low_delta | 3 questions meme

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snagged from seamusd

Ask me three questions and I won't answer them.

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1. Good question.
2. Also a good question.
3. Bad question.

Is a judgement of the value of a question a form of answer?
Does the second answer being effectively the same as the first mean there is only one answer, or are there really two?
Who wrote Beethoven's Fifth Symphony?

1. How can you have both?
2. The number of answers in not important.
3. Why do you ask?

I don't understand. How can you have both what?

Okay, I'll answer this one. For me to say "good question," means one of two things. Either that I think you came up with a question of high quality, or that I don't know the answer. Actually, the two are related, but unless you know the answer, you may have difficulty ascertaining the quality of the question (unless you feel that any question to which you don't know the answer is a good one).

Which brings us back to your current question. I read it and responded rather quickly, so I didn't get it quite right, which resulted in your confusion. You asked, "Is a judgement of the value of a question a form of answer?" If I were using the phrase "good question" as an indication that I did not know the answer, I would have been answering your question. But I was, in fact, offering my opinion of the question. I don't believe I could be using the phrase to stand for both types of answer. Does that make sense?

Now, having said all that, and thought some more, I feel that one could, in fact, feel that a question for which he did not have an answer was a good question.