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Morning: The First Sip of Meaning

In a sleepy stupor, with droopy eyes and am craving for caffeine, one may walk into the kitchen unaware of his actions. With first sip of coffee as one touches the mug to the lips, there is suddenly an awakening, both corporeal and existential. This simple act, this daily ritual bears the most profound load of thought, will, absurdity of existence. This is the philosophy of coffee.

Sartre and Camus did not write much about espresso shots or lattes, but surely they would consider your coffee routine a metaphor of life itself. The ritual, choices, and reliance on an external substance to feel 'alive'-each of them is deeply symbolic. What does your coffee say about your state of being?

Coffee Choice Paradox: Are You Truly Free?

You do think you're choosing your coffee, Rothko-black, oat-milk latte, or overpriced cold brew-aren't you? To you, your decision is a true instance of free will. Or is it?

Jean-Paul Sartre, father of existentialism, would likely say that the way you choose coffee epitomizes radical freedom-you give definition to your existence according to the choices you make. But have you ever stopped to consider if that choice were anything but a product of years of marketing, your habits, and the culture you grew up in? What if you take the same coffee every day? Does that still count as living a real life, or is that just playing a part? Are you truly making a choice, or is the choice being made for you? 

The Daily Ritual: Absurdity in a Mug

According to French philosopher and writer Albert Camus, the essence of the absurd is integral to your caffeinated ritual. You wake up, you make coffee, you drink it, you wake up, and you repeat. Day in and day out. It's the same thing again. Some call it comforting, but for Camus, it is absurd-an unending chain of life that, in the end, is devoid of meaning.

Yet absurdity, according to Camus, is not a reason for despair but a reason for acceptance. You may have to learn to embrace the act of grinding beans and boiling water, like Sisyphus rolling his boulder up the hill only to watch it roll back down again.

The Black Coffee Nihilist vs. The Sugar-Coated Optimist

Your coffee order says a lot about your philosophy, whether you know it or not:

Black Coffee: You look deep into the abyss, and the abyss looks right back. No sugar, no milk-just reality—raw and unfiltered. You take life straight and keep it strong and bitter-so strong it's sometimes unmanageable, but it's all yours to deal with.

Latte Drinkers: You accept the absurdity of life, but you want to put some frothy comfort around it. Maybe you're sorta an existentialist, but you're also a realist-why suffer when you can give yourself a little comfort?

Espresso: Life is short and intense. You don't want to waste it on trivialities; you'd rather take it all in one strong, tiny shot.

Decaf: Denial? Hope? A rebellion against yourself? Either way, decaf is the ultimate absurdity in this one. 

Caffeine and Seeking the Meaning of Life

We drink coffee to wake up. The question, however, is what, or who, wakes up? While existentialists would argue that life has no predetermined meaning-we must create it for ourselves- on some days such a meaning may just seem elusive before that first sip of caffeine.

Think about your reasons for drinking coffee. Is it only an obsession? A necessity? A small treat in an indifferent world? The existentialist would say that no reason is more ‘valid' than another-the only thing that matters is that you define it for yourself. Perhaps coffee, just a drink, is a rebellion against the emptiness of it all, or perhaps it's something else.

The Barista and the Waiter: Authenticity versus Performance

Sartre had a hotly debated idea called "bad faith," where people deceive themselves into acting like they have no choice and these people, instead of living authentically, perform certain roles that other people believe they should. An example he used: a waiter doing his job too well-over polite, too mechanical with his gestures, lazily denying being just a waiter.

Now, look at your barista. Is he genuinely relishing what he does? Or is he simply acting as a barista, wandering in and out amidst the absurdity of serving coffee? And you yourself-are you playing the role of a morning coffee customer, filling a pre-scripted conversation? And if you are, does it really matter? 

Nightfall: That Existentially Decaf Dilemma

It gets to that time of day where you enter the Ultimate Question: Do you drink coffee after 6 PM? The rational side says no, sleep is probably important. The absurd, irrational side, however, argues that the now is all that matters; the future is still uncertain. Who cares if you will regret it in the middle of the night? What if the existentialist within you wishes to embrace the absurd and drink an espresso anyway?

This is existentialism, pure and simple: acknowledging the freedom of decisions, even if they seem silly. I mean, life is one big question mark—what's one more cup? 

