Just because you can say it doesn't mean it makes sense

Baby spout out many sounds that we find cute but don't put any particular emphasis on. This is because we know the baby doesn't have any meaning behind most of those sounds (crying and laughing are obvious exceptions). Once we learn to speak we sometimes ask questions that don't make sense to adults. For instance, "What is fire made of?" or "Which is bigger, pow or caboom?"

In order to give an answer to any question we must first understand the meaning of all the words in the question. But here in lies the problem, some words may have a "meaning" but not a actual definition (such as "mind" which has a meaning to everyone, but don't ask two people to define it) or they have commonly misunderstood "meanings" (so common they wind up in the dictionary) but are very well defined (such as "force"). When the meanings get blurred with the definitions people can start to make nonsensical questions and conclusions.

If one asks, "Does Hell exist?" One must not only define Hell (not just use it's "meaning", is it a place, living condition etc...) but also define "existence" otherwise there are an infinite number of valid answers depending on the chosen "meaning." Clearly the question is no longer a question but an idea to be shaped. That's fine unless you try and reason with it!

One reason to ask questions is to learn but when ill-defined terms are used the questions lose all meaning and so does any answer and you go nowhere. How do I know this? Well this idea is part of the "realism" school of philosophy which is now usually called science which has achieved so much. The other schools are still in session but haven't produced a graduate yet, but they are unlikely to stop since they would then be forced to become scientists and we all know philosophers are wannabe scientist who are bad at math. Just kidding.

But next time you decide to talk or think about supposed questions like,"Does God exist?" or "What is a soul made of?" take a second to ask, "Are these well defined questions?"

Note: Some words that have very well defined meanings for a realist (but the meanings are terribly distorted) are: energy, force, existence, matter, reality and interaction.