To Benj96 and Tim Wood. Let me clarify what I mean by "fear death". It does not mean crippling terror or despair. Go to the roof of the tallest sky scraper you can think of, walk up to the edge, look down, and tell me you do not have some fear.

When you are driving along the road, a car careens in front of you, you instantly mash the brake and wonder if you were in time to stop what could be a fatal crash. If you walk in the woods and a large viscious and angry bear charges at you, you will feel fear. That is all fear of death.

If you had no fear for your own safety at all, you would likely not survive very long. Also, this is not to be confused with deciding to act on that fear or not. You can still fear something, and act against it.

Ok TVCL. I think I was viewing parameters as specifics you would feed to the goal. You're basically saying the goal and its results are set. Kind of like F(x) = y. X is the parameter, and Y is defined in terms of that parameter. If you changed the parameters to F(x, z) = y, we are also changing the goal, which is the entire equation.

If I'm understanding this correctly, then truth is merely the outcome of whatever we place into our goal. As long as X is plugged in, we'll get y. If we plug in X and Z, we get a different type of y. You are not speaking about a universal truth, but the result in regards to the goal, or the equation we have made.

The one barrier we are putting up is that the goal and truth must not be contradictory. It can't conclude up is down for example. That is fair, and good. I think, in writing this, that you should forgo the phrase "makes sense", as it is a loose term that will be up to the reader to define. Trust me, I know how easy it is to make a phrase or use that sounds like one particular thing in my head, then its read 40 different ways by others.

Perhaps to keep within your vein of speaking, simply state that logic is useful, and contradictions in logic are not. Myself concluding that up is down helps me in no way if I am to try to use up or down as useful directions. We may not know exactly how to define truth, but contradictions we know are the negation of truth. I don't think you'll find many people who will disagree with that.

So we have personal goals (We'll ignore society for now), when we meet those goals with the parameters we have, we feel it is true. To eliminate one aspect of this being an opinion, we state that the fulfillment of the goal must not be a contradiction.

Goals -> fullfillment -> cannot have contradiction = personal truth.

At this point you state that logic cannot be the sole measure of truth. But it can be the sole measure for what is not true correct? At this point I think you can safely say, "Any pursuit of truth must use logic, for logic is the one thing we can ascertain that can show something that is not true." That is, as long as you define logic as that which identifies a contradiction.

For example: 7 = 7. If we were to claim that 7 = 8, we would be in a contradiction. We can realize at this point that if I tried any other number to be equal to 7, besides 7, there would be a contradiction.
Thus, I could make a goal saying, "My goal is to see if another number can equal seven, besides 7 itself." If I concluded, "8 is the other number", then I am wrong because logic shows me that 7 equally 8 is a contradiction.

Do I have this correct? All of these assumptions are made as the start to a personal "truth", and do not involve other people coming in and mucking with the equation. =) If I have a correct understanding, feel free to continue from here. I see nothing wrong with this as a springboard into further points.

Ok. That's how it looks and I won't disagree but if given to categorize a list of items, say, "thoughts", "water", "iron", "number", you surely wouldn't put "thoughts" in the same class as "water" and "iron". The question is, why not? — TheMadFool

Well for one, they aren't supervenient. You would need to compare thoughts to sight, sound, fire, chemical reactions, etc. If you agree that thoughts are supervenient, then I think we are on some level of agreement. Do you have anything to add to the proposal of thoughts? Do you think they are something different from matter and energy? If so, what are they, and can you demonstrate this in some way?

I think it will be difficult to place reincarnation as something scientific due to our understanding of memory. We know that memories are stored in the brain. We know that damage can remove these memories. We even have drugs like propranolol which we use on people with post traumatic stress disorder to erase and minimize memories.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug-induced_amnesia

Here's a layperson's breakdown on memory. https://lesley.edu/article/stages-of-memory
Here's a more advanced study of the history of memory from philosophy to modern day science. Cool read. https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/where-do-memories-form-and-how-do-we-know/

Since we know that memories are formed within the brain, and since we know (from the second article) how to create and identify a false memory, then we can conclude that memory is something which comes from the physical and chemical interactions of the brain.

