A Gigantic List of Unanswerable Questions That’ll Really Make You Think

When you ask a question, you expect there to be an answer. But what if there isn’t one? Sometimes the best questions are the ones you just can’t solve. They make you think, expand your mind, and reveal more about the world than you might think. That’s why we’ve compiled the most compelling, deep, interesting, silly, personal, ethical, scientific questions and more. Are you ready to tie your brain into knots?

Tough Questions with No Answers

What’s the best way to live a life?
Is love real?
Do we really have free will, or is everything instinct or fate?
What does “beauty” actually mean?
Is “objectivity” real?
What happens after you die?
What is consciousness, exactly?
Are humans a part of nature?

Section 1 of 9:

What is an unanswerable question?

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An unanswerable question is one with no clear or obvious solution. Sometimes they’re riddles, sometimes they’re profound and existential, and other times they’re just so silly that there’s no way to respond. Whatever the case, they’re the tricky questions that nag at your brain and keep you thinking about them day in and day out, trying to find an answer, even when you know there isn’t one.
- Unanswerable questions are great for exercising your brain, having fun with or growing closer to friends, or even exploring what it means to be alive.

Section 2 of 9:

Deep Questions

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These questions are meant to make you think about the meaning and nature of life and existence. They’ll blow your mind and make you space out as your ponder where you came from and why you’re here. Also, check out our article dedicated to deep questions.
- What is knowledge?^{[1]
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- If we were living in a simulation, would there be any way to know?
- Can you ever really understand someone completely?
- What’s the best way to live?
- If God can do anything, can he create a puzzle so hard that not even he could solve it?
- What even is “love?” Is love real? Or is it just chemicals? Does it matter?
- Do we actually have free will?
- Is fate or destiny real?
- Are humans a part of nature? Above it?
- Is how we see things the way things really are?
- What is beauty? Do animals experience beauty?
- Is it possible to be objective about anything?
- We (kind of) know what “something” is, but what is nothing?
- Is there such a thing as an “original” work of art?
- Is “truth” real?
- If something is completely forgotten by everything and everyone, did it ever exist?
- Is “the future” real? Or is there only the present and the past?
- What is “human nature?”
- Is life fair? Should it be?
- If souls are real, what are they made of?
- If you replaced a ship piece by piece, at what point does it stop being the same ship?

Section 3 of 9:

Silly Questions

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These funny questions are meant to make you laugh and giggle. They’re nonsensical, dumb, or just straight-up stupid, but they’re still fun to think about!
- Is a hotdog a kind of sandwich? Is a panini? A dumpling?
- Is cereal a soup? Is hot cocoa with marshmallows in it a soup?
- If we all walked on our hands, what would shoes look like?
- Some people can clap with one hand (things get floppy), but does that count as clapping?
- In the word “scent,” is the S or the C making the sound?
- If you put more toppings on top of a sandwich, then capped it off with bread, is it a single sandwich, or 2 sandwiches on top of each other?
- Do sloths experience time more slowly? Do they think everything around them is just going super fast?
- When a cyclops blinks, is it actually winking?
- If you hit yourself and get hurt, are you strong or are you weak?
- Do fish see the air the same way we see the ocean?
- Why do we say “The sky’s the limit?” if there’s infinite space above the sky? Wouldn’t that be a super low limit?
- What the heck was the first guy to milk a cow thinking?
- Why do we bake cookies but cook bacon?
- How do bald people know where to stop washing their faces?
- If you try to fail and succeed in your goal, then did you fail or succeed?
- If you hate haters, are you also a hater?
- Why do noses run, but feet stink?

Section 4 of 9:

Personal Questions

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These questions help you learn more about yourself. What are your values? What do you believe and why? What sort of person are you? Get ready to dive deep down into yourself.
- What happens after you die?
- Am I the best version of myself?
- What does the best version of myself look like?
- Am I real? How can I know?
- What is “me?”
- Does my life have meaning? Does anyone’s?
- Is “happy” the most important thing I could be?
- Are you really in control of your own life? To what degree?
- Is time I enjoy wasting really time wasted?
- Would you be able to identify your own face by touch alone?

