Interesting situation! The Roman philosopher and statesman Seneca tells us that the most important thing we have is time, and the most important decision we will make in life is how to spend our time and with whom. I suggest that you may want to go to that school which (after you have completed four years) you can look back upon with proper pride (proper pride as opposed to vanity or egoism). Insofar as skills and adventures (intellectual and otherwise) often involve risk-taking and moving against the line of the least resistance (in other words, not taking the easy route), I suspect it would be better to opt for the college or university community that would most challenge you. Where I teach, there is a tremendous (growing) stress on students discovering their vocation. A vocation is not just a job, but a sense of calling or having a goal of pursuing a fulfilling profession. I would recommend finding a college or university which takes vocation seriously.

Great question! By the way you pose the question (Thales to Rorty) I assume you mean western philosophy. Yes, I think you can carry out such a project, reading a bit of each of the major philosophers and then relying on a good history as a guide. I would highly recommend Anthony Kenny's multi-volume Oxford University Press books as lively and engaging. Copleston's history of philosophy is perhaps less engaging but it is reliable and a good companion. Speaking of Companions, Blackwell, Oxford, Cambridge, and Routledge each have massive Companion series that would also be helpful in filling out your reading. You might want to set as a goal an overall grasp of the history of philosophy and then dig in to a few areas and thinkers so as to deepen your understanding of philosophy and also to engage more in the practice of philosophy (wrestling with arguments and counter-arguments) in reference to a specific area or philosopher.

Great question! Some philosophers have denied that they are. Norman Malcolm is probably the most famous for claiming dreams are not experiences. It has been jokingly said that, for Malcolm, dreams are simply lies we tell each other over breakfast. The problem is that if you are a materialist dreams seem to be hard to identify with physical processes: there is no color in the brain, for example, and yet subjects report rich visual experiences with color, shape, and dimension. Those who believe that there is more to persons than physical-chemical processes (like H.H. Price or G.E. Moore) treated dream experiences in a way that is akin to their recognition of sense-data or the visual field in ordinary life. Setting to one side the big questions of materialism versus dualism, I suggest it is difficult to deny the reality of dream experiences. Subjects (and this group includes me) report what we appear to experience when sleeping, and these appear to be richly detailed, colorful scenes in which...

You are right that, in the Tractatus, Wittgenstein claims that the world is the totality of facts. And it is also plausable to think that the experience of red (seeing red) may be difficult to express informatively in words, especially if you were to try to convey what it is like to see red to someone who is color blind or completely blind from birth. But I don't think Wittgenstein needs to deny this. I believe that, for Wittgenstein, the term 'fact' means something like 'state of affairs' and so one may speak similarly of the fact of you seeing red now and the state of affairs of you seeing red now, without this implying any difference between what you refer to as the fact that red exists and the actuality of red.

Great, classic question that goes back to Ancient Greece. Stoics and some others taught that we should seek out a life that is free from passion about the future. They thought we should seek out what they called (in Greek) apatheia (from which we get the term apathy). Famously, Buddhists believe that a life of expectations is a life that is built on desire and thus can be the source of suffering. So, your father may have some serious philosophical and religious support! Also, there is some common sense to keeping expectations low, as this does (naturally) mean you will more likely be pleasantly surprised when your cousin calls and your children show you love. However, the philosopher William James and others have stressed the constructive, important role of HOPE. If you have no hope at all in running a race or in building a new friendship, odds are you are not going to be as committed to the run or the relationship. Loving another person also seems to involve hoping that the love is returned. ...

Interesting! Philosophers have long wrestled with the concept of infinity, and some in the ancient world and today find the concept of infinity problematic. They allow it to have a well defined role in mathematics (e.g. there is no greatest possible number, an infinite set is equal in numbers to its sub-set, viz. there are no more whole numbers than there are prime numbers), but when it comes to reality itself (the universe) some follow Aristotle in thinking that you can have a potential infinite, but not an actual infinite. In the former, we can think of something coming into being and then never ceasing to be. But in its ongoing life (a trillion years to the trillionth power) it would never complete an infinite series. No matter how long it lasts, it could last longer. So, back to your specific point, if the cosmos began 14 billion years ago and never ends, some philosophers think it would never last an infinite period. Hence a principle like 'given infinite time, every logically possible state...

You may be a high school drop out, but you have a genius for asking great questions! Let me try to break up the questions a bit. There is a difference between motion and change insofar as motion appears to involve physical objects and events. If there is motion, there is change, but some philosophers have either denied the existence of physical objects or events (some idealists) or they are theists who believe that there was a time when God (an immaterial / non-physical reality) existed and there were no physical objects. These philosphers would allow that change could exist, but without motion. In any case, once you have change, you have time, for change presumably involves there being one time when X occurs and then another time when X is not in the same state. If motion ceased, would time cease? Not necessarily, if there could be a nonphysical reality (God or souls or...) that change. But what if all change ceased? Would time then cease? Well, if by 'all change' we include 'temporal change'...

I think that is quite right. I would simply highlight that the debate over freedom and determinism came to an important point in the 17th century with Ralph Cudworth when philosophers came (for the first time, perhaps) to articulate radical notions of freedom that involve a person engaging in a kind of self-transcendence, an ability to step back from her or his current character and engage in a kind of self-creation, making choices that would transform a person involving the formation of a new character.

Very interesting! It is not easy in the abstract to form a sharp distinction between an explanation and a description. Presumably, every explanation involves some description (you are describing the cause of an event, for example), and any description of a thing could probably be used as part of an explanation (e.g. at a minimum, the description "I am reading AskPhilosophers" could be the answer to this request: "What are you doing right now?" and so on). What counts as an explanation may depend on the relevant inquiry. There are fairly restrictive accounts of what counts as a good explanation in the natural sciences (Hempel's nomological explanations) but then there are what Hempel called explanation sketches that are more loose. "It is wet" could be a sufficient explanation as to why you are not wearing a specific coat, though it would not get at why the coat got wet or why you prefer a dry coat. Your reference to "It is what it is" sort of explanation suggests a category of BASIC explanations...

It sounds as though you are already making a break with your past (putting "I" in quotes suggests that you think of yourself as a different person, for when you describe yourself as you are now, you are not using quotes). You mention family and friends. Insofar as you have made vows of life-long partnership as a spouse and insofar as you have not renounced the duties of family life (one's obligations as a parent or child or sibling) it seems you do have some prima facie duty to "keep in touch" with that "I" or self whose life is bound up with theirs. This might involve not just increased visits, but more electronic and alternative means of communication so that they have more of an understanding of your current situation (send photographs of your appartment, favorite places in the new city, etc). Philosophers disagree about the extent to which friendships involve obligations of that sort. Some think of friendship as a gift, others may think of it as a gift as well but believe that once given and...