What, if anything, can you boil one's self down to, outside any notion of soul or essence?

Is it true that time has no end?

We are often told time is like a river. Are there other useful analogies for time? For example: Time is like a bowl of jello with fruit: time is the jello and events are the fruit stuck in it. I guess what I'm really asking is does time have to flow? Is there another way of thinking about time?

My question is a little bit technical. As you know, from Heidegger to Structuralism, there is always a theme of an "iron cage". In other words, we are always bound by language, structure, or something else. This word "iron cage" was as far as I find used by Weber first. But, I wonder, who is the first western philosopher who used such an idea of being bounded by a surrounding system. For example, can we count Hegel as an "iron cage" philosopher as for him no one can go beyond the volksgeist ? Kind Regards, Nyouri Oezturk

How should we view architects and their work? If we think of buildings as purely functional, then we seem to be thinking of architects as means to ends only, forgetting their concern for aesthetics. Conversely, if we see buildings purely as aesthetic objects, we are underplaying the technical - scientific - expertise of architects. Is there a middle ground of judgement here?

Do you believe that freedom is just being able to do what one wants without constraint? If so, why and how?

It has always struck me that philosophy is not a subject that has made any real progress. A lot of elaborate constructs of when we perceive certain things to be piles and so forth seem to be problems that can be dealt with (eventually) by sciences such as psychology and neurology. Why waste time constructing elaborate theories that are not scientifically provable? Things like inconsistencies in how people act may be a result of people just not being perfectly logical creatures. Why waste so much time pondering questions where 1. progress is hard to judge 2. the resulting ideas do not really change the world in any significant manner.

Should we philosophize about philosophy? Why?

I am a postgraduate linguistics student engaged in a programme of research in which much of the theoretical apparatus proposed by the majority of language scientists ("Words and Rules" - à la Pinker) is dismissed as epiphenomena of exemplar-based cultural learning. Lately, however, I have been struggling with the definition of the word "epiphenomenon". Any thoughts?

Is faith in something intangible ultimately delusional?