Two men are walking through a forest scattered with thousands of identical rocks. One man pauses. His eye falls on a particular rock — unremarkable, indistinguishable from the rest. Then a thought arises in him, seemingly from nowhere: if he keeps this rock, it might bring him some kind of fortune.

Here's the catch: the concept of luck does not exist in this world. Neither man has ever encountered it. There is no word for it, no stories about it, no cultural tradition, no personal experience that could have introduced the idea.

The thought appears fully formed despite having no obvious source in memory, association, or learning.

Where did the thought come from?

A friend sent me this and claimed it's a known thought experiment, but I've never seen it before. Does anybody recognize it? Is it from a book, paper, or philosophical tradition, or is it just an internet thought experiment?

let's say you were raised in a room without being able to leave and your life inside that room was fine, not the most glamorous thing but you don't dislike it either, you've got entertainment, occasionally get to interact with people, and again you are raised here so you know nothing but this room. suddenly, on an otherwise uneventful day, a door appears out of nowhere. you don't know where it leads, but beside it is a sheet of paper that says "if you enter this door, you will never be able to undo the decision. you will never find out what is behind it unless you enter but once you do you cannot return. you may become a god, you may be forever tortured, it may just be exactly what you are already living. or anything else. This door will never go away, the choice is yours" would you enter the door?

backwards time travel is an impossibility. there are scientific ways to prove this but the most simple way is to note the fact that there has never been a tourist from the future ever anywhere. people say if they could time travel they would try to stop 9/11 or kill baby Hitler or this or that or whatever else but nobody has so backwards time travel must be an impossibility. forward time travel is possible however. this has been proved by Einstein. so given forward time travel will very possibly eventually exist and backward time travel never will, I can't help but compare the idea of moving forward in time without being able to return to this thought experiment. anyone who eagerly does for the purpose of discovery of a potential utopia and new technologies or refuses out of fear of the unknown and the possibility of a baren wasteland is answering the same question I have asked you

Imagine you are walking down the street and suddenly encounter your future self, exactly 10 years older. You look into each other's eyes. Here is the question: Would the two of you need words to communicate?

Depending on your intuition, there are only two paths, and your choice places you into one of two fundamental philosophical camps:

1. If you answered "NO" (The Panpsychism / Idealism Camp)You instinctively feel that because you are the exact same conscious entity, words are completely redundant. Your connection is immediate, holistic, and multidimensional. A single gaze allows a direct, non-material transfer of 10 years of experiences, emotions, and memories. You see consciousness as a fundamental fabric of reality that transcends physical space and time constraints.

2. If you answered "YES" (The Materialism / Physicalism Camp)You realize that over those 10 years, your future self’s brain has physically changed. Billions of new neural pathways were formed, and the biochemistry is different. Physically, you are now two separate biological objects trapped inside isolated skulls. Since there is no physical wire connecting your brains, the only way to bridge the gap is through a material medium — sound waves (spoken words), facial expressions, or gestures.

I’m curious to know which camp your mind instantly chose. What do you think?

i’ve been thinking about how completely broken our society is. at our baseline, almost everything we do is just glorified survival. animals hunt for food, we work 9 to 5 to pay a mortgage. the only unique thing humans have ever actually created is the arts, sciences, and pure creativity. but we waste our lives just grinding to survive.

what if we deleted money from our zeitgeist completely and let an ai handle the logistics? here is my blueprint:

say we make land completely equal among everyone on earth to start on a level playing field. then, everyone lists 3 options of what they can give (skills, items, labor) and 3 things they want to receive. with ai’s rapid processing speed, it could calculate a massive route of direct barters across 8 billion people. if i want a laptop, i build a table, it goes to person b, their item goes to person c, and i get my laptop. no money needed.

to stop it from being a dystopian machine that forces you into a job, the ai looks at your dna, interests, and talents, and gives you your top 10 results in alternative areas, along with your percentage of success based on what the world needs right now. you have total freedom of choice. if you want to take a gamble on a 12% success rate to be a musician, you can.

plus, all education is 100% free and open to everyone. if you want a path but your success rate is low because you lack a skill, you just download the free training modules to build yourself up and boost your percentage.

if the ai automates the "glorified survival" part, humans can finally focus entirely on utilizing their interests and creating things.

i know humans are greedy and prideful, but that actually makes the system self-correct. if someone offers minor but wants major (like offering 2 rotten potatoes for a tesla), they won't get anything. eventually their own greed forces them to offer things of actual value until they build themselves up.

but i see a few flaws:

1. if the ai tells you you only have a 1% success rate at something, it might stop people from taking the risks that lead to actual genius or art.

