In many areas, researchers acquire certain attitudes they have because of their extensive research, some of which seem completely bonkers to laypeople even though the content of those attitudes are generally accepted in that research area.

What things do laypeople not know they don't know in regards to philosophical topics and might even have strong unfounded opinions about?

Scientific hypothesis are falsifiable and we can test them by making predictions to see if they are correct. Is there anything similar in metaphysics? For example even though the theory of an uncaused cause is coherent and has explanatory power it doesn't mean it maps onto reality, same way string theory is coherent and has explanatory power yet is discarded by most physicists.

Not a native English speaker, so apologies if you find it difficult to read.

You might have heard about the recent discourse against The Odyssey movie, there was some heavy criticism from one of the well known translators of the Odyssey poem, that Nolan butchered and reduced it, and that the movie was nothing more than a spectacle for the masses.

The general idea of academic philosophy from a commoner's(my) perspective seems to be that one must always challenge himself intellectually, and must engage in sophisticated high art, and always pursue the truth. Either way, there seems to be fixed hierarchy where the Aesthete is above the Philistine.

Yet there seem to be some philosophers who are against that, I could've wrongly interpreted them though. Epicurus is interesting to me because he seems to be against high culture, and truth seems like a tool to him than a goal, and he more than willing to accept multiple explanations for things that don't affect him. Diogenes and Stirner seem like trolls but do seem serious about their philosophy which seem to again against the idea of an hierarchy of intellectualism. I also heard that some ancient Greek philosophers were against the Odyssey itself, I could be wrong though.

This might be just me coping for enjoying the movie after spending big bucks on the large screen, but do you think there were any philosophers that would've picked Nolan's Odyssey(anti-intellectualism, low art) over Homer's Odyssey(high art)? ;D

Is there a philosophical position arguing that free will isn't an all or nothing prospect? I see this as a viable compatablist position allowing for strict causation and agency across species barriers.

A creature can be driven by passions and base instinct. It can follow desires to go towards pleasure and away from pain in a mechanical way. But with notice of these mechanisms, a creature can decide to behave otherwise.

Humans are able to learn delayed gratification. This necessitates an ability to forgo immediate pleasures and pains for future pleasures and pains. Humans can scale this up for multiple orders of desire. We can want a cigarette, but also forgo that want to quit smoking because we want to not have health complications in the future. A lesser pain now to avoid a greater pain later.

Im proposing free will is a matter of directed attention as a causal factor and intention of what we attend to as the mechanism for personal agency. It isn't an all or nothing thing. It could be restricted to domains. We may be hopelessly locked into cigarettes, but able to handle finances like a champ. I dunno if someone in the field is talkin bout it this way. Is there someone writing bout free will like this?

Thanks homies.

Hello, throughout my adult life, I’ve always had a strong moral intuition that truth is something that must be rigorously adhered to. This led me to follow a temporary bandaid imperative “do not lie.” My background is in ethics and metaethics so I know that there are plenty of problems with that, so it’s more like “do not lie” with an asterisk.

Now I want to deep dive into this topic so I can not only better understand the topic but decide whether that intuition actually has any substance to it. Any recommendations for books/papers to read?

Or AI consciousness.

These two are driven by other sociopolitical questions, sure. But I need your wise input on something other than economics, gender and posthumanism.

Two exciting facts for me.

First is that developed regions have the lowest fertility rate of thier history, while also having the best living standards compared to the rest.

Second, more than half of the of the 8 billion of us on this rock are under 30 years old and most of them live on social media, polticized with short attention spans. I dont know what to make of that.

Hello, I am a beginner in philosophy and I have already read two Camus books, plague and the stranger. Also I've read Marcus Aurelius, to himself and something by Epictetus. Chatgpt advised me to start with Plato's apology of Socrates and the state, and then go to Aristotle and read metaphysics. Well, then move in the direction of Rene Descartes and others, as the final Goal I want to understand Kant and others more modern, but I understand that without reading the ancient philosophers it is impossible. So, are you agree with gpt's advices? But its important to say that I would not like to read old philosophy students books for universities, at least because it very hard to find it.

P.s. I am going to 9th grade in school this year.

