Picture this: You’re deep in debate over whether pineapple belongs on pizza. Your opponent suddenly shouts, “You just hate it because your favorite philosopher is Kant, and he was German!” Something feels off—but what? Welcome to the delightful world of logical fallacies, those sneaky errors in reasoning that can derail arguments, deceive the unsuspecting, and sound a…
If philosophy were a bakery, logic would be the oven—sometimes hot, often precise, and always necessary for creating anything of substance. But instead of baking pastries, logic bakes conclusions from premises. And like any good baker, you’ve got to know your ingredients: enter the humble argument. What Is Logic, Really? At its core, logic is…
IntroductionMeaning can be a sticky mess—much like trying to frost a cupcake with a brain. But fear not! In philosophy, we slice through the gooey mix with two tasty tools: intension and extension. This article unfolds these concepts in bite-sized, witty morsels, all backed by scholarly thought (no Wikipedia crumbs here). What Are Intension and…
Our brains are wired to learn via rewards. Dopaminergic neurons signal when outcomes exceed—or fall short of—our expectations, reinforcing the beliefs that anticipated those outcomes. Unfortunately, this same mechanism that lets us learn new skills also cements misguided convictions. Here, we explore the neuroscience of reward‐based belief formation, introduce thought experiments to illuminate these dynamics…
An academic yet lively deep dive into the origins of life—with a hint of cosmic satire “How did life begin?” It’s one of those grand, terrifying, beautiful questions that humanity has been chewing on for millennia—like an existential cupcake with an impossibly dense center. Today, let’s bite into two of the leading scientific ideas on…
Every so often, in the ever-vibrant cocktail party that is modern discourse, someone will brush off a well-established idea by saying, “Well, that’s just a theory.” The implication is clear: theories are flimsy, speculative guesses; they’re not facts, not truths, not to be taken too seriously. But in the world of science — where words…
What if I told you that long before MRI scanners, peer-reviewed journals, and overcaffeinated psychologists, Buddhist monks were already mapping out the human mind with astonishing precision? Buddhism, with its introspective traditions, offers insights that modern psychology is only now catching up to. The Illusion of the Self In Buddhist philosophy, particularly within the doctrine…
Time. That relentless treadmill dragging us from birth to death, Monday to Monday, coffee to more coffee. But how exactly does time function? Is it a flowing river? A fixed landscape? Or a conceptual mess cooked up by philosophers with too much free time? A-Theory: The Flow of Time According to A-Theory (also called the…
If you’ve ever stumbled into a late-night conversation about possible worlds, chances are you walked away either deeply enlightened or convinced you’d accidentally joined a Marvel writers’ room. “Possible worlds? Like multiverses? Like Earth-616 and Earth-838?” Not quite. Or rather: sort of, but absolutely not. Welcome to modal logic and intension — a world (pun…
Freshly baked philosophy by Cognitive Cupcake, where even your existential dread comes with frosting. Welcome to the Free Will Bakery You walk into the bakery. Four chefs stand before you. Each claims to know exactly how your cupcake was made. You just wanted a snack. Instead, you’re about to get a lesson on free will….
