Which is more important Queestion or Answer ?

A passage taken from a speech made by Emrehan Halici

Let me begin with "questions"... or even better "questions and answers". These two are certainly related notions. You are provacated by questions to go into a passionate search for an answer. They are in no sense separate. Yet, if you ask which is the most important, questions or answers, our vote would directly be on the side of the former option without any hesitation. A question is like a challenge or even a seductive claim, of which it is hardly possible to stay indifferent to. An answer, quite the opposite, is a defence strategy that attempts to protect your unity in a passive way. You remain passive even when you are ready to take this duel against the question: An answer removes the sense of freedom and all the vividness that a question might potentially possess.

Then, what is it that is so important in an answer? The importance of an answer lies in this passionate search itself, one that is mostly about the experience of "looking for" rather than simply finding what it might be. Passion is there as long as you keep searching. It is over, once the answer is found.

Moreover, the answer that you have found may not always keep its soundness as it once appeared at the beginning. An answer to a particular question can loose its strength depending on location and time as well as on scientific-technological developments.

Put in an analogous way, a question is much like a wide-dimensional universe suggesting full diversity, whereas an answer is simply a target point that is being focussed upon. The endless number of question marks creates this mysterious universe. Yet despite the whole attraction of this so-called mystery, we are at times required not only to provide straight forward answers but to also provide solutions.

I mentioned earlier how an answer removes the sense of freedom a question suggests. Solutions have a much stronger effect. They completely erase the question from the surface and consequently establish an end to it.

An answer and solution is the final destination for questions. At most times, passengers do not pause at other stops, and instead jump to this final destination without making the most out of their journey. However, those who enjoy the adventure that is found along the deep corridors of their brain do not have the intention of setting out on a journey where the final desination is clearly visible to them. And they are simply right.

In fact, it is no more than these adventurous dreams and fantasies that lie behind the developments and successes in those subjects such as science, technology and art.

Emrehan HALICI