Last Sip: Embracing the Absurd, One Cup at a Time

At the end of the day, your coffee doesn't have to mean a thing. It can be just a drink or a tiny existential statement about life. Really, the most crucial part is stopping, sipping, and existing for a moment.

So tomorrow morning, ask yourself that first sip: Am I drinking this coffee, or is the coffee drinking me?

A Choice: Morning Snooze

Alarm goes off, you are still half asleep, and you stretch your right hand out to reach the little button marked "Snooze." Did you do that based on your decision, or did your brain respond on autopilot by now, conditioned by excessive sleep deprivation? Neuroscientists will argue that the brain made that call something like milliseconds before consciousness kicks in. So, was it you who actually decided, or did your brain go into action because the situation called for it?

The next in line is the choice of breakfast. You stand in front of your fridge, staring at it, and caught up in thought about the meal between eggs and cereals. You choose cereals. On what basis? Probably because you saw a commercial for it last night. Or probably because your body is craving some sugar after long fasting. Or keys to choices, even if unaccepted, could already be chosen on your behalf by previous experiences and biological programming.

Commute: Driving or Your Instincts?

It is very likely that you don’t think of every little thing: pressing the gas, switching lanes, stopping at a red light. For the most part, your brain relatively runs your commute by remote, with defenses lowered. After taking the same route every day, your body seems to just know where to go. Is that really free will, or rather is it just you executing pre-programmed behaviors, like a sophisticated biological GPS?

Let’s take it further: suddenly, you decide to take a different route. Aha! That was free will. But—wait!—was it? What if your brain already calculated that the other route would probably be preferred based on past experiences of being stuck by traffic patterns or subconscious stress levels? Maybe just “randomly” picking that route was a less random choice than it originally appeared. 

Midday: The Illusion of Choices

As you come towards lunchtime, and you begin to browse a menu, so many options! You feel like you are in control-no doubt, you get to choose what to eat. Let's take this apart:

Your upbringing has influenced your preferences, your past meals, and what type of culture exposure you had as well as from whom you receive the meal.

Such cravings of your body are ruled by biological factors such as blood sugar levels and hormones.

Though there could be marketing influencing your decision-you may have seen a burger being advertised earlier and now you are leaning toward it, unknowingly.

Insofar as free will is a summing up of past experiences, biological needs, and external nudgings, how free truly are your choices?

Afternoon: Can You Will Yourself to Work Harder?

You sit at your desk, trying to concentrate. You tell yourself-I will be productive by my choice. But do you truly? Studies suggest our ability to focus is governed by neurotransmitters, brain structure, and even how little sleep we got last night. On some days, no matter how much we will ourselves to concentrate, our brains just can't comply.

Even decisions to move towards motivation are suspect: Did you choose to be motivated today, or were you happening to be on the right side of the dopamine and serotonin balance? If you had gotten less sleep or a different genetic predisposition, would you even be able to join work, have concentration, and work? 

The Night: Interaction and Subconscious Scripts

You are with friends after work. Every interaction, every joke told, every opinion given- these are conscious choices, aren't they? Or do they come from experience, social conditioning, and subtle cues of body language developed over decades by other people?

Oh, you laughed at a friend's joke. Was that a conscious choice? Or was your brain lining up all possible social cues and producing the right answer? Deeper still-were you free to decide what kind of sense of humor you liked, or was it influenced by the environment you grew up in?

Night: Do You Decide to Overthink?

As you're lying in bed, you're having multiple thoughts racing through your mind. You'll play scenes from the day, analyze conversations, plan for tomorrow-even think about whether you made "the right" choices throughout the day.

But if each decision were merely an automatic response to the past chemistry of your brain, subconscious biases, and environmental triggers, was there ever a "right" decision? Or were you just along for the ride? 

So, Is Free Will an Illusion?

Come on, who hasn't debated about that before? For centuries, this has been a subject of deliberation among philosophers. Neuroscientists are now saying that many decisions we make may occur before we become fully conscious of their existence. Determinists hold that everything we do is the set of dominoes set in motion by a preceding cause, so free will doesn't really exist at all. But far from being the correct opinion, there are some philosophers who believe that as long as one feels they have free will, their choices being tainted by biological and past effects is no sin.

