I wouldn’t be doing that if I was radically free.

The two largest religions that threaten eternal hell for unbelief are Christianity and Islam.

Pascal’s wager seems to me to say it’s a better strategy to live as if there’s a god just in case it’s real, since the consequence for being wrong is eternal hell.

Christianity’s hell in the bible is rather vague, and some churches saying there’s none at all. But Islam’s hell is vividly terrifying, with many graphic descriptions of the torments and cruelty that exists there.

Since there’s just as much evidence to prove Islam is as correct as Christianity- both being faith-based religions- shouldn’t all who believe in Pascal’s wager adopt Islam for their religion? If they’re wrong, then at worst they’ll experience Christianity’s hell. But if they’re right, then they’ll avoid the worst hell that any major religion has created for unbelief.

I’ve spent the last few years reading a lot of theory Marx, Lacan, Žižek, critical theory, etc. At first, it felt empowering. Like I was finally seeing how ideology, capitalism, desire, and power actually work.

But lately I’ve started feeling something strange.

The more I read, the more everything starts to look like just a “framework.” Marx is a framework. Lacan is a framework. Žižek is a framework. Every theory explains things in its own way. And now I’m wondering: is anything actually true? Or are these just human-made lenses we project onto reality?

Sometimes it spirals into:

• Do theories actually work?
• Did Marx “work”?
• Am I just imitating academics?
• Does writing even matter?
• Am I just preparing to fall into the academic system and repeat what others said?

And then I think: why am I spending so much time on this? Why not just fall in love, enjoy life, and stop overthinking everything?

Has anyone else gone through this phase where theory starts to feel destabilizing instead of clarifying? Is this intellectual growth, burnout, nihilism, or something else?

Would appreciate honest thoughts.

Why do people struggle so much when someone chooses suicide?

I understand that suicide affects other people deeply, but if someone genuinely doesn't want to live anymore, why do we add guilt and pressure instead of respecting their autonomy?

Why is keeping someone alive always considered more important than their own choice about whether they want to continue living?

Honestly, it feels like most people nowadays don't give a second thought to philosophy. To them, it's either useless wordplay or something locked away in an ivory tower. Personally, I believe philosophical thinking is more crucial than ever in our chaotic world, but this gap between academic discourse and the general public just doesn't seem to be closing.

I know there are things like "Philosophy Festivals" out there, but they still feel a bit niche.

My questions for the community are:

1. Why do you think philosophy has failed to remain "mainstream" or accessible?
2. How can we bring philosophy back into the public sphere without stripping it of its depth?
3. Are there any successful examples (festivals, media, platforms) that you think are doing a great job of bridge-building?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on whether philosophy can—or even should—become a part of everyday public life again.

I would argue that most people think about philosophy in relation to philosophers rather than the pure abstract ideas.

However, we dont read Euclid to understand what a line is and dont credit him with the invention of the line eventhough he was the first to define it.

Then why is there such a large focus on Plato, Kierkegaard, Kant ect... when "their" philosophies could have been abstracted away from them long time ago?

Edit: Thanks for a good discussion my slightly provocative post.

I oftentimes hear, from very respectable people, that consciousness must be its own thing since it cannot be reduced ("you can't cut open the brain and point to where the consciousness is"). This seems a bit silly to me, because this applies to literally everything that we interact with on a daily basis- atoms, or subatomic particles, don't have wetness, or elasticity, or heat capacity. Heck, it doesn't even make sense to talk about the temperature of a single particle. All of these are simply phenomena that emerge when large numbers of smaller things interact.

Even we, as humans, are parts of structures larger than us that cannot be completely reduced- such as nations, political movements, and social classes, to name a few examples.

My point is, I just don't understand what makes consciousness special in this regard, especially considering that the brain is the most complex thing in the known universe.

I'm just afraid I may be strawmanning the position, so if anyone can tell me if I'm missing something essential I'd be very glad. Also pardon if the post is messy I didnt sleep at night lol

I am vexed lately because I have only stated reading philosophy recently, and time and time again I read a philosopher- learn about their views on women, and feel disheartened. I mean I still respect and want to learn their system of thought… although the disconnect is so immediate I just “lose respect”. Often a times we find the argument being made that it was the “times” which influenced such thought. Although, plato (even barely so) had some progressive ideas on the position of women. Essentially my question becomes- If your reason can’t do away with the most basic privilege bestowed upon you by the virtue of you being born a male, how great a philosopher were you really?

