As I am taking Philosophy at higher level and the specified approach focused on doing philosophy...what would you suggest about reading to get an understanding of philosophy as a discipline. What does it mean to study philosophy? Am I suppose to start with a question/concept?

Are humans capable of feeling extreme physical pleasure as intense as extreme physical pain? If that is the case what ethical beliefs would we have to change if we wanted to maximize the occurrence of extreme physical pleasure in a way that accorded with a utilitarian hedonistic ethical system?

Is it at all a possibility for everyone in this world to see different colors but call them the same name? For example, if someone sees yellow, they call it yellow but another person sees the same color but to them it's green but since we've defined that it's yellow, they go along calling it yellow when really they see green.

Our understanding of the physical universe is better than say, what it was a few thousands of years ago. We may continue to understand it better as time progresses. My question is, would it at all be possible, at some stage, to say that we know it all, that the universe has been stripped naked and it no longer holds any more mysteries?

Is the exhortation by Jesus to "Love thy neighbor as thyself" something that many or most modern ethicists would agree with? What about the part about "loving thy enemy"?

I'm having a hard time separating virtue ethics from other theories. As I understand it, virtue ethics states that we ought to have strong moral characters, because virtue will help us make moral decisions; the decisions themselves are said to be mere reflections of one's character. But, first, how is this different from deontology, i.e. a preoccupation with rules and duties? Isn't a virtuous character simply somebody who follows certain rules and who perceives certain duties? Alternatively, how is it different from utilitarianism? Isn't a virtuous person merely a person who is intrinsically motivated to behave in such a way that produces more happiness? Aren't virtues just descriptors of such a character?

Is marriage an artificial concept that has come into existence just because the life expectancy of humans is around 60 years. What if the life expectancy was 200 years or say just 15 years. Would we still have the concept of marriage in humans?

I've read in several places that scientists have estimated the number of atoms in our galaxy to be (very) roughly 10 to the 65th power. This is an extraordinarily huge and basically incomprehensible number. However, this figure is more than 100 times smaller than the number of ways I could arrange the ordinary deck of playing cards I have in my hands. [52 factorial is approximately 8 x 10 to the 67th power]. Pardon the exaggeration, but how can I keep facts like this from melting my brain?

If it was for an organised civilization of aliens to be discovered, could an actual form of communication emerge? I mean, aside the fact that we would speak different langugages, we would have totally different habits, different way of thinking and ethics (if not different ''types'' of logic as they would have grown on a diffent planet with all the consequences this fact induces).

Is it psychologically possible to believe a proposition in the absence of understanding the proposition? If not, do many of us continue to harbor beliefs "as tho" they are understood. While admitting that total understanding is, probably, not attainable, it appears to me that our mutually formed groups that purport to make and implement serious decisions stands as a possible threat to concerted action. I have classified these thoughts as somewhat metaphysical since, if totally psychological, the answer might be in the domain of science. Thank you for this site. Jerry D. H.