What is reincarnation in this scenario then? Since we know a person's dead brain tissue has not been placed into a new person, we know for a fact that the memories one has cannot be the memories of the former dead brain.

I am not saying it is impossible to make reincarnation a viable option to look into. But can you define reincarnation in such a way that does not contradict the well confirmed knowledge we already have on hand?

There is actually. Its called a T distribution table. If you ever have the pleasure (or agony) of taking a college statistics course, you will learn that there are "probabilities of probabilities happening within X number of attempts".

For example, we know that a coin can flip to heads or tails right? That's a 50% probability. But does that mean every other coin flip comes up on the other side? No. In fact, we can get heads multiple times in a row. T Distribution tables give you the probability of this happening. So for example, even though a coin flip is 50%, what is the probability that out of ten flips, all coins come up heads?

I hope this answers your point!

Ok, so it IS semantics then. Using their vocabulary, thoughts are supervenient, just like their description of color. I've noted that thoughts are the combination of matter and energy, or physical and chemical processes according to their vocabulary.

2 physical properties of thought are:

1. Thoughts generate emissions of electricity and chemical reactions which can be monitored.
2. The intensity of waves localized in areas of the brain associating with types of thoughts.

But largely these are physical measurements of the chemical reaction. Thoughts generally happen when neurons receive electrical and chemical impulses. Again, thoughts are like a fire on logs. You need the logs, or the fire cannot burn. The fire itself is energy, or a chemical reaction. In your definition, physical and chemical reactions are still matter and energy, meaning what I'm saying is still holding true.

Most of the old questions of philosophy of mind has largely been outdated due to advancement in science. Neuroscience is where many of the questions about mind are now answered. If you want to have a serious discussion, or figure out new questions and answers about the mind, I would start there. Philosophy of mind is fun to examine as a precursor to neuroscience, but it is largely primitive and out of date with today's knowledge.

You have only pointed to articles by scientists that correlate particular physical brain phenomena with thinking but you haven't demonstrated, at least to my satisfaction, that thoughts themselves are physical. Sorry.

Oh, is this just a semantics issue of what physical means? Physical is matter and energy (really the same thing). Thoughts are more on the energy and process side of things. If you mean your own personal experience of having a thought? That too is physical. You are a physical being and brain. If your brain is damaged, your thoughts are as well. We know there are certain areas of the brain that if damaged, prevent a person from hearing, seeing, or sensing in any way. Damage to the frontal lobe prevents higher level thought and awareness.

All of this is a physical result from physical things. This is the evidence before us. When I mean you'll need more than to just ask the same question, why don't you argue how thoughts are not physical, and give your evidence? How are they something different from matter and energy, when that is how we detect them, understand them, and the only substances we know of in the universe?

I've answered your questions. If you want me to add further answers, you're going to have to do more then just repeat the same question.

I'm not sure what else to tell you sir. I've pointed to two articles which have shown physical properties we can track to measure thoughts.

Here is an in depth article on neurotransmiters, and how the brain functions. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK234149/

Now can we see your thoughts exactly as you do? Well, no. But that applies to anything. I cannot experience what it is to be a fire, or a duck, or a dog, but I can measure that they exist. Science has proven time and time again the chemical workings of a living brain. How it can be disrupted, damaged, improved, and affect a person's thoughts. If you're genuinely curious, google a few more articles afterwards. I'm not sure what else I can say on the matter. It is incontrovertible at this time in our scientific advancement that the active mind is a physical reality.

I think you're still talking about intelligence, and not life itself. If you want to talk about intelligence as something separate from life, we can go down that route after. But first, do you not think a bacterium is composed of matter? Matter interacts with other matter all of the time, and in that clash, a new shape emerges. Life is simply a set of complex reactions that seeks to preserve itself. When an amoeba is hungry, it is running out of energy to sustain itself, so it seeks out more matter to sustain its chemical reaction.

This is not strange or fiction. This is the reality of the world around us.