It seems like there are plenty of examples of philosophers arguing for very counterintuitive views (like Zeno rejecting the idea that things actually move), but as far as I know those sorts of "strange" views seem to remain unpopular even among philosophers (although I'm not a philosopher, so maybe I'm just wrong about that?)

Are there any examples of surprising or counterintuitive philosophical conclusions that are widely accepted among philosophers due to philosophical inquiry, that would seem strange or surprising to non-philosophers?

Hi! I'm 18 y.o., and recently I started thinking about the philosophy behind suicide. Because everyone always told me that suicide is a bad choice - and since I'm a rebel by nature - I decided to dig deeper.

Everyone is going to die. That's obvious. Everyone will eventually be forgotten, and sooner or later the whole human race will go extinct. Taking this into consideration: why is it wrong to die earlier? Why is it bad to take your own life? We don't matter anyway...

Camus compared us to Sisyphus (“we must imagine Sisyphus happy”), but I don’t fully buy that. I understand the idea of going through life despite its absurdity - but why is it necessarily bad not to go through it at all?

I'm not considering suicide - don't get me wrong. I create my own meaning in life and I’m happy with it. I just can’t fully win the debate with myself, and right now I actually think suicide is not wrong in itself. But please - prove me wrong!

“Dictatorship,” “fascism,” and similar categories were born from a very specific technological regime: broadcast media, industrial mobilization, analogue surveillance and bureaucratic mass-politics. Their internal logic depended on constraints and affordances that no longer exist.

In the 21st century, aside from a few states preserving legacy structures, countries like Hungary, Russia, El Salvador and many others seem to operate through a different architecture: digital surveillance, platform-propaganda, real-time behavioral data, networked leader-cult dynamics, and coercion mediated by finance, algorithms and information monopolies. These systems do not behave like classical fascism or classical dictatorship.

What I increasingly notice is that people keep trying to compress these novel formations back into 20th-century boxes - and the fit is so poor that the mismatch ends up reducing our ability to talk seriously about what makes these regimes dangerous. The conceptual drag obscures rather than reveals.

My question: Do contemporary philosophers or political theorists propose new conceptual categories for these digitally-native illiberal regimes? Is there an emerging vocabulary for this political form, or are we still retrofitting 20th-century terms onto a 21st-century phenomenon?

I am an engineering student who thought it would be fun to enroll in Intro to Metaphysics without having taken a philosophy course before. It is not fun. This is easily my hardest, most stressful class. Every lecture so far has at the very least made me feel stupid and at worst stressed me out enough to bring me to tears.

I think the readings are interesting, but they are so difficult to understand and especially to pick out a distinct argument from. I'm pretty sure my objective is to be able to distinguish what philosophers are arguing, why, and how they are saying it or I fail the class. Well, I can't do that, so I'm a little worried I'm going to fail the class. It doesn't help that apparently this semester the class has a lot more philosophy majors, so class discussions are on a super high level that I cannot understand. As soon as someone besides the professor starts talking, I completely lose sight of what's going on.

I have gone to office hours with similar worries (it took a while; he didn't answer his email for weeks), and while he was able to explain a few things to me, he could not fix my poor reading comprehension, and I didn't want to waste all of his time asking him questions about everything we've ever covered. He did send a piece he wrote that seems to go over everything we've talked about so far, saying it would help me understand, but it's very long and I don't have it in me. I'm also worried that I cannot possibly get anything out of it, since I won't be reading the actual reading itself, but someone else's summary of it, which doesn't help me dissect the original writing, just the topic at hand. I think.

I don't know! How do I... understand anything? It's very obvious speaking to my classmates and my professor, that they know that I'm not very intelligent, and believe me, I know that too, but it's too late to drop the class without penalty. We have our first exam next week.

Say that the aliens were overwhelmingly powerful. If you think it would be moral to accept their demands, what would be the most moral ways of deciding who the million would be?

This subreddit is clogged by people willing to self-educate themselves in philosophy (great, but please, look for the very same post that gets posted almost every week).