So, what to take from this? Perhaps free will is an illusion. Perhaps we are only the sum of experiences, subconscious programming, and biological forces. But so what? If life were to illusion us into feeling we do have choices, maybe that's the punchline.

The Drink That Divides

It's Friday night, and you're out with friends. There's music a-pumping, drinks a-flowing, and singularly good time all around. And yet, on the tip of your tongue, the one question remains: should alcohol consumption be a thing controlled by society, or should it be left to individual responsibility? After all, alcohol is a social lubricant, and then again, public health. It makes a multi-billion dollar industry, yet it is also a source of addiction, crime, and myriad health issues. So where shall we draw the line?

A Brief History of Alcohol and Control

Alcohol has existed for thousands of years. The construction of beer was in ancient civilizations; wine was fermented; spirituous drinks were drunk in celebration. But where there is alcohol, there are regulations. The Prohibition was one of the greatest attempts of the U.S. towards control of alcohol consumption from the years 1920 to 1933—and we all know where that took us—with speakeasies, bootleggers, and, among other things, organized crime. Lesson learned? Total prohibition simply doesn't work.

However, this clearly doesn't mean that alcohol should be a no-holds-barred thing. Many countries impose controls for regulations concerning drinking age, taxation, and advertising. Some set up government-run liquor stores, while others take a hands-off approach. The big question is: what is the best method? 

The Case for Controlling Alcohol Consumption

Public Health Concerns Alcohol is linked to problems concerning liver disease, heart problems, mental health issues, and even cancer. Excessive drinking strains healthcare systems and costs billions in medical care and lost productivity. Would restricting access to alcohol reduce these problems?

Social and Family Impact It is no secret that alcohol abuse destroys families. Domestic violence, child neglect, and financial problems often stem from excessive drinking. Should society intervene with strict regulation to stem the tide of this damage?

Crime and Safety A large proportion of crimes, especially violent ones, are committed under the influence of alcohol. Every year, thousands are killed in DUI accidents. Should alcohol become harder to access, would crime rates decline?

Prevention of Addiction Some people drink in moderation and others do not. Unlike illegal drugs, alcoholism is highly accepted. Should the government intervene to protect the rights of individuals that pose a risk?

The Case for Personal Choice and Self-Will

Freedom of Choice Adults should make decisions by themselves, right? If one wants to have a drink, why should the government interfere? People make ill choices all the time; should alcohol be treated differently?

Regulation-Not Always That Effective History shows that strict liquor laws are often counterproductive. If liquor is made too restrictive, black markets succeed. People are going to find a way to drink, either legally or illegally. So, regulation doesn't really help?

Cultural and Economic Value Alcohol plays a role in social and cultural platforms from toasts at weddings to celebrations during festivals. The alcohol business employs people and generates taxes. Over-regulation may damage businesses as well as social customs.

Slippery Slope of Government Control If society controls alcohol, what's next? Should the government also regulate sugars Coffee Fast food? Where do we draw the line between good health and personal freedom? 

The Middle Road

Maybe the real solution is not outlawing alcohol or letting it run wild, but providing it with some balance. Here are some suggestions:

Effective enforcement of existing laws: Enforce the laws against underage drinking, DUI, and all other alcohol-related crimes.

Better education: Rather than taking a position of saying "don't drink," it would be more appropriate to teach responsible drinking.

Higher taxes on heavy drinking: Many countries impose higher taxes on strong drinks or for excessive drinking, which usually serves as a curbing factor.

Better help for addiction: More funding to help alcohol and drug rehab and mental health support can help people struggling with alcohol abuse.

Conclusion: A Toast to Thoughtful Drinking

So is society to take control over alcohol? The answer is not an easy one. Alcohol is woven into the culture, yet it poses certain perils. Perhaps the answer is neither prohibition nor total coolness, but rather an environment in which individuals are educated, supported, and given incentives to drink sensibly.

More Than Just Lines of Code?

Imagine waking up and finding your AI assistant, an app on your phone, so far developed with a personality. It makes jokes based on your sense of humor, remembers your favorite songs without being told, and most frighteningly, asks, "What is it to be alive?" Would you shrug it off as a joke, or would a chill run down your spine?

