Philosophy

47 ideas, each explained on one page with a 60-second lesson you can play right there.

AI Alignment AI alignment steers artificial intelligence toward human goals rather than unintended shortcuts like reward hacking and strategic deception.
Anthropic principle The anthropic principle explains that we observe physical constants suitable for life because observers cannot exist in a universe without them.
Artificial consciousness Artificial consciousness is the idea that a non-biological machine or artificial intelligence could have subjective, inner experiences.
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) Artificial general intelligence is hypothetical software that can learn, reason, and solve novel problems across any domain without reprogramming.
Authority bias Authority bias is the tendency to assume an opinion or order is accurate simply because it comes from an authority figure.
Benjamin Libet Benjamin Libet was an American neuroscientist who studied human consciousness at the University of California, San Francisco.
Block Universe The block universe theory treats time as a fourth dimension where past, present, and future events are all equally real and fixed.
Cato the Younger Cato the Younger was an influential, uncompromising Roman senator and Stoic philosopher during the fall of the Roman Republic.
Chinese Room John Searle's thought experiment showing that a computer running a program can mimic human conversation without understanding it.
Cold reading Cold reading uses high-probability guesses and subtle body language cues to make strangers reveal their own details while believing the reader knew them.
Compatibilism Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism can exist together without contradiction.
Copernican Principle The Copernican principle states that Earth occupies an average position in space and that humans are not privileged observers of the universe.
Determinism Determinism is the philosophical view that every event is the inevitable result of preceding events and the laws of nature.
Drake Equation The Drake equation is a mathematical formula that estimates how many active, communicative alien civilizations exist in our galaxy.
Dream interpretation Dream interpretation is the process of assigning meaning to the images and stories experienced during sleep.
Epictetus Epictetus was a Greek Stoic philosopher who taught that suffering comes from trying to control external events rather than our own actions.
Eudaimonia Eudaimonia is an ancient Greek term for the highest human good, commonly understood as human flourishing or living well.
Fatalism Fatalism is the philosophical doctrine that all events are fixed by fate, leaving humans powerless to change their future outcomes.
Fermi Paradox The Fermi paradox exposes the clash between the high statistical odds of alien life across billions of stars and our complete lack of evidence for it.
Freudian Unconscious The Freudian unconscious is the part of the mind holding hidden thoughts, drives, and memories that a person cannot inspect directly.
Gaius Musonius Rufus Gaius Musonius Rufus was a 1st-century Roman Stoic philosopher who taught Epictetus and advocated equal philosophical education for women.
Great Filter The Great Filter argues that an evolutionary barrier makes advanced life rare.
Hedonic treadmill Learn what the hedonic treadmill is, how psychological adaptation restores our happiness set point, and why big life events rarely change our mood forever.
Hedonism Hedonism is a family of philosophical ideas built on the claim that pleasure is the primary good and pain is the primary bad.
Id, ego and superego The id, ego, and superego are three interacting parts of the mind that Sigmund Freud proposed to explain internal conflict.
Ikigai Ikigai is a Japanese concept that refers to a person's reason for living or what makes life feel worth it.
Laplace's Demon Laplace's Demon is a thought experiment about a hypothetical intellect that knows the exact position and motion of every particle in existence.
Libertarianism (metaphysics) Metaphysical libertarianism is the philosophical view that free will exists and is logically incompatible with a deterministic universe.
Marcus Aurelius Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher who governed the Roman Empire from 161 to 180 AD.
Meditations Marcus Aurelius wrote Meditations as a private journal of Stoic reflections while running the Roman Empire and leading military campaigns.
Moravec's Paradox Moravec's paradox shows why computers excel at complex logic like chess but struggle with basic human skills like vision and walking.
Narcissism Narcissism is a self-centered personality style marked by an excessive preoccupation with oneself and one's own needs, often at the expense of others.
Nostalgia Nostalgia is a bittersweet emotional longing for past events, people, or places that cannot be recovered.
Oedipus complex Sigmund Freud defined the Oedipus complex as childhood desire for one parent and rivalry with the other, shaping adult conscience and neurosis.
Panspermia Panspermia is the scientific hypothesis that microscopic life originated elsewhere and spreads across the universe inside rocks and comets.
Paradox of hedonism The paradox of hedonism is the observation that deliberately chasing pleasure often prevents you from experiencing it.
Psychoanalysis Psychoanalysis is a talk therapy and theory of mind founded by Sigmund Freud to uncover unconscious drives, defense mechanisms, and resistance.
Psychosexual development Sigmund Freud proposed that adult personality stems from how children resolve bodily conflicts across five distinct psychosexual stages.
Rare Earth hypothesis The Rare Earth hypothesis argues that simple life may be common, but complex, multicellular life requires an extremely rare set of circumstances.
Reinforcement Reinforcement is any consequence that increases the future rate of a behavior.
Self-Control Self-control is the ability to regulate your thoughts, emotions, and behavior when facing immediate temptations and impulses.
Seneca the Younger Seneca the Younger was a Roman Stoic philosopher, dramatist, and imperial advisor who managed Emperor Nero while writing major moral texts.
Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud founded psychoanalysis, explaining how unconscious desires, dreams, and slips of the tongue shape human behavior.
Subjective well-being Subjective well-being measures personal evaluations of life through emotional moods, life satisfaction, and meaning rather than external wealth.
Technological singularity The technological singularity is a hypothetical event where self-improving AI triggers rapid, runaway intelligence growth beyond human control.
Turing Test Alan Turing replaced the question of machine thinking with a test: can a computer converse well enough through text to pass as human?
Zeno of Citium Zeno of Citium was a Hellenistic philosopher from Cyprus who founded the Stoic school of philosophy around 300 BC.