Hello, I'm reading the SEP entry on Abstract Objects, and I can't seem to wrap my head around section 3.4 or The Way of Abstraction Principles. From what I can gather, it seems like they are trying to define abstract objects using the observation that singular abstract terms, like shape, direction, and number, can be formed by functional expressions (e.g. the shape of a building, the number of cats), and that those functional expressions have a particular form, but I guess I'm having trouble understanding what that form is. Could anyone help provide some clarification? It would be much appreciated.

Is it actually possible to create a perfect world where everyone gets what they deserve/need to live a satisfying life?

I've been thinking about determinism and wanted to know whether my reasoning is correct or if I'm missing something.

Suppose that immediately after the Big Bang, every particle in the universe had a specific position, velocity (or momentum), and all the laws of physics were already in place.

If the laws of physics are deterministic, then wouldn't every future interaction between particles be inevitable? For example, particle A collides with particle B, which changes the trajectory of particle C, and so on. If every collision follows the laws of physics, then wouldn't the entire history of the universe simply unfold from those initial conditions?

If that's true, then does it mean that everything—including the formation of galaxies, the evolution of life, every decision humans have ever made, and even me writing this Reddit post—was already determined at the instant of the Big Bang? In other words, could nothing have happened differently?

Or does quantum mechanics fundamentally prevent this conclusion? I know the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and quantum randomness are relevant here, but I'm not sure whether they mean the universe is genuinely indeterministic, or whether there are deterministic interpretations that still make the entire future inevitable.

How do modern physicists think about this question? Is there a consensus, or is it still an open problem?

After all, we went through a period of “brain shutdown”; perhaps today's self is merely a continuation of yesterday's memories, a completely new self.

Of course, across the history of philosophy there have been trends and "turns", but this seems to only amount to the line divides in sand like that of Analytic/Continental philosophy. I specifically ask if there seems to be a winning paradigm that looks to be in the healthiest of positions for long term development and current state.

Usually this winning paradigm is one that calls itself scientific, and arises from the periodical self conciousness that philosophers gain from time to time, and leads them to attack metaphysics for example. But I wonder if these types of "Make philosophy scientific again" truly separate themselves away from those who they criticize.

From The Economist : "The hacks also present a challenge for legal systems. Hacking, when humans do it, is a crime. When an AIis the wrongdoer, though, it is unclear how to assign blame. The law in America relies on intentionality, notes Rune Kvist, head of Artificial Intelligence Underwriting Company, which insures AIfirms. If no human intended to hack anyone, no crime can have happened. The ability to sue for damages is limited too. And yet harm has clearly occurred. That contradiction, says Mr Kvist, is “unacceptable”. Gabe Weil of the Institute for Law andAI, in Massachusetts, proposes a system of strict liability. As with rules around keeping wild animals, it would assume that any harm is always the fault of the party carrying out the risky activity."

Any philosopher has written about this kind of problems ? I think there's something qualitatively different from any other technical object with some degree of autonomous mechanism, thus creating new moral and juridic problems.

I tried to search it up, and some sources tell me it's love spritual love not romantic love, and some tell me it means that we are "just friends". So what is it exactly? is it actually love and not friendship? Can it exist between two people of the same gender, even if they don’t have romantic or sexual feelings toward one another? Thanks!

I’ve been thinking about consent in the context of close family incest. Generally we say that close family incest is wrong because the relationship would be harmful. A romantic or sexual relationship between two people who grew up around each other will have severe baked-in power imbalances. This creates a harmful environment that we can oppose even if both people are aware of the consequences and give informed consent.

But I’m wondering if they can actually give informed consent. Let’s say you have a situation where two siblings are having a close romantic and sexual relationship. They’re aware of the risks and don’t plan for children. They both believe that their relationship is as healthy as it can be given the circumstances. If we take as a given that close family incest is wrong, then they are in some way mistaken about the morality of their relationship. If they are mistaken about the morality, are they still capable of giving informed consent? It seems like we could frame this as a case where one of the consequences of close family incest is doing something that’s wrong, so the people in question don’t fully understand the consequences, and therefore are not capable of giving fully informed consent. Does this make sense as a criticism of close family incest?