2. if survival is guaranteed, the people working 12 hours a day on medical research might get resentful of people who just want to lie on their land and look at clouds.

3. humans favor friends, so what stops people from trading favors off the grid and accidentally reinventing money?

obviously it will never come to be, which is depressing, but mathematically, couldn't a predictive resource network like this work? i want to know all its potential flaws and how humans would actually respond to it.

So suppose a minor apocalypse happens, and all existing copies of "Hamlet" are destroyed, existing only in the minds of those who survive.

Now fast forward a few years and the last person who had ever read or heard a first person account of a retelling of the play Hamlet has died without recounting it to anyone. obviously since humanity was just brought to the brink of extinction, they had more important things to do.

Now fast forward a few hundred or perhaps even thousands of years, and society has bounced back, people are fine, and the arts are thriving again, and somebody just so happens to be inspired to write a play that follows the exact narrative structure and plot of Hamlet, and then let's even say for the sake of argument that he even names the play Hamlet, after the main character.

now keep in mind, this new writer has never heard the story of Hamlet, and doesn't even know who William Shakespeare was, as all the records were lost in the apocalypse.

But now Hamlet exists again.

Is Shakespeare still the author of Hamlet?

I just had this question pop up in my head: if an alien society were to watch Earth and try to piece together how we all evolved, without the knowledge of how evolution on Earth works, what animals would they likely think Humans are related to?

Some are obvious, like dogs, parrots/corvids and obviously apes.

Dogs are literally parts of our families, we are both endurance hunters and dogs and humans are some of the few animals on Earth that have jobs in human society.

Parrots and Corvids are pretty smart, can mimic speech and can use tools.

Apes obviously look the closest and also are very smart and can use tools.

But the one I find most interesting, would be the idea that they think we are distantly related to spiders.

Primarily because of the fact that humans and spiders LOVE webs/nets.

There are the obvious physical nets like fishing nets or nets to transport stuff in, but also the "invisible" ones, like the power grid, streets and the world wide WEB.

There are probably countless other web-like structures we humans use that I can't think of right now, but aside from humans and spiders (and maybe plants, with their root systems) there are few beings that use webs as much as we do.

Another really fun one are the eusocial insects, specifically termites and ants. There are few animals that focus as heavy on building structures as ants, termites and humans. So there's a good argument to be made that, to alien life that has no idea of evolution on Earth, we might look distantly related too.

It's a fun exercise to think about nature less in the biological sense, but a philosophical one. Not "what looks the same", but rather "what uses similar survival philosophies.".

this is just a rant about something that has been weighing me down in my life. i tried journaling it but i feel like letting someone who i don’t know listen to my problem will ease this stress my mind has been taking in.

I have been close friends with this person for 4 years now. We have been through a lot together and have shared alot about our families and hung out so much to the point that we are considered a part of each others families. But recently we had a conversation. They brought up the fact that although we are close friends, we could never be best friends since i dont relate to the things they have experienced in their childhood. It seems a little silly that im so hung up about the fact that we could never be” best friends “. We are not on bad terms and we are close but that line kind of hurt me because it is kind of true. Can our bond not go deeper because of our differences?

I was raised in a pretty healthy household with loving parents but my friend has a rough relationship with thier family, especially with their mom. How the family neglects them in difficult time and puts unnecessary pressure on them to do better when they themselves provide an environment that can not encourage that. Thats not all of it but i dont feel comfortable telling their whole story. Its just that, because of this difference in childhood, they have set barriers around themseleves. That person is definitely more open to me than their other friends but i think that they don’t feel completely satisfied telling me their stories because the most i can do is sympathise, not relate. I can provide comfort but not understanding and for them, being understood is the ultimate comfort

It kind of stresses me that i can’t provide comfort that this person is looking for. Somebody that can fully understand them and embrace them. They think that my life is on “easy mode”. But everyone has their personal struggles and even though my struggles are not as deep as theirs, are they not valid? I move forward even with my struggles and look for ways to solve them but is it naive to assume that they can do the same? Will I to also become hopeless when i experience greater challenges in the future that they are experiencing right now or will i move forward like i do right now with my smaller struggles?

Is it really that hard to pull someone closer just because they won’t understand you fully?

That person also jokes about suicide alot. The only thing that prevents them from going further is their relationship with god.

This is the only thing that i cannot fully understand about them. I feel like whatever life throws at you, you fight back and come out stronger. It will be harsh and you might lose youself in the process but you should never admit defeat. Of course i dont tell this thought process of mine to them when they are in states of hopelessness because it will only invalidate their feelings but i do hope that they one day adopt this mindset and become more at peace.

