How do I answer an Unanswerable Question?

Many of life's great mysteries are mysterious simply because no one has found an answer for them -- yet. The aim in identifying and attempting to answer questions that most of the world would consider unanswerable is precisely what has driven scientists and researchers throughout history. Take, for example, symptoms of mental illness perceived in Biblical times: In his article called "A History of Madness," Neel Burton, MD, cites a situation in which an "evil spirit from the Lord" troubled King Saul after the slaughter of 85 priests at Nob. The verses go something like this:

But the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.

... 

And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.

- 1 Samuel 16.14, 16.23

Burton also writes,

"The fact that David [the David who slew Goliath - this is my clarification, not Dr. Burton's] used to play on his harp to make Saul better suggests that, even in antiquity, people believed that psychosis could be successfully treated."

How did the king's attendants come to this pragmatic conclusion? It's simple: Through observation and the implementation of information they already had.

It stands to reason that none of Saul's attendants knew anything about Generalized Anxiety, Post-Traumatic Stress, or any of the modern diagnoses related to witnessing or ordering the slaughter of dozens of people. Their only explanation for why Saul was so upset was that he had upset God by not following God's instructions to wipe out the Amalekites (this is in I Samuel 15, by the way). Of course, no one in this time period knew about the wonders of anti-depressants or communication therapies, either, so finding a pharmaco-treatment was out of the question. These people got excited by milk and honey, for crying out loud... The only things they knew were that 1) King Saul angered God and was perpetually upset about it; 2) David could play the harp really well; and 3) when David played, Saul calmed down. Maybe the harp was a lucky guess, and maybe it was the thirtieth attempt in a long list of attempts at calming the king... Regardless, I'm sure that having David around made the attendants' lives much easier.

In any case, the point is this: Whether we look into Biblical times, the Middle Ages, or today's Current Events report, we as people use the information (and information-gathering strategies) we have at hand to propose theories, develop hypotheses, and formulate experiments to test the limits of our own knowledge.

That's exactly what I aim to do. My methods may be traditional, but my conclusions most certainly will not. I intend to challenge the scope of the understood and socially accepted. I mean to explain the unexplainable and relate to the unrelatable. I will be using fairly credible research!

I hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and expect to be surprised.

I suggest you do the same. So gather up your knickers, strap on your helmets, and buckle up. It's about to get real.


"How do you answer the unanswerable question? With sarcasm. So f*ck you."

- Words of Wisdom from my Other Half