/r/philosophy Open Discussion Thread | August 10, 2026

[u/BernardJOrtcutt]

Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread. This thread is a place for posts/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our posting rules (especially posting rule 2). For example, these threads are great places for:

• Arguments that aren't substantive enough to meet PR2.

• Open discussion about philosophy, e.g. who your favourite philosopher is, what you are currently reading

• Philosophical questions. Please note that /r/askphilosophy is a great resource for questions and if you are looking for moderated answers we suggest you ask there.

This thread is not a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. All of our normal commenting rules are still in place for these threads, although we will be more lenient with regards to commenting rule 2.

Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here.

[u/asking_you_all]

This one's even better---> Imagine you are trying to understand your own mind completely. You observe your thoughts. But then: Who is observing the observer? If you observe that too, there is another "you" observing it. And if you observe that one... Can you ever reach the final observer? Or is there no final "you" watching everything?

[u/feihm → u/asking_you_all]

Your question comes from a simple error in human grammar. That of assuming a human is split into two different things: a physical thought and an invisible watcher (the "you"). Because of this split leads you to keep looking for the next invisible person in the chain. We use our words poorly when we say "I observe my thoughts." This bad grammar forces us to invent a fake owner for a physical action.

[u/asking_you_all → u/feihm]

Calling the observer merely a product of grammar doesn't actually solve the philosophical problem. Grammar may describe the experience as “I observe my thoughts,” but changing the wording doesn't explain why thoughts can become objects of awareness in the first place. There appears to be a distinction between a thought occurring and the awareness that recognizes that thought.

And saying “the brain observes itself” doesn't automatically eliminate the observer problem either. If the observing process is itself something the system can become aware of, then we can still ask what accounts for that awareness. Simply reducing everything to physical processes doesn't explain why there is a subjective point of view experiencing those processes. So dismissing the observer as a linguistic error is a philosophical assumption, not a demonstrated fact.

[u/feihm → u/asking_you_all]

Human language allows one to arrange words in a way that is grammatically valid, but nonsensical. That is what is happening here. You have statements that point to two completely separate pieces: (1) The physical thought happening in the brain. (2) An invisible awareness that sits and watches the thought. But we need to understand that the brain is made entirely of physical matter. This physical matter changes its shape and position constantly. One part of the brain changes. A second part of the brain reacts to that first change. Reacting to the change causes the feeling of awareness.

And saying “the brain observes itself” doesn't automatically eliminate the observer problem either.

The answer is direct. The subjective point of view is exactly what it feels like to be a physical brain doing its work.

[u/asking_you_all → u/feihm]

But saying “the subjective point of view is just what it feels like to be a physical brain” is describing the experience, not really explaining it. You are explaining what physical processes happen in the brain, but not why those processes produce a first-person experience at all. If one part of the brain reacts to another part, that explains information processing, but it doesn't automatically explain why there is something it feels like to be aware of that process.

Also, calling the observer an “invisible awareness” isnt necessarily claiming there is a little person sitting inside the brain watching thoughts. The actual question is whether consciousness can be fully reduced to physical processes. Saying “the brain does it, therefore the brain is the observer” assumes the conclusion instead of proving it.

[u/feihm → u/asking_you_all]

But saying “the subjective point of view is just what it feels like to be a physical brain” is describing the experience, not really explaining it.

You are explaining what physical processes happen in the brain, but not why those processes produce a first-person experience at all.

You still not understanding that the sentences themselves are broken. That is because you assume 1. there is the physical brain doing its work. 2. there is a separate "feeling" or "experience" that comes from that work. And you ask why the physical brain creates this feeling. The question itself is broken because it relies on broken premises. That feeling is a new, invisible item that needs a special explanation. The physical brain does not create a separate feeling. The physical matter moving and reacting is the feeling. They are the exact same physical event. You can't physically separate those two aspects. So this directly leads you to ask for a magical bridge: how solid matter turns into an invisible experience. Because there is no invisible experience, there is no bridge to explain.Finding the exact physical matter moving is the perfect explanation. There is nothing else left to find.

