COMPLEXITY VERSUS UNCERTAINTY: THE DILEMMA OF INERT MATTER, LIVING MATTER AND CULTURED MATTER

Contrary to what one might think, knowledge is not gained as one gleans the answers, but rather as one searches for the questions. In any proper construction of scientifi c knowledge, the answer precedes the question. A thinker, indeed, is someone who thinks up questions. The reality of this world takes care of the answers. And so perhaps the greatest of all questions is this:

If nature is the answer, what is the question?

What disturbs us about the world are the answers with which it confuses and astonishes us in our everyday life. Questions serve to address these concerns, reduce them, classify them and communicate them. To come to the realisation that two answers belong to a single question, is the equivalent of winning a point of scientific intelligibility. Understanding is always related to the task of compressing a raft of answers into a common essence —which is precisely the question to which they provide the answer. The greater the mass of answers to a question, the more important the question is and the more knowledge it provides.