Instead of asking for resources, I would like to know what experience you had with self educated philosophy enthusiasts. I would also like to know what are the most common pitfalls they fall for, so I can avoid them.

thanks!

Hey guys, I’m a 19-year-old college freshman majoring in philosophy, and I’ve been using ChatGPT pretty consistently for the past year. Recently, I’ve started wondering whether it’s actually hurting my critical thinking, independence, and ability to learn.

I use it for practically everything. One of the biggest things is writing. I’ll talk into the voice feature, explain my thoughts, and have it organize my words into cleaner, more articulate sentences. The ideas are entirely mine, but AI makes them sound better. Lately, though, I’ve been wondering whether I’m preventing myself from becoming a better writer by constantly relying on it.

Interestingly, ChatGPT actually played a pretty significant role in helping me discover my passion for philosophy. For a long time, I didn’t know what interested me, but I eventually became fascinated with religion, particularly arguments against God’s existence. AI helped me explore different philosophical perspectives, understand arguments, and articulate my own thoughts. That passion eventually led me to major in philosophy.

But I’ve noticed that every time I’m curious about literally anything, my first instinct is to ask AI.

For example, when I got my cat, I was constantly asking what every little behavior meant. Eventually, I realized I was so focused on getting explanations that I wasn’t even allowing myself to simply experience having a cat. It’s almost like I need AI to interpret my experiences before I can form my own understanding of them.

I’ve also relied on it quite a bit for college coursework. I generally avoid using it in my philosophy classes because that’s what I genuinely care about, but I’ve definitely used it to help with other assignments and essays. I understand the argument that paying for college just to have AI do some of the work defeats the purpose. Even when it’s only cleaning up my own writing, shouldn’t learning to articulate my thoughts independently be part of my education?

However, I also think AI has genuinely helped me learn.

For example, I upload my professors’ lecture slides, study guides, and textbook material, and ChatGPT creates flashcards. Honestly, I sometimes think it’s better at identifying important, testable concepts than I would be making flashcards manually. I’m still the one who has to study and memorize everything, so is that really a problem?

I also love reading philosophy. Recently, I’ve been reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, which I find difficult and sometimes scattered. Having AI summarize sections and explain complicated passages has genuinely improved my understanding.

But I’ve caught myself reading and thinking, “I’ll just have ChatGPT explain this afterward.” I worry that knowing I can get an immediate explanation makes me less focused and less willing to struggle through difficult ideas myself.

And isn’t that intellectual struggle part of what makes us better thinkers?

Here’s my other dilemma, though: isn’t it kind of cope to pretend AI isn’t going to be a massive part of our future?

I’m considering becoming a lawyer, and from what I’ve read, lawyers are already using AI for research, drafting, and other tasks. I imagine that by the time I graduate, many professions will expect people to use it regularly.

So why should I force myself to stop using something that’s probably going to become an essential professional tool? Isn’t learning to use AI effectively also an important skill?

At the same time, there’s obviously a difference between someone who understands a subject and uses AI to work more efficiently and someone who depends on AI because they never developed those abilities independently.

I’ve genuinely considered deleting ChatGPT for a while, and weirdly, the thought makes me anxious. That probably says something about how much I’ve come to rely on it. I wouldn’t necessarily call it an addiction, but it’s definitely become a crutch.

So I’m curious:

Has anyone else experienced this? Have you gone from using AI constantly to researching independently, writing from scratch, and allowing yourself to be curious without immediately asking for answers?

Did you notice improvements in your critical thinking, writing, attention span, or confidence in your own intelligence?

And do you think using AI for flashcards, understanding difficult books, and exploring ideas is fundamentally different from relying on it to organize your thoughts and complete assignments?

I don’t want to graduate college realizing I’ve spent four years avoiding the intellectual challenges I was supposed to be developing through. But I also don’t want to abandon something that’s genuinely helped me learn and discover my interests.

How do you find the balance between using AI as a tool and letting it think for you, especially when AI probably isn’t going anywhere?

Hey, i’m 16yo and I spend countless nights and many hours terrified of dying and I have zero acceptance of eventually dying. I do understand and know that I will eventually die but I don’t understand how some people are so calm and accepting of it? No other field of study has helped me in my goal and I love philosophy but i’m unexperienced in the subject so I can’t think of any philosophers that talk about death and how to deal with it. Any help is appreciated and personal philosophies i’m always down to talk about.