Here is how thoughts are generally measured. https://engineering.mit.edu/engage/ask-an-engineer/how-are-thoughts-measured/

Mri's and dopamine are one level. In studies, they'll ask a person a few questions, record when a person thinks an answer, then can repeat the process. From the first article I linked you:

"So his team turned to a computer algorithm known as a 'vocoder' that can synthesise speech after being trained on recordings of people talking.

Professor Mesgarani said: 'This is the same technology used by Amazon Echo and Apple Siri to give verbal responses to our questions.'

He taught it to interpret brain activity by teaming up with US neurosurgeon Dr Ashesh Mehta whose epileptic patients have allowed him to implant their brains with electrodes to find the source of their seizures.

Explained Prof Mesgarani: 'Working with Dr. Mehta, we asked epilepsy patients already undergoing brain surgery to listen to sentences spoken by different people, while we measured patterns of brain activity. These neural patterns trained the vocoder.'"

Feel free to go and read more. Its neat stuff.

Yes, fire is energy. And the mind is a result of electricity and chemical reactions zipping around the brain matter. A non-living mind does not have these measurable physical reactions and energy.

According to physics, matter and energy are interchangeable. Arguably, they are the same thing. Electricity for example is the zipping of electrons extremely quickly into adjacent atoms in an orderly fashion.

Our philosophy must be grounded first upon the knowledge of today. The men of centuries ago did the same. We cannot postulate ideas without first knowing what we can about our modern day truths of the world. It is a nice conjecture that the mind is somehow not physical, but everything in science shows us that the mind is very measurable, physical, and within this world.

Your reply to Daniel did not answer my point at all. The mind is like a flame in a campfire. You do not measure it in terms of logs, you measure its heat and energy.

Yes, thoughts can be measured! https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6644101/Machine-read-mind-convert-THOUGHTS-speech-developed-scientists.html#:~:text=A%20machine%20that%20can%20read,built%20and%20tested%20by%20scientists.&text=The%20pioneering%20system%20combines%20the,brain%20activity%20into%20intelligible%20sentences.

Again, you are looking at the logs of the fire and saying, "Where is the fire?" A living brain is zipping chemicals and electricity all over the place, its fire in motion. An unliving brain does not have this. Would you look at a pile of logs that did not have a fire and say, "See, we cannot measure the fire of this campfire!".

All measurement is a representation of matter into another medium of expression. I can look at a brain, I can then say "It weighs 20 lbs". I can then BE a brain. I can also read a brain.

These are all very real, physical, and observable things. Can you show otherwise?

Asif, are we not completely made up of matter? I think we're emphasizing that there is some great difference between life and non-life, when that is not a given. As a basic descriptor, life seems to be a material and chemical reaction that actively seeks to sustain itself.

For example, if I mix baking soda and vinegar together, we get a reaction. Once it ends, its over. The vinegar does not seek to replenish itself or the baking soda. "Life" is a chemical reaction that seeks to replenish itself. When it is running low on the things it needs to sustain itself, it gets water or food. When it realizes it can no longer extend itself, it creates some type of copy of itself to keep going.

But this is ALL matter doing this. The need for self-identity is not relevant to life either. Bacterium do not know what they are. I think you are describing intelligence, which is when matter gains greater awareness and ability to replenish its chemical reaction.

To me, fear is an impetus to drive the chemical reaction that is life to keep going, or avoid things that would end its reaction prematurely. All of this is done through energy and matter. Can you back up your claim that life does not come from matter? Is this a purely spiritual or mental identity on your part?

HI TVCL! You remind me a ton of myself when I finished up grad school years ago. Seems you're big on Epistemology like I was, and also wanted to continue to pursue your search outside of Academia.

I wish I had someone examine my work back then, so the least I can do is give you that. I will attempt to be fair to your logic and viewpoint, and remove ego from the equation. The search for truth is all that matters, and so to that end I will keep in my criticism and our discussion.

I read your site thesis, and your first post. I will try to sum up how you are labeling goals, please correct me or affirm if I have the matter.

Goals: We have goals, and they are the endpoints of our inquiry. A starting point would be, "I wish to discover the nature of truth", and endpoint would be, "I have obtained this goal when X is reached".
The parameters of how we go about that do not alter our goal. For example, if I desire to pursue truth through philosophy, or pursue truth per science, these parameters do not affect the goal themselves.

