about it?")

That question eventually uncovered some hidden assumptions on her part that also had consequences for her religious ideas.

Here are a couple other simple questions that can lead at least some people on a path of discovery:


3) "Why is gold yellowish as compared to silver?"
Amazingly this last question leads straight to a challenge to our intutitions about time and even free will.

4) "What facts about the world make memory possible?"

5) "When grampa dies, by what mechanism does his newly released spirit see the hospital room and all the colorful flowers from well wishers?" (Is there so much as a single photon in this story?) Indeed, by what mechanism does he see anything at all and is he, like us, limited to seeing only the surfaces of things and things not obscurred by other objects? Can he shut his eyes? (Obviously, this goes back to the first question).


I will end with a more familiar and light hearted question:

7) "Why are ghosts (or spirits) often seen wearing familiar clothes?"
There are many jokes in this one concerning great grampa's pants and shoes having themselves "given up the ghost".

One more:

Consider the following situation: John has aquired a taste for beer. He likes it now but didn't when he first tired it.

Which of the following best describes the situation?

a) The sensation or experienced flavor that John encounters when drinking beer now is actually different than when he first tried it. The very flavor has somehow changed for him through repeated exposure.

b) The sensation, that very flavor he experiences, has not changed at all. It is rather that he now enjoys that very flavor whereas once he did not. The flavor remains the same but his opinion of it has changed.