Section 5 of 9:

Interesting Questions

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These questions aren’t really important, and they probably won’t change your life, but they’ll definitely get the conversation going at a party! When you’re done, check out our list of the toughest questions ever.
- When does a pebble become a rock? When does a rock become a boulder?
- What would happen if Pinocchio said, “My nose is about to grow?”
- Does everyone see colors the same way?
- Does everyone hear the same sounds?
- Can you ever really trust a memory?
- What language would someone who knows no language think in?
- What would happen if you went back in time to before time existed?
- What was the biggest human advancement of human history so far?
- Is money necessary?
- Should you actually need a license to “drive” a self-driving car?
- If you dug a hole straight through the center of the earth and jumped in, at what point would you stop falling and start floating?
- Caterpillars dissolve in their cocoons, so do they know what’s happening?^{[2]
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- If a group of humans went and lived on another planet for a million years then came back, would they still be considered human?
- What came first, the chicken or the egg?
- Was math discovered or invented?
- Can you ever really expect the unexpected?
- Does every question need an answer? Or is a question without an answer not actually a question?

Section 6 of 9:

Ethical Questions

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These questions are impossible choices. You might choose one or the other, but you’ll never be 100% correct. What would you sacrifice and why?
- There’s a train coming down the tracks. One person is tied to the current tracks, and 5 people are tied to the alternate tracks. Would you pull a switch to save the 1 person, put kill the 5?
- What’s the best way to run a government?
- If you accidentally help a bank robber, are you also responsible for the crime?
- If you found your spouse and their secret lover were both grievously wounded in a car crash and you had to save only one, who would it be?
- Is it wrong to “pull the plug” on a coma patient who will never, ever recover?
- Would it be wrong to grow human clones who have no brains to harvest their other organs?
- What would it take for robots to be considered people?
- Is it wrong to edit a fetus’ genes to make it “better?”^{[3]
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- Do animals deserve the same rights as humans? Why or why not?
- Do good and evil exist? Or are they just human ideas?
- Are borders between countries necessary?
- Are prisons necessary?
- Is poverty inevitable?
- Is there such a thing as a meritocracy?
- Do people naturally act worse when they’re anonymous?
- Should humans ever be allowed to live forever?
- Is it ever ethical to hire out your child to make money, like with child actors?
- If killing is wrong, why do animals do it every day?
- Is monogamy really the most natural way to do romance?

Section 7 of 9:

Surprising Questions

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These are questions you’ve probably never even imagined. They might not make much sense at first, but there are untold secrets hiding within them, if you’re brave enough to mull them over.
- What does the wind taste like?
- Do you think birds have best friends?
- What happens to your lap when you stand up?
- What’s the color of a mirror?
- Why is a raven like a writing desk?^{[4]
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- How many angels could dance on the head of a pin?
- Why are cars built to go faster than even the highest speed limits?
- If it takes energy to think a thought, then are thoughts actually tangible things?
- Should we abolish time?

Section 8 of 9:

Science Questions

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These are questions about physics, time, and other scientific topics that might one day have answers, but not yet. While the pros do their research, the rest of us can make our own theories.
- How did the universe begin?^{[5]
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- Are we the only intelligent life in the universe?
- What makes us human, and not animals?
- Why do we dream?
- Are there alternate universes?
- Will AI ever replace us?
- What’s on the other side of a black hole?
- What is consciousness and where does it come from?
- Is it possible for anything to be infinite? Even the universe?
- Does time really only go in one direction? Does time exist? What’s at the “end” of time?
- Can we ever really know what the smallest building block of the universe is?
- What’s outside the observable universe?
- What’s more important: Nature or nurture?
- Are ghosts real?
- How does the brain convert chemicals to thoughts and feelings?

Section 9 of 9:

Answering Unanswerable Questions

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Keep your mind open and embrace the open-endedness. The point of unanswerable questions isn’t to crack the code or to be the first person to ever find an answer. The answer is to challenge your mind and expand your thinking. Maybe you find an answer, maybe you don’t. That’s okay. What matters is that you’ve thought about something you’ve never thought of before!
- If you’re with friends, talk about the questions to learn more about how they think and why.
- A funny or silly answer can be fun, but don’t just try to dismiss the question with a joke. That defeats the purpose.