I'm a little lost at 4. Therefore, we measure our understanding of the truth in relation to our goals. I think you're stating that the "truth" of obtaining this goal must be within the confines of how we have designed this goal?

5 and 6 seem to imply that what we consider useful is often a guide for when we know we have achieved our goal.

This seems good to start that we have goals, and our answers within those goals are often times our truth (but not necessarily an objective truth, as you continue)

You note well that if what fits our goals is truth, then we fall into the danger of subjectivity and opinion. So how do we avoid this? You state that answers to our goals need to make sense.

It is here where I'm going to pause. What is "make sense"? Is this when we hear a conclusion to our goal that satisfies our minds? Or is this conclusion satisfactory to larger society? Because many things can "make sense" to us, but not truly reach our goals or assess the truth.

Also, "making sense" seems to be our own subjective judgement again on what satisfies our goals. I can construct my goals in such a way as to avoid contradiction, or I can accept contradiction and be satisfied. People accept contradictions all the time without question, and believe this makes sense, sometimes even when others point it out.

If something makes sense to me, then it is useful correct? In which case, what is useful is arbitrary to what makes sense to myself at the time. We also then rule out the need for logic. I can throw it out if I personally feel it makes sense to me.

I think this contradicts point 18. Information or truth-claims that are illogical are meaningless and make no sense.

I think you need to demonstrate this. There are people who believe that is makes sense, and is true, that space aliens seeded our planet with life. They ignore contradictory facts. They use their own parameters of logic, and simply discard that which does not fit. They feel they have obtained their goal, and that the rest of us simply do not make any sense.

So to sum, I think things are off to a great start, but the hang up is in what you mean by "makes sense". I look forward to your take!

Fyi, fingernails are dead. They are dead cells pushed out. They also do not continue to grow after you die. Your skin will rot and recede away revealing the nail that was previously being pushed underneath it, but that is all.

It seems like the OP's topic is being forgotten though. Asif, forgive me if I'm wrong, but it seems like English may be a second language to you. Perhaps in your language what you stated would be better understood, so forgive us native speakers for not quite understanding your meaning. Are you stating that one cannot "die" because then that would be the negation of one's identity as a living being?

The best I can think of is if you were "dead", it wouldn't be "you", because "you" are a living being. The shell left behind would be dead matter, but it would not be you. Let me know if I'm on the right track, or if there is further explanation needed.

If this is so, how does this relate to fear? Do you believe that because one's identity is living, it is impossible for a living thing to ever cease to be living? Thus we have no need to fear death?

I think you first have to have an understanding of what is good, and what is not good. This understanding of good and not good should extend beyond our own personal interests.

After considering this, and concluding what is good, and not so good, we can only say if we are "nice", when we encounter an instance of having to act on that good, even if it does not mesh with our desired feelings.

We have to put our money where our mouth is. Anyone can think about being nice. Anyone can be nice when its convenient or personally beneficial to do so. Truly nice people do nice things because they understand it is an important thing to do, even at a certain risk to oneself or societal standing in society.

You may have heard the adage, "Nice guys finish last". To my above definition, this is not true. Nice people are generally brave, empathic, and self aware. They are fantastic people to be around, and many people love them. The "Nice that finishes last" is the individual who only acts a particular way because they want to be accepted by others in society. That's not being "nice", that's just trying to act in a social manner that will grant you personal gain. The soldier who was told, "Gas these Jews" in Nazi Germany is the "nice guy that finishes last". They never risk asserting themselves out of fear of societal loss of the society they value. Generally these people are considered cowards, sheep, and sometimes, "Nice".

Nice is of course a very broad word that matters the context of its use, and cannot really stand on its own due to how society uses it. I believe in using positive words within a positive context, so attribute "Nice" to the person who holds values in something beyond themselves versus a selfish, cowardly, or milquetoast individual. And I do believe most people can be nice. They have to make that decision for themselves.

Fear is an emotion that stops us from doing harm to ourselves, or to things we care about. It is an emotion that helps in loss prevention.

