Off the beaten path Philosophy Club topics

[For Prose]

Hello everyone. As the title suggests, I am searching for topics that might not be normally covered in philosophy. An example of this would be "Is everyone really entitled to his or her own opinion?".

 

Thanks for your input in advance!

[Phi for All]

Maybe a bit lowbrow, but it's been on my mind a lot lately.

 

In traffic, when they close a lane, they give you a few miles notice. Inevitably, as traffic approaches the point where the cars in the lane that's being closed are supposed to merge with another lane, you have that space that opens up because people are merging early.

 

Now the State Patrol (and physics) will tell you that you should wait until the traffic signs force you to merge so that more available road space is used to funnel the traffic. But we all hate the guys who go whizzing past us as we merge early (because the signs told us about this a couple of miles ago!) and then demand to be let in right at the merge point.

 

It's not really a legal point; you won't get a ticket either way. It's just that one way is the correct way but it doesn't feel like the right way. But if you do it the other way, it also doesn't feel right.

 

So who is right, the person who uses the road most efficiently but makes people angry or the one who thinks he's being responsible but is actually making traffic worse?

[cladking]

 

 

So who is right, the person who uses the road most efficiently but makes people angry or the one who thinks he's being responsible but is actually making traffic worse?

 

 

Neither is right.

 

I drive in the closed lane but try to drive the average speedof the open lane. This blocks people from going by and allows traffic at the choke point to flow more smoothly. If everyone accelerates behind me when they reach the closed lane the two lanes of rtraffic can merge and maintain a faster rate. It often works but it rarely works for long before somebody messes it up.

 

Usually there's no need for traffic to back up in the first place except idiots slow down as soon as no one can pass them. It takes only as many Illinois drivers as there are lanes to create a traffic jam.

[imatfaal]

...

So who is right, the person who uses the road most efficiently but makes people angry or the one who thinks he's being responsible but is actually making traffic worse?

 

Neither - get a bike! Then you can cut alongside traffic all the time - and get sworn at all the time.

 

It's an ethical question without true answer. Before one pretends that one is cutting along to aid the common good one must be able to - hand on heart - state that if the action meant additional personal delay one would still do it. Otherwise the common good is an ex post facto justification. And castigating those who correctly judge the situation and move forward to the bottleneck and maximise road usage seems to be based almost entirely on the irrational and almost universal character change that accompanies getting behind the wheel of a vehicle. Almost all driving-based problems could, in this cyclist's opinion, be solved by drivers taking a damn chill pill and/or growing the hell up.

[CaptainPanic]

I have to admit that I don't know what is "normally covered in philosophy", as asked in the OP. A topic for possible debate that comes to mind is:

- Who is responsible for a person's well-health and safety? (The state, the person, something else? Perhaps health and safety must be subcategorized to be able to answer this?)

 

And this one came up in another thread, discussing the situation in Kiev:

- When is a revolution ethically correct? When do you have the ethical right to overthrow your government?

 

 

Hmm... perhaps we should use this thread as a source of inspiration, and open one or two topics every week from this growing list?

[swansont]

I have to admit that I don't know what is "normally covered in philosophy", as asked in the OP.

 

Me, neither. But here goes:

 

If I give you something that you willingly eat/drink/smoke and it kills you quickly, we call it a poison and I'm guilty of murder. If I give you something that you willingly eat/drink/smoke and it takes decades for you to die, we call that choice and I'm pretty much free to sell you such products as I please. Where do we draw the line, and why?

[rktpro]

 

Me, neither. But here goes:

 

If I give you something that you willingly eat/drink/smoke and it kills you quickly, we call it a poison and I'm guilty of murder. If I give you something that you willingly eat/drink/smoke and it takes decades for you to die, we call that choice and I'm pretty much free to sell you such products as I please. Where do we draw the line, and why?

In both cases it would be against you. You are not telling the adverse effects of your product while the buyer/taker is innocent.

I would propose one: What makes a child so determined to learn to walk when he fails many times trying so, how is he inspired?

[Phi for All]

Hmm... perhaps we should use this thread as a source of inspiration, and open one or two topics every week from this growing list?

 

I like this. The problem seems to be getting people not to jump on the question and start discussing it here. Perhaps we should be starting each one of these topics on our own, or would that take these topics out of the "topics that might not be normally covered in philosophy" category?

[Greg H.]

Maybe we should pin this as a inspiration only area?

[s1eep]

In both cases it would be against you. You are not telling the adverse effects of your product while the buyer/taker is innocent.

I would propose one: What makes a child so determined to learn to walk when he fails many times trying so, how is he inspired?

"How is he inspired?"

The parents and their examples give him inspiration. I imagine a baby must feel as if it was handicapped; after a while watching others walk around and talk, without being able to do these things himself, he must feel like a different species-- he is not experienced enough to know he is young. When realizing he can walk, the overall pressures of the memories of watching others walk, and the walking around him, will contribute to his inspiration.

