General Philosophy

Good Day! Philosophers here, I came up with an idea that what if a disease is just only in our minds.

Mans love affair with technology has left us with greater emptiness, suffering, loneliness than ever before. True these tools enable a greater population to exist on earth; but is that a plan for a greater tax base which feeds a more sinister technological development?. Today many people run the gauntlet of the world behaving like rats chasing invisible cheese pouring most of their fruits of labor into a machine which fosters a agenda of the clandestine few. Sadly many of the young are blind while in the search for recognition through cell phones and some of their peers have committed suicide and gun violence in cries for attention. America is so fat from choking on M…

All the details somehow connect to the big picture so that is all they care about. What is this persons downfall?

Aren't you sometimes tired of... eating and shitting? Of getting older? Of headaches, nausea and bad sleep? What if you could get a mechanical body, that could last forever. One that could imitate sex, eating and even using drugs. Would you say yes or no? And why?

Carl Sagan once argued about the improbability of aliens having visited Earth. He cited two main reasons: 1. the vast distances aliens would have to travel to get to Earth would be an almost insurmountable obstacle 2. the vast amount of time that separates civilizations during their rise and fall would make it unlikely that any intelligent civilizations would exist simultaneously On the other hand, Sagan has argued that he believes alien life is inevitable due to the vast numbers of planets and star systems that exist in the universe; he just doesn't think that intelligent beings have visited Earth, for the aforementioned reasons. I propose a coun…

Hi everyone, I just have a question about contradictions. Is there any proof that contradictions are not possible?

But then again, anything without truth is a waste of time. Take history. I see that there is no history section around here. Which is just as well. Because Napoleon said, "History is a set of lies agreed upon." And Tolstoy said, "History would be a wonderful thing. If it were only true." Much of history comes about through the winners of some conflict. As it is said, "History is written by the victors." Also, it is said, "In war, truth is the first casualty." For the winning side, it remains a casualty. I could tell you truths about history and back them up that would cause the paint on your walls to peal. But not here. I know this because I have been banned …

how we can determinate if somebody is stupid or smart?

Why are we more civilised than the ancient greeks?

Have you ever noticed that when 2 children disagree more often than not the parents will also agree with their child and against the other child despite normally not being involved in the dispute. Whilst we all like to think of ourselves as fair and just, our minds somehow have a way of overriding our rational thought process. As a parent we inherit a maternal/paternal instinct that will help us nurture and develop our relationship with our child however on the flip side of that point we also develop a natural bias towards our offspring. As society evolves it seems our biases are also evolving, if you compare the parenting techniques of…

In both real life and Internet dealings, I often hear people say things like "We humans are so insignificant in the grander scheme of things," or "How important could humanity possibly be? We're sooo arrogant, and yet the universe is soooo big!" It's almost become a cliché at this point, really -- and while it sounds good, or at least gives people philosophy points in social circles, it really isn't anything more complicated than a self-deprecating platitude. Here's a thought: What if our worth, our significance, depends upon something far less trivial than physical mass? I guess I don't get it; what does being relatively small have to do with the significance o…

Dreams are a complex existence, something we still don’t really understand the origins of. However almost everyone has had one at least once and knows the general nature that dreams take on. Dreams are not bound by the logics and rules that dictate reality, because they are devoid of reality. Dreams are devoid of the cause and effect flow of the natural world, with events occurring on the random with no preconceived reason for its occurrence. While we don’t know why dreams happen these are things about the nature of the dreams that can be observed within all of adventures within sleep. We also can bring to focus the most complex of these dreams, the Lucid Drea…

A thought experiment: Suppose I experience the day, the ups and downs, the same as anyone else, held in my ram memory; and I am still me, held in my operating system. But every day, when I wake up I forgot what I did yesterday. I think I would lose an important part of me, so my question is, what part and how important is it?

I'm curious how others would attempt to define evil. I think that some particularly abominable acts are commonsensically evil, however defining evil in more complicated terms (e.x. such as whether evil is an "entity" or sorts, or simply destructive behavior done by humans) is more difficult.