You absolutely should fear death. That fear motivates you to take care of yourself, which results in a better quality of life. It prevents you from putting yourself in a situation of high risk. It helps you evaluate and think about situations before you get in there, and its too late for regrets.

But that is all we should fear. We should not fear what comes beyond, whether there is any existence or is not. We should fear the loss of what we have now, and the potential we could have while in THIS life. Death means no more breathing. No more sunsets. No more encounters with people, deep thoughts or emotions. Its the end.

If you do not fear that, then there is something wrong with you that you should get looked at or worked on. The base state of life should be to desire to keep living. It is a fundamental to being a "living" being, and not merely a non renewable chemical reaction that reacts and burns out without any say in the matter.

Thomas Quine, thank you are gracious to both consider, and defend my line of questioning as a possibility. You have the mind of a true philosopher! Tim wood, I did not intend the idea to be a fully fleshed out theory, just a different line of questioning to consider.

Thank you for your time Quine, I did not mean to detract from the current conversation.

I read about half of it tonight Pfhorrest. Really nice write up of your personal philosophical beliefs. You actually wrote something, where many would not.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by significant. If you think spatial size is significant, then I suppose we are insignificant in comparison to everything else in existence. Of course, most anything else would be as well.

I think I'm fairly significant to myself. I have to deal with all of my feelings and experiences. There is no greater impact on myself, then that, so I would say its the most significant thing. Me. Maybe not to others, but others don't have to deal with me 24-7 do they?

Perhaps what people mean is your significance in impressing your will outside of yourself. As if what you do will echo without time and be recognized by society, or God, or something else besides yourself. Yes, you are insignificant in the grand scheme of things there. I feel these statements are from people who want social recognition, or have a fantasy of changing the world, but have been unable to obtain this to a satisfying degree. Saying, "None of it matters anyway" is almost like a coping mechanism. I could be wrong, but that's my experience with such people.

thewonder, after seeing your replies and your reasons, I don't think this is a real plan. What you're doing is having a 30 year life crisis. I'm nearing 40 now, and myself and a lot of my friends went through it. This is the time when you realize youth is beginning to leave you, and you have that last chance to make a future for yourself before its too late. There is no shame in it, and many of us who have gone through our early 30's know the feeling.

You sound a little depressed, and want to make a meaningful change in your life. Making a meaningful change in your life is wonderful, but it should be done with a solid goal and plan, especially as we age. We're not 20 anymore when we can do whatever we want, consequences to the wind. I would suggest before you take out thousands in loans, take a few hundred out and get some counceling. You seem to indicate you feel like you have no other interests or hobbies in life. That sounds like you're lost, and is a great time to connect with other people to help find yourself. An advanced degree in philosophy is not going to fix your feelings. You must first fix your feelings, and then when you're centered and ready, see if you still want to pursue a degree in higher education at this stage in your life.

I've suffered from depression myself, so I'm reading a bit of myself in you. So this comes from personal experience with care to help bring you up, not as a means to bring you down.

Funny point. The human species has a massive variety in how and what we like to think about. For those of us who like thinking about philosophical questions, its a blessing. For some, I'm sure its pure torture and would advise them to use their time and talents elsewhere in life.

Its good that we have philosophical people too. To me, philosophy is the attempt to construct new words and concepts that describe what can currently not be put into words or concepts. Morality, for instance, is still considered undefined, and so people debate about it constantly. The end goal is to find words and concepts that allow one to use morality in one's life in a applicable way that can exist without contradiction by reality. It can then evolve into science, be tested, and examined as something measurable and real.

Hi thewonder! A nice set of questions! I find in education there is an overemphasis on, "Pursue your passion," which tries to elevate college and your career as some greater purpose in your life. Very few people actually have this passion, so it leaves everybody else wondering if something is wrong with them. There is nothing wrong with you. Its completely normal.

I taught high school for about five years, and decided that the field wasn't for me any longer. I had the time and resources to get another degree, or pursue a different field. I took a few months looking into a few things. I can't tell you what will fit you. What I can tell you is to look for what does, and to understand that what you are doing is making a financial and long term investment that will pay off.

