Top 10 Greatest Philosophical Questions

The Top Ten
1 What is the meaning of life?

Easy... None. Come on, do you think there's a meaning? NO! This all happens by coincidence - is that hard to believe? If there's something I know, it's that life is made of coincidences, opportunities, and risks.

"This all happened by coincidence, is that hard to believe?"
As a matter of fact, it's impossible to believe unless you're incapable of critical thought.

There is no definite answer because the meaning of life is whatever you choose to do with it and the things you do to reach your goal.

2 Is there a God?

Some people argue that it's unimportant to know whether or not there is a god, but this perspective is flawed. If Catholics are correct, then all non-believers face the prospect of burning for eternity. Others say, If your god is real, then prove it to me. But proving God's existence is no more possible than proving that evolution or the Big Bang is true. Since this is an important issue, doesn't it make sense for each person to research it themselves? In the end, it all comes down to faith and personal experience - unless a god literally comes down from the sky to take all Catholics to heaven and condemn the rest of humanity to eternal damnation. That would be evidence hard to argue against.

3 Is there life beyond death?

If there was life after we're dead, it would mean that death doesn't exist. It's like saying that we go from A to B, traveling from here to there. Since when is death not proven? It's the only thing that is certain.

I can't understand why people who believe in life after death cry and feel sad after a close relative dies. If they're so sure about it, why is that?

I think the only way to know for sure is to experience death.

4 Where does it all come from?

A fermented can of prunes from Walmart.

5 Where do we come from?
6 Does free will exist?
7 What is truth?

We are not capable of attaining absolute truths, so that claim should be edited. However, ultimate truth exists, and to think that just because we cannot attain it disproves its existence doesn't make sense. Our minds are great at deluding us, and our senses can send us down the wrong path, but that's just a hypothesis.

There is an Absolute Truth. Only God knows it. We can only understand relative truth, not Absolute Truth. We should search for the truth eternally. It is impossible for the truth to be told to us because we are not perfect.

8 How much truth does religion have regarding the creation of the universe?

No matter what we believe started the universe, we must accept that something is either infinitely powerful or infinite in existence. This implies that something must have created us, or something must have existed uncreated since the beginning of time. If we believe a god created us, the complexity, beauty, and care evident in the universe might make more sense. If we believe that matter has existed since the beginning of time, then both matter and time must be infinite. However, if time is infinite, we would never reach the present because an infinite amount of time would have to pass before we arrived here. This paradox suggests that time either doesn't exist or isn't infinite, leading to the question: What started time? The third possibility is that time is a loop, but this still requires an explanation for what initiated the loop.

9 What is the meaning of 'Right' and 'Wrong?'
10 What is the nature of Knowledge?

Curiosity is the mother of knowledge, just as need is the mother of invention. Form follows function. One can conceive form, but knowledge of how to create that form comes from understanding function. We learn by relating new information to what we already know. Knowledge comes from sensing, conceiving, and experience. Language is central to how we think, relate, and share ideas, and it shapes our thinking, including abstractions and ideologies. Knowledge is also instinctual, with some instincts and memories potentially stored in our DNA.

All human knowledge is relative, not absolute. Our senses and reasoning are flawed, so most of our knowledge is little more than beliefs, ideologies, and workable theories.

The Contenders
11 What determines the fate of each individual?

What makes you, you, apart from the circumstances around you? What about your individuality? Your free will to choose? If you ignore your individuality and free will, you are, in fact, saying that everything is determined, including your individual fate. Yourself and the circumstances that happen around you are what make your fate. The phrase "what determines the fate of each individual" is wrong. It should be "what makes the fate of each individual."

The previous answer, saying "Yourself and the circumstances around you," makes me think - what makes you, you, apart from the circumstances that you are in? If nothing, then we must simply accept that we are just the sum of the circumstances presented to a raw body that is, in itself, an experience to other raw bodies. All of us have no control over who we will become because our choices are purely random or are made because of what happened to us in the past.