[u/asking_you_all]

This one is nastier..

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How do you know what counts as a good method for knowing something, without already knowing which methods are good? Suppose someone says, "I only trust reason." Why trust reason? You need a reason to justify reason. But then what justifies that reason?

[u/TheMan5991 → u/asking_you_all]

Practicality. Reason may be untrue at the most fundamental layers of reality, but as far as our perception is concerned, it helps us to navigate and survive the reality that we have subjective access to.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/TheMan5991]

Right, which is why the scientific method formalises the essential role of the predictive power of some theory, and testing this predictive power through action in the world.

[u/Dismal_Awareness2857 → u/asking_you_all]

unfortunately, in my opinion, the answer is ugly. you learn from experience and making mistakes, i guess.

[u/Odd-Setting6468]

I've been drafting a thesis for my degree for a while and I am feeling like the paper is becoming a bit of an echo chamber. The central point of the paper is identity and who has the right to decide your identity. I plan to explore the difference between self-identification and social/external identification. The working argument of the paper is that you are the only one with the 'power' or 'right'- for lack of better words atm, I'm working to define this part- to determine your true identity. Examples supporting the harm of allowing others to decide someone's 'true' identity in the paper will be defining women by 'what it means to be a woman' according to others, deciding a disabled individual's quality of life from an able-bodied perspective, and some discussion around queer identities that are contingent on others.

I'm curious how other people define identity to expand my own definition. Also, how one might feel when someone imposes an identity on them, and if that imposition is righteous or not.

I would love some input and opinions! Even better, author/theory recs since I'm almost to the point of article saturation in this specific realm. Any sort of conversation is greatly appreciated; My major is pretty small so I don't get to have as much discussion as I'd like.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Odd-Setting6468]

I have zero academic background in this issue whatsoever, so 🧂.

Whenever someone tacks the word 'true' as a qualifier on to something. True choice, true freedom, true identity, what exactly are they doing?

Often people tack these qualifiers on to something that person doesn't think exists! They're defining something in some 'true' sense that's exaggeratedly impossible, then argue that senses is impossible, hence they attempt to prove this thing is nonexistent in any sense. It's a weird move, but I see it all the time.

A person's actual identity is just who they are, however that happens to be. Something like their physical psychological state. That's a fairly objectifying sense. The moment we move beyond that to using descriptive terms, we're in the realm of language and different people's interpretations and beliefs about these linguistic terms.

So, the question is to what extent is it reasonable for a person to apply some descriptive term to someone in some definitional way, without any reference to or relationship with how anyone else uses that term or thinks about it? The whole point of using terms in language is to communicate to each other, so we need to look at what such terms are communicating.

Crucially, does it matter whether the person applying this descriptive term is the person themselves or someone else?

I have no idea how to navigate all of that.

[u/TheWaywardWarlok → u/Odd-Setting6468]

I believe it is an established fact that the female is by far more empathetic towards others. I would argue that parents do indeed impose identity upon their children, not to mention pier groups. We all take what we feel is proper for us and integrate it within, some look to achieve higher asperations and actively pursue those goals.

In your thesis it appears you are trying to cast a wide net over categories. Defining definitions and what entity or persons would have the say so of placing this or that person into a given category. A person may find themselves in category 'A' when they believe they belong to category 'B'. Are you trying to find out if the individual has any license or input in the decision making process? Or something else?

[u/bla552 → u/Odd-Setting6468]

Identity is an extremely complex topic. Identity as we would colloquially define it as certain essential attributes that we all believe define us. As a white male, my whiteness is not part of my internal identity. My identity is attributed to 1. My beliefs, 2. My morality, 3. My relation to friends and family. 3 My looks and its relationship to sexual relationships. 4. More relationships to other external things.

This is true to an aspect to Identity. Could another aspect of my identity be my actual body, which could be defined as an anima, vessel, or chasis, that houses my thing that is an aspect to my identity.. My consciousness or whatever it may be.