1. I knew myself at that point. I knew what I was good at, found annoying, and work that came easily to me.

If you have a work ethic issue, its likely because you haven't found something that does not mesh with your personality or natural talents. This is not about specific personal interests, but broad generalities about your personality. I found I enjoyed working in solitude, and figuring out solutions to problems. So I looked into law, electrician, and programming. If you're shy and don't like people, don't go into a people business. I also like autonomy and no one telling me exactly how something must be done. I also need variety, and don't like repetition.

So do the same for yourself. Within your hobbies, what about it meshes with your personality? Think of the things you've tried in life. What has annoyed you, what have you enjoyed, and are there some things that you've had a knack for? There are enough barriers in life and your job, don't add a personality conflict to it as well! It is not being cheap to pursue the things you are naturally good at. Its smart, efficient, and will help you turn a career into something positive.

2. My degree in software engineering was not about passion, it was so I could become employed, and make more money and happiness in my investment in the long run. Consider how much the job pays, how in demand the field is, and if the field will continue to have lots of options and need in the future. After looking at law, I realized there were a glut of lawyers, and many people were in massive debt from law school working law related jobs that didn't pay the debt off. I saw programming was in massive demand, payed extremely well, and was a sure bet for decades to come.

3. Evaluate your financial freedom, and priorities to other people in life. I did not have a wife or kid. I have never had any desire to pursue starting a family I had some savings I could go through. For my last two years once those savings ran out, I had the fortunate experience, and was willing to face the shame of living with my parents once again so I did not become tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

You need to find a balance to those three points for yourself. I can't answer those, and no one else can either. Try to find something that meshes a good result out of all three, and you'll likely be on your way to something successful.

As for grad school being expensive, yes. You can get loans. Grad school is a whole other upgrade to school work rigor. You will be expected to write papers with careful citations. You will be expected to go above and beyond what your writing was as an undergraduate student. An undergrad degree can be fun even if you're not heavily invested in it. A graduate degree is not.

It sounds like right now though, you need to take that time and evaluate those three points. I may be wrong, but it sounds like you're using the idea of grad school as a retreat and a hopeful refuge from not knowing what you want. The reality is, you're past the easy choices in life. Any path you choose from now on will be a sacrifice in something. You just have to figure out what sacrifice fits in with your life goals, and which don't.

Maybe this can help with the problem of evil.

Its all in the definitions. The idea of the "Omni's" really isn't about God, but about their limitations as useful words to apply to reality. If the omni's are used as an idea that something has the power to do anything, then this word is a contradiction. To do "anything", means that it can contradict itself. This means it can do something impossible. But then the impossible is not impossible anymore. Which means there really are no contradictions, only limitations of power.

But life does not bear this our. We see very real contradictions that no imagined power can break. We cannot speculate on what we have not observed, only what we have observed. And what have we observed? That there are limits, and give and takes on decisions. Want an intelligent brain? Its going to generate more heat and consume more resources. Want an intelligent brain that doesn't require calories or generate any heat? Welcome to fantasy land.

If you use the omni's in such a way, then you are describing an impossible being. But you do not believe God is an impossible being, but a possible being. Therefore you have to clarify the omni's.

Omnipotent - As powerful as a being can be
Omniscient - As all knowing as a being can be
Omnibenevolent - As good as a being can be

And now the problem of evil is solved. If we understand God to fit these words, then this is a possible being. At this point we can state, "There is evil in the world, but it is minimized as much as possible within God's limitations."

Before you get offended with the idea that God has limitations, think about it. It doesn't mean that God has limitations like you or I. Compare to ourselves, we might hyperbolize and state, "All powerful". A dog might think we are a God, but we are still limited by reality. It is not offensive or foolish to claim that God is powerful, but even God has limits. In fact, its the only thing which makes sense within religion. Doesn't God work with us and ask us to choose to follow his guidance? It sounds like God is limited to this, and that's ok.

If you're going to say a field is invalid, you're going to need more than an opinion.

Lets look at it this way. Economists are hired by businesses and organizations. Someone is paying them money, and that someone runs that organization or business.

If you believe that business owners are superior in their judgement then economists themselves, then why are they hiring economists? They hire them, because economists add value to their business/organization.

