The mathematical examples used to support the notion of chaos in nature (e.g., fractals resembling coastlines) seem at times to have more the force of analogy than scientific persuasiveness. Is there currently a philosophical debate over the veracity of chaos theory?

A man calls a woman a whore, and is promptly beaten by the woman's husband. The husband justifies the beating as an appropriate response to disrespect. His friends agree. Are they correct?

Recently a friend had an operation in which she was given medication to make her forget the operation (it was an eye operation done under local anaesthetic, and apparently the "scalpel coming at your eye" memory causes nightmare reactions). So, she must have had an instant of terror on seeing the scalpel cutting into her eye, but now has no recall. If so... was she ever terrified? If there is no memory of it whatsoever, can we call it terror? If so, how do any of us know that we haven't been similarly terrified?

This is a question about Hilary Putnam's twin earth thought experiment. After I read this thought experiment I was not convinced that Oscar's and twin-Oscar's "water" concept have different meanings. But most of the philosophers' intuitions are similar to Putnam (i.e., they think that Oscar's and twin-Oscar's "water" concept have different meanings). I thought that there might be something wrong with me. So I told this thought experiment to different people with different origins but without exception all of them responded that both Oscar's and twin-Oscar's "water" concept have the same meaning. So I still do not understand, why do so many philosophers' intuitions work like Putnam's? Thank you, Deniz

In an expanding universe, are we getting closer together or farther apart?

I am interested to know whether the panelists consider themselves to be contented souls. I am currently searching (as methodically as possible) for a context for my life within, well, "everything" and wondered whether there is a consensus on how long this process is likely to take. I am rapidly realizing that there is no answer yet to some of the biggest questions; so maybe I need to home in on the right questions. I'm sure this is a fairly well trodden path - are there some short cuts or is "the journey" itself a component of "the destination"?

Am I a direct result of all the events that preceded me?

Does it really matter if there is a God? And if you think so, why?

If you have a line, and it goes on forever, and you choose a random point on that line, is that point the center of that line? And if you picked a new point, would that become the center of the line (since to either side of the point is infinity, and infinity is congruent to infinity)? Also if the universe has no middle and no end, am I, and everyone, at the center of the universe? (Of course the middle of the universe thing only works if you believe the universe has no middle and no end.)

Is nothing impossible? Is it just that a lot of things have infinitely small probabilities of occurring?