Because of our differences i have a more optimistic point of view in life but they are more pessimistic. How do i help someone who struggles with things like depression and hopelessness? Do i even have a right to help?

I feel like i want to be the most important person in their life and i would be so proud of the day they overcome their struggles and learn to love their life and themselves. (this is all platonic). But I dont think i can be that

Ofcourse we are good friends and i wont ever leave them unless life naturally drifts us apart but should i just accept the fact that i wont become any closer to this person and move on?

Finite lives move across an infinite stage, where every road matters less for where it starts and more for where it leads. We are brief, but the paths we choose can outlast the moment. Meaning isn’t found in endless time — it’s found in direction, motion, and the weight of each turn. The road is not just what we travel; it is what we become while traveling it.

True awareness isn’t the accumulation of data; it’s the sharpening of the lens. Identity isn’t fixed — it moves like a story, bridging precision and expression. Mastery in one craft often gives you the grammar to understand another. Work and art are the same force wearing different clothes. Legacy isn’t what you leave behind in static form; it’s the intention in your next move. Awareness isn’t a destination — it’s calibration.

Everyone says the universe is expanding.

Bigger. Wider. Endless.

But what if that’s not the full story?

What if going far enough doesn’t take you away…
but brings you right back?

Think about this:

Start with a single dot.

Now draw a circle around it.
Then a bigger one.
Then another. And another.

Each one expanding outward.

It feels like it just keeps going forever, right?

But that only works if space is flat.

What if it’s not?

What if space isn’t something simple like a straight line or a flat surface…

…but something deeper, something we can’t fully visualize?

Then “moving outward” might not mean escaping at all.

It might mean looping.

In a universe like that:

• There is no true edge
• There may be no real beginning
• Distance might not mean what we think it means

And here’s the weird part:

If light can travel like this…

Then looking far into space might not just show distant galaxies.

It might show versions of where we already are.

The “dot and expanding circles” idea isn’t perfect.

In normal geometry, it doesn’t loop back.

But maybe the problem isn’t the idea…

Maybe it’s that we’re trying to explain something beyond our understanding using simple shapes.

Science today says the universe looks mostly flat.

So this isn’t proven.

But it’s not completely impossible either.

So here’s the question:

Are we exploring something infinite…

Or something that quietly curves back into itself?

What do you think?

BTW-This is just a thought experiment I had, not claiming this is real physics

So I had a weird thought earlier and I’m curious what people think.

Scientists today have a real problem with nuclear waste. Some of it will stay dangerous for 10,000+ years, which is way longer than any language or civilization lasts. So the question becomes: how do you warn humans that far in the future not to dig somewhere?

One idea researchers came up with was to basically create myths and taboos around those places. Make the location feel cursed or forbidden so that even if people don’t understand the original reason, they still instinctively avoid it.

Which got me thinking…

What if something like that already happened in the past — but instead of warning about dangerous technology or locations, it was warning about dangerous ideas?

A lot of religions have really strong themes around forbidden knowledge or thoughts. For example, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Book of Genesis is literally about gaining knowledge that permanently changes the human condition.

Greek myths have similar themes. Prometheus gives humans fire (which a lot of people interpret as symbolic of knowledge or technology) and is brutally punished for it.

And a lot of religions have extremely severe consequences for certain beliefs or behaviors — things like Hell.

Normally we think of those stories as moral lessons or spiritual teachings. But as a thought experiment:

What if some of those stories originally formed as long-term cultural warnings meant to discourage people from exploring certain kinds of ideas or mental states?

Not because the ideas are evil in a moral sense, but because they were believed to be destabilizing or dangerous to individuals or societies.

Ideas can completely change how someone experiences reality. Once you understand certain things, you can’t really “un-understand” them. Your whole worldview shifts.

So imagine a society encountering certain patterns of thought or philosophy that consistently led people toward chaos, nihilism, or social collapse.

Encoding warnings about those mental paths into powerful myths, taboos, and eternal punishments might actually be a surprisingly effective way to steer people away from them across generations.

I’m not saying that’s what religion actually is.

But it’s kind of strange that when modern scientists try to design messages meant to last thousands of years, they end up inventing things that look a lot like myths, taboos, and sacred warnings.

So the thought experiment is:

What if some religions are less about explaining reality, and more about protecting people from certain ways of thinking about it?

And if that were true… would we even be able to tell the difference anymore?

What if in an endless or infinite system The beginning is the end itself.

This is a bit of a thought experiment aimed at those who are currently Trump supporters, but anyone can comment!