Now if you can show why they've all been bamboozled, feel free. But I just don't see how your point makes any sense if you take it to its end result.

When I was young, I decided I wanted to be a philosopher. I obtained my master's degree before ultimately deciding the field was not for me. I went and taught high school math for a while, then got a software engineering degree and program for a living today.

Now that you can see my life path, lets go over what you can expect in getting a philosophy degree, and why you should, or should not pursue it. I know a few reasons why people go into philosophy. Lets check yours!

1. You view philosophy as a hobby.

A degree is not about a hobby, it is about a job. Early in life we think that our hobbies would be great to do as jobs. The problem is, they are often two very different things. Hobbies are done on our own time, things we freely pursue for our entertainment and enjoyment. A job is one someone else's time, necessary to receive pay to live, and dictates your actions.

You CAN have hobbies that you also enjoy as jobs, but this is often not the case. Will you enjoy being forced to teach philosophy you're not personally interested in? Do you enjoy countless hours of pouring over texts of philosophers to quote to publish material that is ultimately meaningless because you have a quota to meet for the year?

Because if philosophy is simply a hobby, you really have nothing new to contribute to the field. At that point, you are a philosopher because you love reading other people's works, have some general opinion of your own philosophy, and will be likely an irrelevant academic with low pay and status in society. That being the case, you better love it as a job too! I found this was the majority of people who went into philosophy, so you'll be in good company. If you can enjoy or tolerate the job aspect, you'll at least be around people who share your hobby. But you can still be around like minded hobbyists with the internet and events, so don't think philosophy as a job is necessary to entertain your hobby.

2. Philosophy is a passion, and you believe you have something valuable to contribute to the field

This was me. I started a philosophy club my freshman year, and it was one of the few things I was passionate about. After numerous conversations, I had come up with new ideas and takes on philosophers other people who were familiar with the literature had not heard before. But beyond that, they thought there might be some merit to it! I started writing philosophy on my own in a neophyte paper format.

I knew going into the field meant I had to get a Phd, that my pay would suck, and people would likely look down on me. But I HAD to try, because what if I actually had something to contribute, but did not? I learned all I could, continued to write and refine in my spare time, and went on to get a masters.

If you are trying to contribute to philosophy however, be warned. In my experience, academic philosophy is an old and set in its ways institution. And like any old institution, it has its red tape, and a surprisingly closed mindedness. You will suffer through many boring lectures and analysis that examine philosophy's that are outdated, flat out wrong, and irrelevant. Academic philosophy is a strange place that asks you to analyze its failures, and write papers on the merits and demerits of what amounts to a modern day work of fiction.

You will not find people who are excited about hearing new takes on things. They will insist that you are young, and that you must do things the way it has been done before. You will be forced to cover topics that are safe, boring, and within the professor's knowledge. You will spend the majority of your time writing about what opposing philosopher's thought about a topic, then squeeze in a small and virtually insignificant part of your insight.

You will go to professors and discuss your ideas during office hours, hoping for assistance and direction. You will find many professors uncomfortable or outright hostile if you make a rational, calm, and pointed point that they agree with you on. Many professors will not be excited at the prospect of something new, but insulted that some young person has made an insight into a career they have spent many years on. You will not find guidance, you will be on your own.

I had no desire to fight the system, or to play by its rules for four more years, and wanted to do something more meaningful with my life. I did. If you have a passion and a possible contribution though, don't let that stop you! I do not regret my pursuit, I only regret that it did not bear fruit.

3. You think philosophy is easy, and will get you a degree.

If you're just planning on getting a bachelors because you want to say you graduated college, this is something a few do. Don't even think about going to grad school though, you will be eaten alive.

However, I caution against this. 40 years ago just having a degree would get you somewhere. Now? Not really. If you're wealthy, you get a degree "to have a degree" for status. If you're not? You get a degree for a job. In the time you get a philosophy degree and go work at a crap job, you could have started working at a job, and through hard work and effort, worked your way up the ladder.

