When I am awake I see up and down and all the three dimensions as a present and irrefutable reality. In a dream I also experience those very same three dimensions but when I reference that experience in waking I correlate it with my physical body(brain) and not with a real independent feature of reality. While the idea that dreams represent the possibility that the world is an illusion is a persistent philosophical question I am more concerned here with how an abstract feature that seems to convey a part of the essence of what we call physical reality, that is to say dimensionality, is undermined by our dream experience. It seems that dreams demonstrate that dimension is not necessarily as commonsensical a feature of physical reality as it appears. Isn't dimension a feature which is central to our modern scientific understanding of physical reality and then don't dreams then call into question much of scientific understanding?

Bertrand Russell famously said "(1) that when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain; (2) that when they are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert; and (3) that when they all hold that no sufficient grounds for a positive opinion exist, the ordinary man would do well to suspend his judgment." If I abide by these rules, what reason is there for me voting in elections, or even having a political opinion at all?

If it's generally accepted that we are able to punish and criticize on behalf of others, are we also able to forgive on behalf of others?

I was hoping that you could resolve a dilemma that I have recently discovered. It has to do with the art of philosophy and not with the subsequent ideas generated by philosophizing. Before I state the dilemma, I want to ask: Does determination of nature precede determination of action? In other words, can we practice philosophy without necessarily defining the terms and the nature of the act we which to practice? It seems that we ought to first ask: What is philosophy and how ought we practice philosophy? The problem arises when we attempt to answer the two questions specified above. How exactly do we answer these questions without philosophizing? The very act of contemplating the nature of philosophy requires philosophy; this is logically inconsistent. We cannot study the existence of X by presupposing that X is true to begin with. This is the dilemma; it is a dilemma of definition and how an approach to philosophy must first be preceded by a method of thought detached from philosophy. What is this...

Can something really be divided into an infinite number of parts? It seems like it's theoretically possible to infinitely continue dividing something, but that is in no way the same thing as saying that something can be infinitely divided at any point in temporality, since an infinite period of time must be reached before something has been infinitely divided (which is not even a theoretical possibility). It seems like vast claims and supposed paradoxes in physics and mathematics are founded on this dubious assumption that an object or shape can be theoretically divided into an infinite number of parts.

My question deals with fair play and the relative value that we ascribe to victories in sports that are either earned through no apparent cheating or that are earned through a clear (though at the time undetected by officials) cheating (for example, the "hand of god" moment by the Argentine soccer player, Maradona). Have philosophers opined on this issue? As an aside, I note that it has been famously said by certain athletes in sports that "if you're not cheating, you're not trying." So perhaps there is a related though tangential question regarding the perceived amount of effort employed by players themselves in a sporting event -- that if you are not trying to bend the rules to some extent then you are not trying hard enough, and consequently you are not placing a sufficient amount of value on the purported end of the game or match, i.e., victory. I am not inclined to favor the "cheating is just really trying" angle, but it is offered as a frequent enough justification.

Is it possible to have a thought that has never been thought by anyone else before? A thought or notion that is so unique and individual to oneself that it surely could never have been thought by anyone else previously?

Should we teach philosophy to younger children? Would it help them in anyway, or would it be harmful in later life?

What is required to truly be "sorry" for something? I've always heard that if your truly sorry for an action, you will never repeat that action. A repeat offence, therefore, means that you were never truly sorry in the first place. So how can one express sorrow?/what is required for a true "sorry"?

If the Nazi government can be called evil for committing the Holocaust then shouldn't the American government during the time of slavery be regarded as evil also?