A Stupid Question

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Ive always wondered exactly WHAT people mean(objectively) when they say that a question is "Stupid". AFAICT there is no consensus as to the object criteria of what the definition of a stupid question is; so calling a question stupid is really just a matter of opinion.Discuss..........

Last edited by Haliphron on 27 Feb 2009, 2:13 pm, edited 2 times in total.

At first a question which tries to ask something very obvious. Example: There is a skeleton and anyone would ask "Is he dead?"

One could argue that a question that is obviously missing a word or two might be defined as 'stupid', or at the very least, stupidly written...

seconded. there's a word or two missing there, in your OP it's like you've edited but not noticed your post doesn't 'scan' well, so the meaning is not clear. I do that too sometimes.

Is it sposed to be "I've always just" WONDERED?

Then there's 'what the definition of a stupid question as so calling a question stupid...."

not really sure what's word/s are missing there but something is.

The way I differently interpreted my thoughts has mostly been miss understood, so I can try and communicate in a way that does not work for me or look stupid in the others uneducated feeling eyes!! !

i looked for what that means and i can not find it. is it an ancronym?



does A.F.A.I.C.T mean "as far as i can tell"
anyway, there is no such thing as a stupid question.
questions are not living and do not have intelligence.

there is such a thing as a question asked by a stupid person though.

once (in a normal high school) a testosteronous old teacher was bellowing at the class about how he was shot in the chest in the vietnam war. i asked "did you die"? that was a stupid question because i got the stick for it.

if you were in a 747 that was out of control and everyone on board was unconscious but you, and you were in the cockpit on the radio to ATC, a stupid question may be "what type of plastic is used in the composition of this dash board ?".

a stupid question is a question who's answer provides no solution to anything relevant to what is being inquired about.

One must be careful about evaluating questions. Many questions to which the answer seemed obvious have opened areas for new ways to see the universe that people never conceived before. It is those things that people take for granted as being absolutely clear, when questioned, that can reveal total misconceptions about the basic nature of things. Currently the investigation od entangled particles indicates that some strange effects occur that are absolutely out of sync with common sense.

FIXED. So now you can take the above words and shove 'em up yer Mangina!

I haven't got one of those.

I've asked few questions that've been called stupid here so.....

You're not very bright now are you?

Well hey, he could just think you're the one who actually isn't bright and decided to clarify it for the sake of fact. What if you really did think he had a mangina?

aside from belaboring the obvious; it's also a form of attack to belittle someone who does not have your specialized knowledge...

I think it is a matter of intent and interpretation, the issue is about the message as intended to be is correctly or not interpreted by the receiver, especially if it is ambigous as I believe it can be in this case, so the question about asking if a skeleton is dead, can indeed have more than one single interpretation, a literal materialistic interpretation would be one, a metaphorical would be another, a position of a certain belief system another one and so on, and given that the receiver would tend to be biased towards a position, as it seems to come naturally very often, he will interpret the subject according to it, therefore finding it stupid is still subjective in this case and as Haliphron said, just a matter of opinion.

If the circumstances in which that question is asked seems that obvious which would be unnecesary to ask, first we should consider what leads to ask that question, I mean people often do this when they are surprised to what they find, and it will be like a psychological reaction towards something, a reaction from the shock of what they see or something similar, and even if that isn't the case, classifing that as stupid is still subjective, and wether the question is made, it wouldn't lead to nothing which making it somehow of a big deal or a fuss about it would be unnecessary as well. And labeling the question as "stupid" lacks of any objective meaning, I mean, the word stupid as commonly used does not denote pure and honest analysis, does it? and becomes mostly a mere reaction towards something in which the individual finds uncomfortable, annoying or the like.