[Phi for All]

Maybe we should pin this as a inspiration only area?

 

Let's include reading. Reading what's been written would be good.

[imatfaal]

I hate to be the grinch but so far all the questions that have been proposed have been ethical questions; ethics is one of the branches of philosophy thus it has a place in this forum but it also has its own forum. Ethical questions are both the easiest and most recondite of philosophical quandaries. They are simple to posit and impossible to resolve. It is made more difficult by the fact that every dilemma of human existence; moral, political, economic, societal etc; can be collapsed in the limit to an ethical question. The discussion of an ethical problem is invigorating and intellectually stimulating - but it is a mistake to think that this debate is the highpoint of philosophy.

 

Classically, and whilst we are talking western rather than eastern the classical divisions still apply, Philosophy is made up of a handful of disparate notions:

- perhaps most importantly for modern thinkers is the study of knowledge itself - epistemology

- the basis of most accepted theories and a byword for correct thinking - logic

- studying reality and being at the most fundamental levels - metaphysics

- investigation of how one lives ones life - ethics

- beauty, art, indulgence, taste, the senses - music, dance, theatre, poetry, fine art - aesthetics

 

In my opinion - and I accept I am jaded, unrepresentative, and potentially peculiar - the philosophical questions of today are epistemological. What is knowledge? How does truth and falsehood relate to understanding? Is reasoning or empiricism supreme? Why should either reasoning or empiricism be trusted over faith? These are arguments that have run and run for millennia from Parmenides and Plato through Descarte to most modern philosophers. It is in epistemology, and in the offshots of this study that critical study necessitates, that philosophy has an important part to play in 21st century thinking

[For Prose]

I have to admit that I don't know what is "normally covered in philosophy", as asked in the OP.

Me, neither.

The responses so far are well above my expectations when I posted this. Some examples of common philosophy topics include Pascal's Wager, is there a god, do we have free will, or can we really know something.

 

I have really enjoyed pondering some of the topics you all have shared so far. It's pleasing to receive some ideas relating to more modern philosophical dealings.

[Roamer]

What is life to the universe ?
A way to explore itself, a virus, or something else ?

[KenBakerMN]

Maybe a bit lowbrow, but it's been on my mind a lot lately.

 

In traffic, when they close a lane, they give you a few miles notice. Inevitably, as traffic approaches the point where the cars in the lane that's being closed are supposed to merge with another lane, you have that space that opens up because people are merging early.

 

Now the State Patrol (and physics) will tell you that you should wait until the traffic signs force you to merge so that more available road space is used to funnel the traffic. But we all hate the guys who go whizzing past us as we merge early (because the signs told us about this a couple of miles ago!) and then demand to be let in right at the merge point.

 

It's not really a legal point; you won't get a ticket either way. It's just that one way is the correct way but it doesn't feel like the right way. But if you do it the other way, it also doesn't feel right.

 

So who is right, the person who uses the road most efficiently but makes people angry or the one who thinks he's being responsible but is actually making traffic worse?

New guy here, coming a little late to the party. Yeah, this topic is lowbrow but interesting nonetheless.

 

Having had a lengthy commute for a couple of years, I've had time to think about this situation. The right solution is to make full use of both lanes and zipper merge at the end. If everyone does it that way it's fair and works perfectly. Many people insist on being nice and merging early. But if the lane is open I pass the line in the other lane and merge as far ahead as I can. It may seem like I'm being a dick to the people who got in line before me, but if they don't know the right way to handle that situation, it's not my problem.

[swansont]

New guy here, coming a little late to the party. Yeah, this topic is lowbrow but interesting nonetheless.

 

Having had a lengthy commute for a couple of years, I've had time to think about this situation. The right solution is to make full use of both lanes and zipper merge at the end. If everyone does it that way it's fair and works perfectly. Many people insist on being nice and merging early. But if the lane is open I pass the line in the other lane and merge as far ahead as I can. It may seem like I'm being a dick to the people who got in line before me, but if they don't know the right way to handle that situation, it's not my problem.

 

 

I don't have a problem with that nearly as much as I do with the ones who merge early, knowing that others will continue to pass and then merge ahead of me. Merging early slows the open lane down further, affecting everyone behind the early-merge point.

[KenBakerMN]

What is life to the universe ?

A way to explore itself, a virus, or something else ?

The simple but unsatisfying answer is that life is simply something that happens as a consequence of laws and initial conditions of the universe, like galaxies or the structure of the water molecule. In that reductionist view life doesn't have any meaning or purpose to the universe as a whole. it just happened. That raises the question, what is the meaning our purpose of our human life in particular, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.

 

A related question is, what is consciousness to the universe? It's harder to see how self-awareness and free will could be a consequence a purely physical processes. Which leads to the next question, does free will even exist? I think it does, but I'm at a complete loss as to how it can be possible. Or this, is consciousness a necessary condition for free will, or vice versa, or neither?

 

Can anyone smarter than me (which is probably most of you) comment on this?