Dear philosophers, I am a 23-year-old boy living in a developed country (in my opinion, it is an important detail to underline) and I very often find myself reflecting on this question, never being quite pleased about the answer. Why is it widely accepted by the overculture that the technological progress applied to everyday life helps to live better than the past and feel happier, when as a matter of fact our existences become much more complex and unpleasant, especially for the young people? My remark about complexity in particular refers to the new educational system, the labour skills more and more oriented to few qualified jobs, the social and interpersonal relations, the welfare state, the financial and technological world and so on...Is the contemporary the best of all possible worlds? I don't think so. Francesco from Bari, Apulia Region, South Italy

I watched an excellent short film the other day which presented the audience with what I thought was an interesting moral problem. I won't give away the title in fear of anyone googling it and finding a 'spoiler', but there is a scene in which a paramedic attends to the body of a man who has just been killed. The paramedic had earlier in the evening bought a lottery ticket and, after seeing the draw, found out that she did not win the prize money. In the dead man's hand she finds a winning lottery ticket. We know from earlier in the film that the dead man had no relatives or friends. Since he is dead, and so the money is no good to him and there is no one inherit it, and: a) since the paramedic herself had as good a chance of winning the lottery as the dead man did (they each bought one ticket); b) since he won the lottery not through any more effort than she put into the contest nor through any talent or qualities of his own but simply through chance - is it morally wrong for her to take his ticket and...

In political debate, I often feel that participants on both sides are "unprincipled" or "unscrupulous" - they deliberately downplay inconvenient facts and exaggerate other facts in order to promote their positions. I understand that politicians represent the interests of their constituents much as lawyers advocate for their clients. But are there any philosophical writings that at least encourage citizens to elevate their own level of political discourse so that it more resembles a search for truth as opposed to a clash of opposing interests?

My mathematics teacher says that a line is an infinite sum of points. I disagree and I think that she must not have thought it through very deeply. I argue that instead that though a line can be theoretically be described as a sum of smaller lines that in no way can a line be said to be described as a continuity of points because a point is not in any way extended. If a line has an atomic unit then that unit must have the same properties as the line itself and a point has an altogether different property than a line. (That you can fit a point inside a line only shows their common property of spaciality, it does not demonstrate that a line is in any way composed of points) I hope you understand what I am saying. Do you think I am right?

Are there any logically possible situations in which acting in accord with probability would not be logical? Is probability the ultimate logical guideline?

What constitutes "consent" in sexual matters? Is a person who allows themselves to be tortured and humiliated for an extreme pornographic production consenting if that consent comes from a pressing need such as a payment for a surgery or obtainment of drugs?

Is there a correct formulation of set theory? For example, it's been proven by Gödel and Paul Cohen that the continuum hypothesis can neither be proven nor disproven in ZFC. Should we take from this that there exists a hitherto undiscovered formulation of set theory that can conclusively establish whether the continuum hypothesis is true or false?

Suppose there is an infinitely long ladder in front of me. I do not know that this ladder is infinitely long, only that it is either a very long (but finitely long) ladder, or an infinitely long ladder. What kind of evidence would I need to give me reasonable assurance (I don't need absolute certainty) that this ladder is indeed infinitely long? I could walk a mile along the ladder and see that it still shows no signs of stopping soon. But the finitely long ladder would still be a better hypothesis in this case, because it explains the same data with a more conservative hypothesis. If I walk two miles, the finitely long hypothesis is still better for the same reasons. No matter what test I perform, the finitely long hypothesis will still better explain the results. Does this mean that, even if infinite objects exist, empirical evidence will never provide reasonable assurance that they exist?

What is the difference between music and an aesthetically interesting grouping of sounds? I ask because I was listening to the opening of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds and I while I found the sounds which were made to resemble a flock of birds to be very interesting and even quasi-musical sounding at times it didn't sound like music. It really is brilliant so why or why wouldn't it qualify as music? Listen to it yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0DeA6PPbMI/

Why is it that, in music, major chords, by themselves, isolated and without any musical context, sound bright and happy, while minor chords are dark and sad? How can arbitrary collections of frequencies elicit distinct emotions from people?