Mr Blottisham entered the Senior Common Room carrying a notebook filled with numbered questions.
Professor Quillibrace glanced up.
"You appear organised."
"I've become methodical."
"How alarming."
"I've discovered that the secret of clear thinking is asking the right questions."
Miss Stray smiled.
"A most encouraging beginning."
"I've written them all down."
"All of them?"
"The important ones."
Professor Quillibrace accepted the notebook.
He turned several pages in silence.
"This is an ambitious list."
"It covers everything."
"I notice Question Seven."
"What about it?"
"'What is intelligence?'"
"A fundamental enquiry."
"Certainly."
"And Question Eight follows immediately afterwards."
"'Can machines possess it?'"
"Exactly."
Quillibrace closed the notebook and returned it.
"I'm curious."
"About what?"
"What happens if neither question is the interesting one?"
Blottisham frowned.
"Then I've numbered them incorrectly."
Miss Stray laughed.
"I don't think that's quite what he means."
"No?"
Professor Quillibrace leaned back.
"Have you ever begun investigating one thing..."
"...yes?"
"...and discovered something entirely different?"
"Frequently."
"So your original question disappeared."
"It was answered."
"Was it?"
Blottisham hesitated.
"Sometimes."
"And sometimes?"
"It simply..."
He searched for the phrase.
"...ceased to matter."
The room became quietly attentive.
Miss Stray rested her notebook on her knee.
"I've often noticed that while teaching."
"In what sense?" asked Quillibrace.
"A student asks a perfectly sensible question."
"Naturally."
"I begin answering it."
"And?"
"Halfway through I realise they should have asked something else."
Professor Quillibrace nodded.
"The finest tutorials often proceed in precisely that fashion."
Blottisham looked puzzled.
"Isn't that rather frustrating?"
"For whom?"
"The student."
Miss Stray smiled.
"Not if the second question is better than the first."
Blottisham looked unconvinced.
"I've always regarded questions as fixed."
Quillibrace raised an eyebrow.
"Like paving stones?"
"Something of the sort."
"I wonder."
He wandered towards the window.
"How was penicillin discovered?"
"By accident."
"The microwave?"
"I believe so."
"X-rays?"
"The same."
"So scientific discovery..."
He turned.
"...has a curious habit of wandering away from its original intentions."
Blottisham nodded slowly.
"I hadn't connected those examples."
"Most discoveries refuse to respect our plans."
Outside, a gardener was attempting to wheel a barrow across the damp lawn.
The wheel promptly found a rut invisible from the window.
Miss Stray watched him alter course.
"There."
Quillibrace smiled.
"An illustration."
"Of what?"
"He intended one route."
"The ground suggested another."
"The destination remains the same."
"Perhaps."
"But the path has changed."
Blottisham looked thoughtful.
"I see."
"Do you?"
"I'm not sure."
"Excellent."
Another comfortable silence followed.
Eventually Miss Stray spoke again.
"I've also noticed something about conversations."
"What is that?"
"The best ones don't simply answer questions."
"No?"
"They produce better ones."
Professor Quillibrace looked quietly pleased.
"I've long suspected as much."
Blottisham frowned.
"Surely answers are the objective."
"Sometimes."
"But suppose the answer reveals a hidden assumption."
"Then one asks another question."
"And if that question reveals another distinction?"
"One asks another."
"And another."
"Yes."
"So what is the conversation really producing?"
Blottisham looked into the fire.
"...questions."
"Better questions."
"I think so."
The room fell silent again.
Outside, the gardener had abandoned the original path entirely.
The barrow now approached its destination from the opposite direction.
Miss Stray watched with quiet amusement.
"It rather resembles exploration."
"In what way?" asked Blottisham.
"You don't merely travel."
"You discover the country."
Professor Quillibrace nodded.
"And the map changes."
Blottisham looked puzzled.
"I thought maps were fixed."
"So did the explorers."
Another pause.
Then Blottisham spoke almost hesitantly.
"I've been using one of these conversational systems rather a lot."
Neither of the others appeared surprised.
"I ask a question."
"And?"
"It answers."
"As expected."
"But then..."
He looked faintly embarrassed.
"...I realise I should have asked something different."
Miss Stray smiled.
"So you ask again."
"Yes."
"And again."
"Yes."
"And eventually?"
"I've forgotten what I originally wanted to know."
Professor Quillibrace looked at him over the rim of his spectacles.
"Disappointing?"
Blottisham considered.
"No."
"Interesting?"
"Very."
"What have you been doing all that time?"
"I thought I was looking for answers."
"And now?"
He took rather longer over the reply.
"I think..."
"...yes?"
"...I've been learning how to ask."
No one spoke.
The sentence seemed unexpectedly complete.
Outside, the gardener finally reached the flowerbeds.
The route bore almost no resemblance to the one with which he had begun.
Yet he appeared perfectly satisfied.
Miss Stray watched him for a moment before speaking.
"Perhaps that is always the way."
"What is?"
"Good thinking."
Professor Quillibrace looked towards the window.
"It rarely arrives where it intended."
He turned back towards the room.
"But it very often arrives somewhere worth visiting."
The college clock began to strike the hour.
Neither Blottisham nor Miss Stray moved.
After a while Blottisham quietly closed the notebook containing his carefully numbered questions.
He did not cross any of them out.
He merely turned to a blank page.
At the top, he wrote only a single sentence.
What have I forgotten to ask?
Professor Quillibrace noticed.
He said nothing.
There seemed very little to improve.
No comments:
Post a Comment