The Uncertainty of the Future

By Joe Buchanan

Adding to the official caveat that is standard to Action Academe, just to preface my post, I would like to underscore that these words are my thoughts alone and do not represent any institution or group.

Philosophy has always been contentious. Thoughts and ideas of great minds always seem to be. Most philosophers have been met with a great deal of controversy and vilification of their ideas. From Socrates to Alan Watts, we see this time and time again. What does this have to do with the future of philosophy, you may ask? In the last five to ten years, it seems as though the world is trying to silence those ideas we see from thinkers. We seem to have come to a point where if someone else does not agree with some of us, a percentage of people will not even hear what the other has to say. Great ideas or concepts in philosophy must always be flushed out; they are not merely said one time and that becomes the truth. A series of thoughts and conversations is needed to settle on what they are really getting to.

What is my point? Well, my concern is how we treat ideas as a society currently. We seem to be so polarized, unable to hear points of view or ideas that don’t align with our own. My fear is the uncertainty of how we move forward as a society, how we look to great thinkers/philosophers. Open minds have always pushed society forward—and in my opinion, this is paramount to the success of the future. An example that comes to mind for me is Elon Musk. Currently there is a huge controversy surrounding him of course—but no one can deny his contributions to society if they look objectively. From reusable rockets to electric cars, Elon Musk has contributed heavily to society’s improvement. There is a vast number of people who would disagree with this due to Musk’s current political ideology. To be clear, there are many of us who do have an open mind, and we do seek thoughts and ideas which may not align with our own, and I do have hope that we continue this.

I wonder what the digital age brings us in terms of philosophy. There are many currently in the field of philosophy. . .but will that last? Another question I have is how AI will play a role in how we think. Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and similar programs are already being used by students to write papers—so what happens as AI advances and the teachers can no longer tell if a student wrote a paper? I think this will make future generations lazy in terms of thought, for why would someone have to think of philosophy or any other subject when your phone or computer can do it for you? How do we inspire the next generation of people to look at the stars or to ask some of life’s tough questions? Maybe the answer is we don’t; maybe the digital age is the next evolution of philosophy and thought. American IT engineer and futurist Ray Kurzweil noted, “Artificial intelligence will reach human levels by around 2029. Follow that out further to, say, 2045, we will have multiplied the intelligence, the human biological machine intelligence of our civilization a billion-fold.” That is an incredibly powerful and scary thought: our intelligence multiplied by one billion. How will that affect thought and how we view the world. . .one cannot even imagine.  I do believe technology is a good thing, but we do need to be cautious when advancing AI, in my opinion.

The parallel between the last two paragraphs is this: we have many people polarized by ideas that don’t align with their own and people who are relying on Facebook or Twitter for their learning. This is a recipe for people who will not know how to think—they will just be told what to think. We are closing off advancement following this path. John Locke once wrote:

Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas:—How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from EXPERIENCE.

What will the next generation's experience be? How will this change the way society views thinkers?

Philosophy majors, per the National Center for Education Statistics, from 2001 to 2022 in the United States, were anywhere from 5836 in 2001 to 7958 in 2022, peaking at 9427 in 2013. This is good news for us. Philosophy continues to be pursued as a formal academic major. Again, my question is, will this trend continue? But the trend in philosophy majors is just one piece of data: many great minds throughout history were not taught how to think or did not have a formal classical education. I do think the intel on majors is good news, in any event. I believe another good sign for philosophy is YouTube. I know that may sound counterintuitive—or contrary to my opinions expressed earlier; however, the lion's share of information that kids or young adults can find on YouTube is good in my opinion. Just type in "philosophy" and see what comes up: thousands of videos on historical figures that left their mark on the discipline. I have to confess this was my true introduction to Friedrich Nietzsche: a friend of mine said to me “God is dead”—and let me know that Nietzsche was the one who said it. . .and that night I went home and watched hours of Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy and life story on YouTube. This is where the digital age shines and gives those of us who may not be seeking a degree in philosophy but would still love to know more.

My final thoughts/opinions on this subject (for now) may boil down to this: the future is definitely uncertain as it pertains to philosophy and thought. Will philosophy continue? Absolutely. Humans have always looked to the unknown or the whys of humanity. However, my belief is that it will look vastly different than it does now. Philosophy encompasses everything—the study of everything: the why, the how, and the seeking of truths. This does not end; it merely evolves.  My intent was to ask more questions than provide answers—I want you to think about what I put on paper here. After all we are all just here to ask the questions like the great thinkers before us.

“Man is a mystery. It needs to be unraveled, and if you spend your whole life unraveling it, don’t say that you’ve wasted time. I am studying that mystery because I want to be a human being.” —Fyodor Dostoevsky

Joe Buchanan is a freshman at CT State Tunxis.