12 What is the purpose of it all?

"The purpose of it all" is to continue asking, "What is the purpose of it all?"

To stop asking ensures a return to savage primitivity. Judging by certain posters, we're already well on our way.

The purpose is to make the best of it for yourself. The big mistake is thinking that you are all, or connected to all. The truth is that you are just an individualistic part of the whole.

Humanity: to question and marvel at the beauty of the universe.
The Universe: to shine beauty and splendor upon humanity.

13 How can we be happy?

Just doing what makes us happy, I guess.

14 Are people good or bad?

People are nature, and I don't think nature would create something bad. The human race is just different from other animals. We are intelligent in another way, and we are egotistic.

We are born good, and some of us turn bad, but at the end of their lives, everyone has a good and a "dark" side.

Good or bad is purely an ethical question. What may be bad for some people can be good for others. I think the best ethical answer is the one that the philosopher Kant proposed: "If everyone were to do what I'm thinking of doing, would it be good or bad for the human condition?"

15 Where are we going?

Hopefully, in the right direction.

16 If red looks like red to me, does the same colour look any different to others?

Yes. Light is the source of all colors. Objects selectively reflect the lightwaves corresponding to the colors we see, while the other parts of the spectrum are absorbed. Regarding the color red: Light originates from atoms. When an electron vibrates - due to external forces like gravity - the energy within the atom increases, causing the electron to move from the most stable part (the nucleus or the heart of the atom) to a less stable region farther from the nucleus. As the electron loses energy, it emits light waves. The wavelength of these waves is determined by the energy inside the atom and the external energy acting on it. A hydrogen atom, for example, will always produce light waves that the human eye perceives as red due to its specific energy value and temperature. Therefore, when you look at red, you are actually seeing light waves produced by hydrogen atoms, which should appear the same to everyone because red is one of the three primary colors in space. Individuals who see a color other than red may have a physical condition that affects their perception, which doesn't align with the objective facts of nature.

17 How much longer will humans dominate the world?
18 If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Yes, of course, there's a noise. It's proven that noise is produced by soundwaves. Vibrations create a form of energy when they pass through an object or material, resulting in waves when the sound hits these materials or objects. Sound has many levels of frequency, and human ears can hear only a specific range. The sound itself, or soundwaves, is also related to pitch, duration, loudness, spatial location, and the sonic texture of the object or material. Just because no one is around to hear a sound at a given moment - such as when a tree falls in the forest - doesn't mean the soundwaves aren't produced or that the energy is nonexistent.

19 Can humans become immortal?

Though I don't believe that humans can become immortal as a whole, there are many aspects to a human, and I don't think any of them ever truly die. They just become something else.

Your body will decompose, and your life force will feed the soil. Your ideas and memory will continue to resonate and influence the world. Your soul will wander off to wherever souls go.

And your personality and memories...what makes you who you are...

If someone says that they are immortal, they cannot prove it unless they show us the future in which they do not die. Whether or not they are immortal will still be in question right up until they die. If they don't die, that still doesn't eliminate the possibility that they will die in the future. The end point: immortality is really intensely complex, and we, as humans, should probably stop trying to wrap our minds around it.

20 To be or not to be?
21 What is more important, the heart or the mind?
22 What is a true meaning of life and death?
23 Are humans capable of more?

Everything, from building to destroying.

24 Is a person who is always kind to others but secretly is constantly dreaming about hurting people really a good or bad person?

Really good question. I seriously don't know how to answer it well. A person who thinks about hurting other people is not necessarily bad. This person could simply dream of hurting people who have treated them badly. In this case, they would just be angry.

But when you think about hurting everybody without even knowing them, it might be a little worrying.

Actions speak louder than words. I guess someone would be truly bad if they acted on their awful thoughts. No one is either good or bad all the time.

25 If we violate the Lord's Laws are we going to suffer?

The laws of the "Lord" are nature. Nature teaches us that only the strongest survive, and this can mean the strongest of mind as well. ("Strongest" doesn't always mean force.)

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