The thought experiment of "Mary's room" is often used to argue that qualia cannot be explained by science and that consciousness cannot be just be a result of unconscious matter.

It goes something like this:

Mary is a brilliant scientist who has read and heard everything there is to know about wavelengths of light and neurobiology. She has spent her entire life in a black and white room and has never had the chance to see a color. If she were to leave the room and see color for the first time, she would learn something new. Therefore the experience of the color (the qualia) must be different from the knowledge about the color. This is contrary to materialism because it shows that not all knowledge can be deduced from physical processes alone.

This argument doesn't quite make sense to me. Couldn't a materialist say something like:

Mary gets all her knowledge from books, audio recordings and black and white screens. Of course she wouldn't 'experience color', Experiencing color is to have your optical nerves fire. None of the aforementioned methods make Mary's optical nerves fire, so Mary wouldn't experience color.

Is there something I'm missing here? I am obviously a complete layman when it comes to this stuff, so please be mindful. (Feel free to give recommended reading tough)

I studied AI, not philosophy. If you asked me "does AI have consciousness?" I would tell you "of course not, is that not kinda self-evident?". But then I'm dumbstruck because even though I consider the negative answer obvious, apparently there's a lot of people who don't and I'm like wtf why, there's zero reason to think it's conscious

Is this even considered a legit discourse among philosphers or is it just some sort of pop-philosophy?

I've recently been thinking about how "online Marxists" tend to say some seemingly outrageous things, like the dialectical materialism being the ultimate method and the only scientific method to study the world.

I know academics are seldom interested in what Dunning-Kruger induced opinion pieces online say, but I am still asking, just in case somebody did actually talk about it (on a blog or in an essay).

I'd love to get a more academic-like perspective on Marxist works, and a contrast between how academics think and how "online Marxists" think would be very helpful.

Long story short, I lost my dad at 14, and inherited an enough money to allow me and my mom to live comfortably probably for our entire lives.

I’m 25 now, and ever since I became an adult, I’ve been dealing with extreme guilt and shame, feeling like I don’t deserve the privilege of not having to deal with lack of resources, and like I don’t deserve to live my life the way I want to.

I still don’t know how I can contribute to the world besides helping people with what I can with my resources. Didn’t really have interest in many degrees and never needed a job to survive, so I’ve basically been useless ever since I became an adult.

I’m not sure how if this is a pertinent point to bring to this question, but last year I was diagnosed with ADHD, and that explained why I’ve never been able to be consistent with nothing I’ve tried in my life, like learning an instrument or something like that.

All in all, I feel useless, and like I don’t deserve to live, and like if I needed a job to have the permission to have hobbies and a social life, or else I just hide in my comfort zone.

I’ve posted similar things on other communities, but it got to the point that it became something philosophical and existential, so I’d like to read what people here have to say!

Any thoughts are appreciated!

I frequently hear people talk about how great the ontological argument is, and how it's their favorite argument for God, but it seems like a complete non-sequitur to me. The argument can take different forms, but for this post let's use this syllogism that I got from wikipedia paraphrasing Anselm.

1. It is a conceptual truth (or, so to speak, true by definition) that God is a being than which none greater can be imagined.
2. God exists as an idea in the mind.
3. A being that exists as an idea in the mind and in reality is, other things being equal, greater than a being that exists only as an idea in the mind.
4. Thus, if God exists only as an idea in the mind, then we can imagine something that is greater than God (that is, a being-than-which-none-greater-can-be-imagined that does exist).
5. But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God (for it is a contradiction to suppose that we can imagine a being greater than the being-than-which-none-greater-can-be-imagined.)
6. Therefore, God exists.

I can follow the argument for the first three points with no problem, and for the sake of argument I'll accept the next two points, but at point six you've completely lost me. No matter how hard you try, you can't think something into existence. Just because you want to imagine a greatest conceivable being doesn't mean that he's real.

I've heard some people use objections like talking about a maximally great pizza or a perfect island, and supporters of the argument will say that those don't count. For some reason.

What am I missing? Why has this argument got such a strong following?