identity

An Introduction to Philosophy (RLL style) Week 14 – Society 2 (Power) – Part 4: What color was Jesus?

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Racism is a divide and conquer strategy that keeps people fighting each other while the true power structures remain unchallenged. The question “What color was Jesus?” isn’t about historical facts—it’s about how we’ve used symbols and narratives to justify exclusion and dominance. Racism poisons solidarity, fractures trust, and distracts from who benefits from the chaos. It teaches us to fear one another while obscuring the real sources of power. And, in doing so, it leaves everyone more vulnerable to manipulation. So we ask, who benefits when we’re divided? What happens when we stop fighting each other and begin questioning the real holders of power?

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An Introduction to Philosophy (RLL style) Week 07  Metaphysics 4  (Metaphysical Determinism) – Part 1: Introduction – What’s the first thing you remember?

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Determinism invites us to notice that our lives begin long before we become aware of ourselves as choosers. By the time memory appears, patterns are already in place shaping how we think, feel, and respond. Philosophy asks whether freedom means acting without causes, or whether it means understanding the forces that formed us. Sometimes the most unsettling question isn’t whether we are free, but how much of who we are was decided before we ever noticed we were deciding.

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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 05 – Metaphysics 2 (Metaphysical Dualism) – Part 7: Summary – What happens after you die?

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Dualism often grows from our desire for continuity, for the hope that something of us persists beyond the body. Philosophy asks us to sit gently with that desire without rushing to resolve it. Whether consciousness continues or not, the question itself can sharpen how we live now. Meaning may not depend on what comes after death, but on how fully, thoughtfully, and authentically we inhabit the life we have.

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An Introduction to Philosophy (RLL style) Week 05 – Metaphysics 2 (Metaphysical Dualism) – Part 5: Have you ever lost your mind?

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Dualism promises a clear separation between mind and body, yet lived experience complicates that picture. In moments of panic, grief, or overwhelming emotion, the mind can feel anything but sovereign. Philosophy invites us to sit with this tension, asking whether identity is truly housed in conscious control or whether it emerges from something deeper, less fragile, and more mysterious than we assume.

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An Introduction to Philosophy (RLL style) Week 05 – Metaphysics 2 (Metaphysical Dualism) – Part 3: Would you donate your brain?

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Descartes’ dualism pushes us to imagine the unthinkable: if the mind and body are separate, what truly makes us who we are? Would consciousness survive a change of hardware, or is it inseparable from the brain itself? By asking absurd-sounding questions, philosophy helps us probe the deepest mystery of all: whether identity lives in matter, mind, or somewhere in between.

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An Introduction to Philosophy (RLL style) Week 05 – Metaphysics 2 (Metaphysical Dualism) – Part 2: Where do you keep your secrets?

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Dualism asks one of philosophy’s most haunting questions: if the mind is more than the body, where does it live? As science maps the brain with increasing precision, the mystery of consciousness remains stubbornly elusive. Philosophy invites us to sit with that tension, wondering whether our essence can be located at all, or whether it exists beyond any physical address.

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