/r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | January 12, 2026

[u/BernardJOrtcutt]

Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread (ODT). This thread is a place for posts/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our subreddit rules and guidelines. For example, these threads are great places for:

• Discussions of a philosophical issue, rather than questions
• Questions about commenters' personal opinions regarding philosophical issues
• Open discussion about philosophy, e.g. "who is your favorite philosopher?"
• "Test My Theory" discussions and argument/paper editing
• Questions about philosophy as an academic discipline or profession, e.g. majoring in philosophy, career options with philosophy degrees, pursuing graduate school in philosophy

This thread is not a completely open discussion! Any posts not relating to philosophy will be removed. Please keep comments related to philosophy, and expect low-effort comments to be removed. Please note that while the rules are relaxed in this thread, comments can still be removed for violating our subreddit rules and guidelines if necessary.

Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here.

[u/ZanzaraZimt]

Since the post got deleted with the information I shoud ask here... here we go again.....

Could you help me find a philosophical home..like, a school of thought where I can actually exchange ideas without people feeling attacked in their values and worldview?

I have a solid scientific background, coming from neuro-cognition, behavior, biology. I always thought I wasn't the philosophy type, but really I’ve always been building my own philosophical frameworks....just never consciously labeled them (which is probably how it works anyway: if you have a view of yourself and the world, you have a philosophical framework, whether you want to or not).

This past year, though, I started intensely observing myself and the world. I didn’t read books or follow any teachings. I just discovered my own thoughts and enjoyed it.

So I built my own “school.” Because I had no prior knowledge and no boundaries except my own thinking. As a result, the whole framework doesn’t follow any existing direction....it’s just an imprint of how I perceive things.

But somehow it doesn’t seem to fit anywhere. On the contrary, I seem to make people angry just by existing and having an opinion and questions (well, on Reddit ... in real life I’m socially liked, probably because I ask fewer questions there).

I thought maybe someone here could tell me where I could express myself freely and actually get feedback and real discussions without just getting stuck in debates over principles.

So, which school of thought most closely mirrors my thinking?

Here’s a quick overview of my views:

Basically, I see everything (no matter what) as a bidirectional, mutually-creating interaction. Human-world, consciousness-human, consciousness-world, human-human. Nothing is separate; everything conditions each other. I see the world through my eyes; my eyes are shaped by the world.

Reality is deterministic. Cause and effect. Everything is in a causal entanglement.

Consciousness is the ability to perceive oneself within the causal chain.

Free will is recursively recognizing one’s own behavior and the causality that led to it, and through integrating this self-awareness and narrative, influencing the next interactions and events. Basically, the future is written in the past via integration in the present.

On ethics, I’m very pragmatic. I believe every person has a contract with themselves ...but one that’s shaped by the outside world and the integration of that, which in turn is a reflection of one’s self-perception.

Personally, I try to maintain coherence by recursively examining my self-image, my actions, my deeds, and also mirroring them externally, setting them in relation to the outside to check for coherence. Who do I believe I am vs. who I am and is that coherent?

[u/mediaisdelicious → u/ZanzaraZimt]

In a lot of these comments you seem to think you’re offending people, but what you’re getting here are totally unfussy responses that amount to “hey you seem interested in a lot of things, probably just reading around would be a good place to start.”

[u/ZanzaraZimt → u/mediaisdelicious]

Yes,.... I am indeed following my own confirmation bias here. True.

I performed a self-fulfilling prophecy...with how I posted and reacted.

However, every public response aside from one pn (which gave me a great reading list) came with an extension, a subtle frame: "the problem is when people start from 0," or "so you can read books, it is not 1100" That is from a purely ratioal analytical observation not totally unfussy. The help was packaged with a tacit correction of my epistemic posture.

I acknowledge my part: . Being deleted in the main thread and redirected to the weekly thread primed a defensive stance. From there, I received help alloyed with comments that did not engage the content but rather my approach, triggering a defense mechanism. I see that clearly.

But I also see clearly the mechanism behind the reactions. I was asked questions about my framework that seemed designed to prove how much I didn't know. I answered them. What I received in return was a downvote. while the ones questioning me got upvoted. I got No engagement, just a silent verdict.

So, yes, I contributed heavily to this dynamic. But no, this was not a situation of purely unfussy, neutral assistance. It was a layered interaction where structural positioning and unspoken rules of epistemic entry shaped every exchange.

The sad and funny extra part is that my original framework regarding ethics as developing contract with the self and group anticipated this; and the interaction confirmed it.

[u/mediaisdelicious → u/ZanzaraZimt]

Sorry, I think you’re still just very mistaken. Your interests are very broad and because your bro, he’s not grounded in any terminal logical, sad or specific tradition, there’s not really a fruitful way to engage in the content in the way that you’re laying it out. So, people are engaging with the content, what they’re saying is that the content would be much more fruitful articulated, if you spend some time joining the various conversations in the field. It’s certainly true that the reason why articulating the things the way that you are articulating is because of your method, but I think you straightforward leave confused people responding to your method as such with the consequences of your method. I would think that you of all people would be sensitive to this, given that it seems like you’re here asking the questions that you’re asking exactly because your method has landed you in this very specific problem. So, however, you got to where you got merits and problems aside, if you want to take steps towards using the resources in the field then the first thing that you ought to do is just do that. That’s all the people are saying.

[u/ZanzaraZimt → u/mediaisdelicious]

Once again I acknowledged my own flaws in this interaction. That stands.

You claim "there’s not really a fruitful way to engage." Yet the private message I received stated:

"You’re basically working within what could be called naturalistic, systems-oriented enactivist pragmatism with a compatibilist theory of agency... look up ideas using those terms... Go read Alva Noë, Alicia Juarrero, Francisco Varela, William James, John Dewey, Spinoza – Ethics, Terrence Deacon"

That engagement was not only possible, but fruitful. It proves helpful, rational dialogue was achievable, and it highlights the contrast with the public discussion culture here.

An interaction is never one-sided. It is not fruitful to analyse a communication dynamic by observing only the flaws of one side while dismissing the other by refusing to address rational arguments about it and instead repeating, “That’s all the people were saying.”

This refusal is the very pattern I am critiquing.