Often times people in the third category don't know what to do, but think they have to have a degree. It is an expensive waste in time, money, and self-esteem. If you are in this camp, drop out of college, and go do something with your life. Get a job that doesn't require a degree, and try to find a job that you don't hate, and can see doing without dread as you climb up in pay and position. Continue to do philosophy as a hobby. Hobbies are great, and do not need to turn into careers!

Once you find a job that you either really don't detest, or rarely, even love, then look into higher education of some sorts to work your way up higher. Use education and certifications as tools to help you get better pay and position in your line of work.

I hope that helps. Know what you're getting into and know that no matter what decision you make, it will have a risk of failure, and require work to succeed. Don't let that hold you back though! Most people make it as long as you keep trying. If you fail? Its not the end of the world. Try again, you may succeed down the road.

I think you're forgetting energy here. Think of it this way. You can have a car with a working battery, and a car without a working battery. A "living" car is one that actively has its electricity flowing through the system to cause all the parts to work. An "unliving" car does not have these interactions.

When the brain is "on", its constantly sending chemical reactions and electricity all over the place. Matter is being lost and replaced by the food you've eaten. It is not a rock, but a battery zapping electricity around your entire body.

"the brain uses roughly 300 calories (a day)". https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/science/02qna.html#:~:text=Studies%20show%20that%20it%20is,brain%20uses%20roughly%20300%20calories.

So with that, we know that there is a physical mass that is consumed each day for you to have a mind. Once the mind leaves, so does the consumption of calories. Therefore according to your premise, the mind is indeed an expression of physicality. The mind is not physical like the firewood of a campfire, it is the flame itself.

I'm sorry if I'm interrupting the current conversation here, but I think the concept of "assists human flourishing" is too self-centered on humanity. What about what "helps dolphins flourish"? Especially if both humans and dolphins can flourish together.

But beyond this, such morality seems like subjective validation of humanity existing. We want to exist and do well, and we like that. But "good" or "moral" seem to imply something more than an assertion of a desire, but should try to explain why we should act in that way despite our personal desires.

Morality in essence is asking, "What makes one action or existence special over another action or existence?" I think that question goes beyond humanity. If humanity vanished, the universe would still exist. Would we say that morality disappears with them? It would be irrelevant at that point if a plague then wiped out all other living plants and animals on Earth? I think our intuition would say that such an event would be tragic and wrong.

After the plants and animals were gone, what if next the Earth would disappear? Then the galaxy? Then the universe itself? What if an event would happen that would cause all of existence to vanish? Would we find that a tragedy as well? We as humans sometimes forget that we are an organization of atoms combined into a particular expression within the totality of existence. "To flourish", means "we should exist". But I don't think stating, "We should exist, and do everything in our power to continue to exist", really answers the question of why humans should exist as an expression in the sea of existence.

I'm a fan of a foundational approach. I believe our morality, or what we should do, is based off of the blocks that make us. Back when the big bang occurred, existence was expressed in many ways. If we are to assume there is no higher guiding force in the universe, then there was no reason matter should, or should not have formed. We can theorize that some matter formed that faded out over time. After all, the inception of the universe should be a completely lawless event. Matter and antimatter clashed, and about an estimated 1% was not annihilated in this crash. That matter and energy which continued to exist billions of years later has not expressed itself as us, and everything around us.

The existence within us is the stuff that won't quit being. And slowly over the eons it has formed itself into a unique expression called "Earth", where it has then over time formed itself into greater and greater complexities of interactions called, "Life". This expression of existence is not merely a reaction that burns out, but reactions that actively act to sustain themselves, and have gained sentience over what they are.

This is the existence expression of Earth. I think morality is the continuation of existence, for the alternative, is the void. Further, existence on Earth seems to want to express itself in more complex reactions. Yet it does not express itself in just ONE life, but many lives and the complications of ecosystems. Finally we have one portion of existence that has gained self sentience, humanity. Humanity believes it should continue to exist, because the matter building us continues to express its existence instead of going quietly into the night. But this is also the other plants, animals, and non-life around us too. I think morality is how we as humanity, continue to express our existence in a way with other existences, that elevates the complexity and results to something greater than just ourselves.

Just like the pattern of existence has done, so we should continue to do.