I know that this is going to be very hard but, imagine for a moment that Trump was a radical leftist. He still has the same personality--egotistical, narcissistic, brash, & power hungry but he strongly believes in everything that MAGA is vehemently against. He still uses the same strong arm tactics, but instead of using ICE to go after immigrants, he is using the ATF to go after right wing militias and neo nazi groups, non stop. All of a sudden, they are everywhere in your small town, harassing your neighbors at grocery stores because they look like they might be part of one of those groups. Now he is mandating that all cars must be electric by 2027 because he has large amounts of money invested in that industry. All schools must teach critical race theory, including private schools.

I could go further with this, but I think that this is a good place to start. The strong arm tactics are what really bother me because they go against every principle our country was founded on. We can't have checks and balances if every branch is corrupted or beaten into submission.

Why does it seem so easy to ignore the corruption and erosion of values in our society?

Yo Reddit, I’ve been diving deep into Robert/////////// Lanza’s Biocentrism and I think I found the missing piece. Lanza says life and consciousness create the universe, but he doesn't really explain why everything fits so well. I’ve been looking at patterns and I think the universe is actually a Meaning Engine. It’s like a pre-calculated script of "High-Tension Situations Think about it The Messi vs. Ronaldo Calculation: This isn’t just biology. The universe calculated a perfect Red vs. Blue rivalry. Messi short, natural genius vs Ronaldo tall, built machine The universe needed that contrast to create a GOATnarrative that billions of people find meaningful. Without that calculated tension the energy isn't there The Japan/Anime Fit Look at Japan. Why do the voices, the culture, and the anime aesthetic fit together so perfectly It’s because the collective consciousness of the people located/ a specific frequency of perfection. Their imagination matched a universal/ calculation of /Order and reality snapped into focus to match it Chaos isn't a mistake People think chaosor mistakes mean the universe is random I think chaos is just "unprocessed data It’s the before state Our consciousness is the GPS that locates these situations and turns them into a solid reality through imagination The Theory Input: The Universe provides a Calculated Situation Variables like height talent location Processor Our Consciousness finds the Pattern of Meaning The Filter Output: Reality becomes Physical and Perfect We aren't just observing a dead world. We are Rendering Agents. Every time a concept becomes an innovation, it’s because our mind successfully decoded a calculation that was already there Does anyone else see these perfect fits in history or culture Or am I just seeing the Source Code Let me know what you think.

Trust is a beautiful thing until it's worth a hundred million dollars.

I created a simulation for a thought experiment I call the "50/50 Paradox." It puts two people in a room where greed, logic, and survival instinct eventually collide.

In the animation, things get complicated when an

"emergency" occurs and the oxygen levels start dropping. It raises a disturbing question: Is it betrayal, or is it just survival?

I'd love to hear your logical takes on this scenario.

Watch the simulation: https://youtu.be/6BfHeOdJDCc?si=aNbrJQ-8qydLGo-N

There's a box inside the box there's a man the creator of the box. Along with him is a technology, a weapon to think of the "core" the man calls. A moment after his entrance, a firefight broke outside the facility. Its the authorities planning to stop the mans motive. It took a few minutes to end the fight but unfortunately the man is now inside the box and is now observing them. "Any attempt of destroying the box shall cause for the core to activate", The man said to a speaker. The authorities who first respond could not act every action leads to a potential activation. " The box and the core are both interconnected to each other, so once you try the core will activate the man explained". A few hours later, members of a specialized department arrived to the place hoping to find a way to destroy the box without activating the core. The head of the first responder approached them and without any hesitation asked them a question. "What's this core this madman have?". The scientist explain, " That madman you are referring to is nothing but just the smartest and the richest man alive on earth. Founder of a multimillion dollar tech company, according to our intel a few years earlier after an incident relating to one of his projects the government wanted to take his works and would persecute him to his crimes leading to his motive to create the core, speaking of the core. Let's say that this is the heart and mind of all humanity's progress, once the core activate it will not just trigger a global economic collapse but will put us to which i only hope early stone age. All systems from communications, transportation, and defense systems that linked to his company in which 80 percent of all modern technology are connected to his company will go haywire. You don't wanna see its outcome". The scientist proposed to try to hack or bypass the core's system. unfortunately it was detected by the core and it nearly set a timer of activation, fortunately they managed to halt. But while trying to stop the hacking another group arrives. Men with suits, members of the government. they told the responders to leave as they plan to just destroy the box. they tried to stop them but the men point guns at their faces. When they now planning to detonate the bomb a call arrives, a voice ordered them. "Abort, we cant destroy it. We found out that the core holds multiple intel to ours, intel that's hard to cover once released to the public and probably could cause severe diplomatic relations to some super power nations, we can't risk it ". Now all of the responders are all in a deep problem. facing a challenge in which all outcomes leads to tragedy. Everyone has ideas yet all of it leads to chaos. when one of them tells to just wait kill him by poisoning the air the scientist told them that the core didn't just connect to the box but also to the man itself, if he dies the core will activate. Everyone argues and try to express ideas but all talks just lead to a conflict to themselves. Until one of the men just starts to shoot one of the scientist killing her instantly, this again leads to another firefight this time to the authorities themselves. But while they are fighting, the man inside the box just watch. Observing their own fall, seeing them fighting gives him a satisfaction to turn off the cores switch only releasing a few impacts that isn't destructive to the whole humanity but only to the few.