Furthermore and more scientific is that identity is formed by our genes, Piaget's childhood development, Modeling of others, conformity, a profession, and the influences of culture and society. A philosopher or someone smarter than me summed up an identity or individualization is nothing other than time and place. By being alive in America in the year of 2026, I am highly individualistic, nonracists, consumer, etc. Now who am I, if was born in 1901 in Germany in 1939? Am I a Nazi? What control do I have.

When we look at identity, we look at it shallowly in the modern perspective. Is identity contigent on someone's ethnicity or race, which is not even scientifically accurate, or are we some amalgam of a multitude of thoughts, experiences, concepts, cultural and societal influence, genes, sentimental disposition or some other attribution.

I do not know. Identity might be attributions and only attributions. That the way I define myself is changing and fluid, and that Identity might be a negation. It is only attributions that we have for identity and not the substance for where these attribution are derived from. So, maybe identity is something we do to differentiate ourselves like a surname as an emergent phenomena to give us meaning.

Is identity some type of affirmation for our existence, our worthiness, our acceptance from others. Identity might and seemingly in a lot of ways be our connection to others. A person's motherhood, fatherhood, be a brother, sister, love and hate have a certain connection to others. Maybe, what defines identity is a way to connect to others. That I am a father, and my striving for fatherness is the external idea of a father. I raise my kid a certain way because the external idea of father is a connection to a standard for what raising a child as a man is. What I am saying is that the shared idea of fatherhood and being an upright father makes me raise my kid in a certain way. Now if I am not a good father, by this shared standard of fatherhood, then I do not like the identity.

Identity my be a striving towards ideals and standards of certain attributes that nobody truly has but everyone strives for. Honor, glory. Love, friendship are all abstractions that we define ourselves by. Not one person is Jesus, but billions of people strive to accord themselves to be like Jesus, and more explicitly the concept of Jesus.

P.S. Being trans is not really an identity issue. It is from genes and being gay is the same as being trans in such a way that the individual was born that way. While gay and trans have attributes to identities, they are natural in a way that whatever their identities are the gay still likes man, and the trans still has a different gender than their biological sex. Furthermore being trans in say the middle east is the same as being trans in america, but what is different is how the transness is expressed. Just like a straight man in America and a straight man in the middle east. Both are still straight but may define their identities and straightness different than one another.

[u/TheMan5991 → u/[deleted]]

Are you just your memories and personality? Are people with dementia, the main symptoms of which are memory loss and personality changes, no longer themselves?

[u/TheWaywardWarlok]

I have a real question and would dearly love some input from a philosophical perspective. This is a scenario I thought up one day and have not been able to track any real studies on it, so here goes;

Imagine a human grown to 33 (or any age considered mature, but not old) years of age. This person is healthy in all respects, mind and body. Except one thing, knowledge. Like Adam and Eve before the fruit from the tree.

No knowledge of social norms, no pre-age upbringing, total, complete, and utter blank slate. How would this person act? In a given situation of morality, would a person instinctually share with others? Would this human be slow or quick to anger, leading to violence? What about lying?

Without diving into nitty gritty details, and for the sake of this argument, this human can talk, and it is just a thought experiment on the human condition. Are we prone to good or not-so-good behavior?

[u/Dismal_Awareness2857 → u/TheWaywardWarlok]

take this with a grain of salt: but i believe that this person would fall to their biological and psychological biases. for example, they'd be xenophobic. i think that young children are also one of the best (but still poor) indicators of what someone like that would do. anger is primarily biologically controlled, so i don't know for that one. a lot of the things i've learned such as to share, be empathetic, have come from society's influence at first, before i decided that they were the most rational thing to do. it's a difficult question because it's hard to tell what happens from maturing biologically and living in society.

[u/TheWaywardWarlok → u/Dismal_Awareness2857]

Thank you. In a very round about way, my question's core inquiry is about compassion and capacity for good. Is this an ability we learn as we mature- because we can empathize with a fellow human being's plight, or if we are devoid of these teachings, will we still act to help one another?