Hi First i'm not sure to understand if here we are allowed to share what we feel, what we think/believe, to discuss and discover established concepts, to go deeper and learn If not then sorry i will find some other forum, and will come here only to ask what was this and what was that, to obtain some Wikipedia links, and will keep the thinking part for somewhere else So, we are in the Philosophy category, seems to me it's related to thinking, sorry again if i didn't read the definition of philosophy before opening this thread I wanted to share this idea, which seems to me to be philosophical, and maybe adapted to discussion To decide …

It seems to me that that this question might be resolvable depending upon the response of an AI to something it has not been taught. For example I don't believe a human would have much trouble understanding this One of the earlist proposed uses for AI is as a robot driver. So what would such a driver's response be to the following

The forces of the mental realm apply to the physical realm also Implication 1: Kantianism, faith in humanity, and humanism can be turned into the force of truth, kindness, beauty, and understanding. With the equal and opposite reaction to each respective force being manipulation, violence, apathy, and greed. That is in the mental realm. The heart of goodness is kindness and beauty. The head of goodness is truth and understanding. The head of darkness is manipulation and apathy. The heart of darkness is violence and greed. Implication 2: In the physical realm, truth, kindness, beauty, and understanding are opposed by lies, fighting, ugliness, and stupidity…

Let's say there was a way to make a duplicate of yourself. Assume it's a perfect copy that is identical to you in every way, except that the copy is legally your slave/servant. It's easy enough to go through the process knowing you would have someone who always does your bidding, but it might be easy to forget that your copy is also you, with the same experiences and memories. The other you had expected to get a servant, only to realize that you had become the servant. A truly narcissistic personality would react very badly to this situation. To properly plan for the event you have to prepare yourself to not just be the master, but also the servant. Because b…

Was being able to travel to the moon worth the invention of nuclear weapons? What checks are there on scientific and technological advancement leading to dangerous scenarios.

I know this is frowned on, but I urge you listen to this. But if not, the fundamental arguments are as follows: Will Self, suggested that dog's are better bc dogs and humans have developed a true symbiosis, to an almost telepathic level. John Gray, suggested that cat's are better bc they aren't symbiotically attached, but choose to be with us, on the condition that we feed and house them, to their satisfaction. I'll be happy to try and explain the nuances of their relative position's, but they do it more eloquently than I can.

Hi I've betrayed someone 15 years ago. For a long time, i didn't think about it. Now i've stopped drugs, it came back, and it kinda burns me everyday. I have the possibility to send a message to the person, to apologize. But wouldn't that be too late? Wouldn't that be egoist? Like just to feel better? Or maybe I don't know what a proper apology is? Should I just keep living with it? Maybe it's the price to pay. But, I was thinking, if apologizing would be positive for both sides, then I would do it, but I'm not sure I would make things worst, bring back and old memory, provoke anger... should I just take the risk...

You walk down the road and mistake a flash in a dark corner as a knife and walk into the road to be run over by a car. Or you see the flash and do not mistake it for a knife and carry on walking. Are those 2 classes of thought ("wrong" and ""corrrct") or is that just a post factum categorization ? Is there any way ,even in theory by examining the physical structure of the brain and body that it could be possible to gauge whether or not the physicality of a thought lies in either category? Or is this just a question that can be asked but never answered other than to examine the consequences that flowed ? (and even then different observers will have different interpretation…

Dear colleagues, I would like to initiate a conversation at the crossroads of two seemingly distant fields: philosophy and design. While philosophy traditionally concerns itself with abstract questions of knowledge, existence, and values, design operates in the realm of concrete problem‑solving and artifact creation. Yet, I argue that their convergence reveals profound insights about human cognition and the nature of practical reasoning. Core Question: How does the designer’s mode of thinking—iterative, prototypical, and context‑sensitive—challenge or complement classical philosophical epistemologies (e.g., rationalism, empiricism)? Key Points for Discussion Design thin…

When thinking of being Patriotic at time its often spins into various other concepts. One I think is if being Patriotic is like being ignorant basically. I mean to explain on it goes like this. Do you think that because a nation has an established set of social laws and or customs, such as being democratic, that such a system should be viewed outside of ever changing? I think the constitution of America was a grand achievement for humanity really, the concepts themselves helped lay the groundwork for some kind of notion of universal human rights outside of anything prior to it that I know of. Yet I wonder if in all things possible that its so good it could n…

I don't like some aspects of the society. For example, the way education is handled. Education is basically learning something we want to, out of choice. After a certain degree of compulsory education, which I understand is sort of necessary, shouldn't one be allowed to freely choose what he wants to study? And, is it a waste of time to fret and try to do something against some aspects of the society we live in? For example, trying to change the general outlook on something as basic as scientific temperament?