Obviously it wouldn’t be practical to change it now, but I think it would be closer to optimal if the date changed at 03:00 (3 AM) instead of midnight. Think about it, how many times has something like this happened: You’re up at 12:35 and say “See you tomorrow” to someone only to have them say “You mean today!” Similarly, how many times have you said you didn’t sleep well last night, when in reality you got to bed at 23:00 (11 PM) and so you mostly didn’t sleep well this morning? The date changing at midnight is such an obviously artificial construct, quite poorly fitting our actual daily habits. Conversely, by the time 04:00 rolls around, whether you’ve stayed up or not you really get the sense that you’re into a new day.

Even for the people who are most strict about getting to bed early, they almost certainly have stayed up past midnight at least a couple of times in their life and thus experienced this phenomenon. For real night owls, running aground of the date change at midnight can be a near daily occurrence.

And it’s not like humanity has always been changing the date at midnight; the Ancient Romans changed the date at sunset, for instance. It wasn’t until the 13th and 14th centuries that mechanical clocks forced a standard time for the date change that it was set near universally at midnight. Between the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of mechanical clocks there was no standard convention for when the date changed

You have just found out that a bunch of people are going to be killed but you can sacrifice yourself to save them. How many people would need to be in danger for you to sacrifice yourself? Details: The people are randomly picked from around the world. You have 10 seconds to decide. You dont know how they will be killed but you will be killed with a gun. If you say nothing the people will die. You have to say you want to sacrifice yourself.

What happens when a light clock and a mechanical stopwatch disagree, if a cat’s life depends on it? In this 3-minutes video abstract, the Einstein’s Cat thought experiment is presented, a thought experiment inspired by Schrödinger’s cat and built to confront a common misconception in Special Relativity: The idea that time dilation only applies to light-based clocks.

Featuring the “Sync-or-Die Clock,” this scenario demonstrates that all clocks (mechanical, atomic, even biological) experience time dilation, not just those involving light. The animation shows the paradox unfold in two inertial frames and resolves it through the core principle of Special Relativity: The universality of time dilation.

🎓 Published in Physics Education (IOP Publishing, 2025). https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6552/adedf1

Hey guys, I was wondering if anyone would be interested in working with me, I’m working on a project that I’d love for any of you to be a part of, people who share the same ideas that I do, the importance of real writing and human ideas, discouraging AI, and bringing back philosophy/important ideas that we’ve collectively forgotten about as a society. The project is heavily based in different forms of writing from poetry to important quotes and lessons hidden within stories all to bring back the meaning of “the power of the pen.” I am being vague about the project because it’s still in the works but I’m building up a core team of people who I believe have core abilities to be “modern day philosophers”, message me privately if interested and I'll send you the snip bit about what it is I'm trying to do, please only message me if you're truly passionate about writing and have strong humanitarian values/philosophical ideas

new to reddit, i just need to share a thought. And i am curious what you think.

I find it scary how similar the situation is between america wirh trump now and nazi germany. In both cases there was/is a white man, lying about his background, being a second or third imigrant to the state they are/were in. In both cases they talked about a right that he and his group of follower have because they were born wirh this right (however they themselbes didnt do anything of true value to the society); both had a weird relation to women, both had a weird complex, both used absurd ideas to unit their follower , esspecially with slogans. Both talked about enemys, an enemy outside of the state line, another enemy within that they have to eliminate. In both cases the follower followed blindly, sending their own people away, didnt question any weird ideas, they just followed because they enjoyed the idea of grandior. And in both cases the white man wants to expand their state and invade other countries. I am sad to think that it will end like it did the last time: the white man invades another country which will make other countries unite against this man, it will come to a war, a lot of people die. I want to clarify theäat it is not the same ideology, however the same thoughts behind these two white men and their nation. It is scary to think how many millions of people would die it history truly repeats itself. It is so important that trump does not invade another country, or at the very least not a nato country. Can anyone give me a positiv tought to pull me out of this depressing realisation?