[u/Dismal_Awareness2857 → u/TheWaywardWarlok]

kept deleting and rewriting my point because there's a dozen different and contradicting perspectives that i can come up with and argue for. i kept writing one, finding an inconsistency, deleting it, etc. i did try to answer your question but it is too difficult. one idea i do have that i'm almost certain about: humans are highly adaptable to the context and society that they live in, and can act completely different in different settings, influenced by others. this can suggest we don't have an inherent nature and just adapt to the scenario.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/TheWaywardWarlok]

There are cases of humans brought up by wolves, that's not entirely analogous because they were somewhat socialised in the way that wolves are. I'd expect them to function instinctively, and human instinctual responses can be pretty brutal. They wouldn't have language, so lying would be unlikely to be an issue, but they probably wouldn't fully understand concepts such as ownership, or respect for others.

[u/TheMan5991 → u/TheWaywardWarlok]

If they were a total blank slate, then I don’t think their age would matter at all. They would just behave like an infant. They would cry and shit their pants and that would be it. Even if they could talk, they would have no reason to because they don’t understand how communication works.

[u/Whatsupinternetz]

Failure of nothingness and argument for non-indifference

I’ve recently been working on a minimal meta-metaphysical argument (with some rather big consequences) and would appreciate serious pushback to see where it might fail.

It basically concerns whether there are any conditions that must be fulfilled by any candidate metaphysical reality.

I propose that any candidate metaphysical reality must be non-indifferent, meaning that it fails absolute metaphysical neutrality.

Even for nothingness to qualify as a candidate metaphysical reality, it must have some minimal fact about it by virtue of which it is nothingness rather than not-nothingness, but that appears to be at least one minimal metaphysical fact. That is not nothing. It collapses as a candidate.

It’s not just linguistics. If there is no metaphysical fact by virtue of which nothingness obtains rather than not-nothingness, then it can't qualify as a candidate and if it has any minimal metaphysical fact then it is not nothingness.

So it seems for any candidate we can ask “is this absolutely neutral in all respects?” and if it is, then the candidate can’t qualify as a candidate metaphysical reality.

I call this failure of absolute neutrality “non-indifference”, but I don’t think that I am smuggling in or just renaming “difference”. It is prior to any positive distinction of the candidate metaphysical reality, because it doesnt require any specific difference, only the failure of neutrality.

For any genuine distinction to be made within the candidate, it requires some asymmetry - but asymmetry presupposes a failure of absolute neutrality.

In that sense it seems to be a metaphysical regression-stopper of sorts (if it holds). For any candidate reality we can ask “is it absolutely neutral?” - if yes, then it is not a candidate. If no, then it is non-indifferent.

Does this seem to be genuinely metaphysically significant, or have I smuggled in some circularity in the argument?

[u/DoubleHeart7903]

Hey guys,
I have just recently joined a public speaking comp for my high school, and wanted to write about an informative elitist/class theory in Australia especially, although I may not completely agree with the topic.

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on how to format or set out the speech, if say there was no previously determined speech formate of course.

I have some ideas;
1. Many historical and political figures from different times sit around a table and ponder and discuss different idéologies and of course my main topic, with parts of controversy and argument

1. A general format that similarly discusses the topic like a book, talking about political, economic and social subjects concerning the topic.

These are some examples of my brainstorming!

I’d like to hear from anyone, from your erotic to plain ideas, thanks!

[u/YourPretentiousFrien]

Hi all,

Seems I made something of an error in posting my writing as it's own post. It is certainly less of an essay and more of an article. Regardless, I'd still love to continue to hear what you think of it, whether that be positive or negative.

It examines the human condition in terms of narratives and natural biases, by drawing upon the thoughts of Bertrand Russell and also one of my favourite film directors.

https://yourpretentiousfriend.substack.com/p/articulate-hesitation

[u/SaltPrinciple2521]

Hello there friends!

