You know the old adage about questions:
“There is no such thing as a dumb question.”
Well, sometimes old adages carry wisdom. And the Idea of Ideas brings process to that wisdom.
If a question is about the grand rational framework, it’s empirical, rational, or irrational. If it’s about a speculative framework or uses a false presupposition, it’s irrational. The answer itself is different. Answers are about coherence and truth within a framework. That’s different than empirical and rational truth.
The grand rational framework represents our current understanding of reality. Questions about it fall into three categories. Empirical questions clarify the material world directly. Rational questions clarify indirectly. Irrational do neither, but speculative ideas are the the wellspring of future truth, and the disproven clarifies the boundaries of knowledge. The question “Does life exist on Europa?” is speculative without necessarily assuming anything false. “When did elephants begin flying?” contains a false presupposition.
A speculative framework is a framework that includes unvalidated empirical claims, lacks coherence, or contains disproven empirical implications held as true. Think fiction, unproven theories, the currently unknown, and the unknowable. Questions about speculative frameworks are irrational. They have not earned empirical or rational truth status.
For example: “Was Darth Vader Luke Skywalker’s father?” is an irrational question, sure, but within the fictional story it is logically true. To clarify, take: “Do the Star Wars films establish that Vader was Luke’s father?” That’s about reality, it’s an empirical film question with a rationally true answer.
