Philosophy & Society

An Introduction to Philosophy (RLL style) Week 07  Metaphysics 4  (Metaphysical Determinism) –  Part 6: Is your phone listening to you?

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Our devices don’t need to listen to us to understand us. They read patterns. Clicks, pauses, habits, and repetitions reveal preferences we may not consciously recognize. Determinism invites us to notice how much of our behavior is predictable, even to machines. Yet philosophy leaves room for something interesting: the moment a pattern breaks. Perhaps freedom doesn’t arrive as total control, but as the rare and meaningful glitch.

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An Introduction to Philosophy (RLL style) Week 07  Metaphysics 4  (Metaphysical Determinism) –  Part 5: How are you?

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Much of our behavior is shaped less by conscious choice than by social conditioning. We learn what to say, how to respond, and when to conform long before we realize we’re doing it. Determinism invites us to notice how powerful the pull of the group can be, and how often “I’m fine” is less a truth than a reflex. Awareness doesn’t free us from influence, but it gives us the chance to choose our surroundings more deliberately.

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An Introduction to Philosophy (RLL style) Week 07  Metaphysics 4  (Metaphysical Determinism) –  Part 4: What is your favorite color?

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Our strongest preferences often arrive without our permission. We don’t choose what feels familiar, comforting, or compelling; we notice it after the fact. Determinism invites us to see preference as discovery rather than decision, shaped by histories we didn’t author. Philosophy asks whether freedom lies in choosing our reactions, or in understanding the forces that formed them.

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An Introduction to Philosophy (RLL style) Week 07  Metaphysics 4  (Metaphysical Determinism) –  Part 3: Why did you do that?

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Determinism suggests that much of our behavior unfolds before conscious awareness arrives on the scene. When we say “I don’t know why I did that,” we may be acknowledging that causes were already in motion. Philosophy invites us to reconsider free will not as total spontaneity, but as something shaped by habits, conditioning, and learned responses. The deeper question becomes not why we act, but how our patterns were formed in the first place.

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An Introduction to Philosophy (RLL style) Week 06 – Metaphysics 3 (Metaphysical Monism) – Part 6: Does God have a body?

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Idealism asks us to take seriously the reality of things that cannot be weighed or measured. Love, presence, memory, and meaning shape our lives without occupying physical space. If what matters most about us isn’t our bodies but our ways of thinking, loving, and relating, then reality itself may be more than matter alone. Philosophy invites us to look beneath appearances and consider whether consciousness, not physical form, is the deeper ground of being.

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An Introduction to Philosophy (RLL style) Week 06 – Metaphysics 3 (Metaphysical Monism) – Part 5: Want to compare scars?

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Physicalism reminds us that identity is not hidden somewhere beyond the body. It’s carried in posture, memory, habit, and scar tissue. Our experiences leave marks, shaping how we move through the world and how the world moves through us. Philosophy invites us to take the body seriously, not as a container for the self, but as the self in motion, shaped by every lived moment.

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An Introduction to Philosophy (RLL style) Week 06 – Metaphysics 3 (Metaphysical Monism) – Part 4: How old will you be in heaven?

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Asking how old we would be in heaven reveals more than curiosity about the afterlife. It exposes our assumptions about identity itself. Idealism loosens time and age into irrelevance, while physicalism ties who we are to the body and its limits. Philosophy doesn’t rush to answer the question; it invites us to notice what our instinctive answers say about how we understand reality.

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An Introduction to Philosophy (RLL style) Week 06 – Metaphysics 3 (Metaphysical Monism) – Part 3: Would rather be buried, cremated, or cryofroze?

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Physicalism offers a sobering clarity: if consciousness ends with the body, then this life is not a rehearsal. Philosophy invites us to meet that truth without despair, recognizing that meaning doesn’t require permanence. The finitude of life sharpens its value, reminding us that what matters most is how we live, love, and leave traces of care in the world while we are here.

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An Introduction to Philosophy (RLL style) Week 06 – Metaphysics 3 (Metaphysical Monism) – Part 2: Are you hallucinating yourself?

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Idealism invites us to consider a radical possibility: that consciousness is primary, and what we call “physical reality” is something like a projection or appearance within it. Much like a dream that feels real while we’re inside it, the world may be experienced through mind rather than existing independently of it. Philosophy doesn’t ask us to panic about this idea, only to wonder what becomes possible when we take consciousness seriously.

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An Introduction to Philosophy (RLL style) Week 06 – Metaphysics 3 (Metaphysical Monism) – Part 1: Introduction: If you had to choose, you would rather be without a body or a mind?

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Metaphysical monism challenges us to reconsider the split between mind and body. Rather than choosing one over the other, philosophy asks us to notice how our lives already reveal our assumptions. Do we treat the physical world as primary, or do we live as though inner experience carries greater weight? Our daily habits often disclose our metaphysical commitments more honestly than our words.

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