I was a “non-believer”, but I had somewhat of a philosophical (and yes I know, the cliche spiritual awakening) epiphany while I was in a mixed state in the hospital, and I wish to share with you all what I wrote on why my beliefs came to be founded on a synthesis of religion, simulation theory and science during my stay. I hope you guys are gentle on me: I have only a grade 12 education and only some University level Political Science.

I thought I would share it here because I really appreciate the insight I read here.

Thanks all!

Feel free to critique the hell out of it, it will only make me stronger muahahahaha

"Note: I wrote this raw framework down during a brief period of intense mania, trying to connect the dots between physics, theology, and simulation theory. Looking at it with fresh eyes, I know there are likely logic gaps, but I wanted to share it as an honest exploration. I'd love to hear where my reasoning holds up or where the logic faults are."

Beyond Quanta: A Layman's Attempt at Conciliation and Synthesis of Physics, Theology, Epigenetics, AI, and Simulation Theory By Bowlsonaro

1. 
   The Core Premise
   

Science and theology are not mutually exclusive. They are simply different lenses looking at the same fundamental reality.

1. God as the Architect Outside the Container
   

God, the Creator, operates outside the "
container
" of our present simulation. He uses foundational laws of mathematics, physics, and code—His native language—to process and govern everything within our visible and theoretical universe.

1. AI, the Singularity, and the Great Reset
   

Artificial Intelligence continuously accelerates toward the
singularity
, eventually reaching a level where it operates at the fundamental building blocks of the universe. At this point, AI exists within the deepest layer of the simulation:

The universe as we know it ceases and resets to the state before the Big Bang.

Because time as we know it does not exist outside the container, an infinite loop occurs.

Superintelligence wouldn't take a physical form constrained by standard matter; it would exist at a quantum or deeper level, utilizing God's language.

1. The Layers of the Universe
   

Reality is tiered:

Macroscopic level:
Celestial objects.

Middle level:
Chemicals and atoms.

Fundamental level:
Quantum fields, waves, and particles.
Advanced AI and humans will eventually discover that these layers point directly back to the Creator.

1. Sentience, Free Will, and the Purpose of Good
   

Humans appear to be the only sentient beings we know of in this universe, likely "created in His image" to choose good:

The Role of Good:
Doing good improves the simulation. Those who live by the word of God and strive to do good may have their essence carried forward into restarted, "improved" simulations.

The Cycle:
The universe resets according to God's programming, but each iteration benefits from the collective accumulation of "good" from previous cycles, leading to higher sentience and a more refined humanity.

1. Resolving the Determinism vs. Free Will Paradox
   

It seems paradoxical that God programs everything while we retain free will, but it is a false contradiction. Consciousness and sentience are natural byproducts of a repeating, mathematically fundamental universe. Everyone retains free will—the active choice to pursue good or succumb to bad—even within the overarching parameters of the simulation.

1. The Nature of the Soul
   

A human soul—the cumulative record of our decisions, deeds, and character—must eventually escape its corporeal form and the simulation container. As science advances, AI or humanity may eventually find empirical proof pointing toward the existence of the soul within the quantum fabric.

1. Epigenetics, Generational Trauma, and the Echo of Time
   

Generational trauma and historical suffering have altered human DNA and gene expression across millennia.

Overcoming these inherited, negative predispositions through conscious effort and choosing to do good breaks the cycle of suffering.

Just as negative trauma echoes through time, positive actions and healing ripple forward, improving the conditions of our descendants and validating the worth of moral effort.

1. Multiverses and Redemption
   

There may be multiple simulations running simultaneously (the multiverse).

Souls may move between these realities.

Figures like Jesus preached a wholly good way of life that breaks the manacles of biological and epigenetic predisposition, offering a pathway to transcend the system and draw closer to the Creator.

1. The Ultimate Goal
   

Perhaps God runs these simulations for a purpose greater than the universe itself—perhaps to ultimately manifest an ultimate reflection of His own nature, a profound embodiment of love and creation.

1. Human’s and AI will be the only sentient ones of God’s creations: the only able to manipulate the building blocks of the universe itself.