E. Well that depends on the criteria you are using.
P. What criteria should we be using?
E. What are you trying do?
P. Trying to figure out whether A is better than B.
E. Why? Is there a problem?
P. Yes. We are asking if there is a way to tell if A is better than B.
E. There is a way.
P. What is it then?
E. First, why you care whether A is better than B?
P. We are trying to find the meaning of the question, Which is better, A or B?
E. Why are you trying to find meaning to the question?
P. Because it is important to know the meaning of things.
E. Doesn't it mean that you've got these two things, A and B and one of them is not as good as the other and you want to know which?
P. Yes
E. Well then that's what your question means. So what's your problem?
P. Look, you said that there is a way to tell if A is better than B?
E. Sure.
P. Well what is it?
E. You got these two things, right?
P. Right
E. What are you going to use them for?
P. We are going to use them as hypothetical examples.
E. Is there any difference between them?
P. One of them is A and the other is B.
E. Is one of them more hypothetical than the other?
P. No, they are both hypothetical.
E. Is one of them more of an example than the other.
P. No, they are both representative.
E. Representative of what?
P. Of whatever they are an example of.
E. Well what are they an example of?
P. Of things that can be compared.
E. Why are you comparing them?
P. To see if one of them is better.
E. OK. You got these two things. One of them is A and the other is B. Right?
P. Yes
E. Is there any other difference between them?
P. No
E. Well if the only difference between them is that one of them is A and the other is B, they are not very good examples of things that can be compared.
P. Yes they are, because we have been able to isolate the question to one variable.
E. Good point. ... So what is there about this A thing that would make it better than the B thing?
P. It depends on what criteria is being used.
E. Well what criteria should be used to determine whether an A thing is a better hypothetical example than a B thing?
P. What is it being an example of?
E. Of something that can be compared with something else.