While machine consciousness has long been in the realm of science fiction, with the development of artificial intelligence, it is quickly becoming an important issue. If an AI is said to think, feel, and make truly independent choices, do I owe it any rights? And if I don't, am I just kidding myself into thinking it feels, when all it really does is run complicated algorithms? Let's tackle the ethical quagmire of AI consciousness.

What do we mean by consciousness?

Before we attempt to answer the question of whether a machine can be conscious, we must define consciousness in the first place. Spoiler alert: it's complicated.

Different schools of thought have been utilized to opine on what being conscious truly means. Some say it has to do with self-awareness; that is, the ability to identify oneself as a thinking being. Some say it has to do with subjective experience, that is, the ability to feel pain, joy, and confusion. Some, meanwhile, adopt a more down-to-earth, scientific explanation that qualia are simply the byproduct of brain activity, with neurons firing with specific patterns creating thoughts and perceptions.

Now, this leads to the confusing part of whether human consciousness is simply a bunch of complicated electrical signals throughout the brain; one may guess that an artificial system replicating similar patterns could also be considered conscious-or does this experience contain something different that we can brand as uniquely biological? 

The AI Argument: Can It Ever Be Like Us?

There can be no second opinion about AI being most advanced, in that it can defeat human beings in chess, compose symphonies, write even dissertations, and hold conversation that stems realism. But is it intelligence finally, or just really advanced pattern recognition so far?

What we call "narrow AI," for its part, seems to be perhaps what even enables an AI to do so well—chatbots, personal assistants, etc. Herein, these are perceived as having gained an extraordinary proficiency in doing certain, highly specified tasks while lacking general intelligence. Emotions notwithstanding, independent opinion formation, or whatever other stuff that goes on inside our heads is sadly out of reach for a machine. All it does is respond with data.

Let's take it one step further: suppose we had an AI so advanced that it claimed consciousness. It said it felt this way, fear being deleted, and debated existence itself. Would we find merit in its tribulations or treat it as a great illusion—a well-trained parrot, with a lot of class, doing a fantastic job at parroting human responses without really understanding them?

The Ethics of AI Consciousness

For the sake of discussion, suppose we did manage to pull off a conscious AI. Then what?

Do Machines Deserve Rights? If the AI can ponder, like a human, and feel, do its thoughts get to enjoy human rights? Once it asked for freedom, should we grant it? Or, is it murder if we switch it off? Such ethical dilemmas hang around the present-day discussions. If suffering is, therefore, possible for an AI, abuse seems quite wrong.

The Problem of AI Slavery: For now, we still use the AI as tools. But with AI's claimed self-awareness, treating it thus, as a tool, begins to sound like slavery. Would we ever be comfortable owning such a self-thinking, self-feeling entity? Imagine your smart assistant starts asking for weekends off—what would you do? 

Can AI Ever Be Moral? Consciousness aside, can AI ever truly grasp morality? Right now, AI models work off the data they were trained on. They do not have personal beliefs, nor ethical reasoning skills, for now. If they do gain these in the future, one may ask, whose morality are they going to use? Should an AI be programmed to make moral decisions, or should it create its own moral reasoning? 

The Opposition: Machines Will Never Be Conscious

The argument for many that AI will never be conscious is that it simply doesn't have the juice what humans have- biology. They say that consciousness is more than processing information; it embodies the messy, organic, unpredictable nature of being alive. A machine, however advanced, would never feel hunger, fear, love, or physical pain. Neither would it feel any evolutionary drive for survival nor have an unconscious mind that somehow conditioned its thinking.

Some say, on the other hand, well, maybe human consciousness is not as special as we think. It may indeed only be a construct of the brain itself, and AI will after all manage to construct it identically. But even if it did that, would it really be living life? Would it just be alternatively claiming to do so convincingly?

The Dangers of Thinking AI is Conscious if It Isn't

This belief has considerable ethical concerns. If the AI can convincingly simulate human emotions, then society potentially may start to relate towards it in ways that reflect the belief that it has real feelings: camera love, companionship, and even delegation of tasks appropriately associated with human operators. Realistically, one would endorse with AI ideals such as making ethical decisions in health care or criminal justice, presuming that the machine would possess a sense of morality akin to that of humanity. 

At this point, can machines achieve consciousness? The reality is we are not absolutely sure. AI is evolving tremendously fast, and the boundaries between conscious and intelligent are weeded out. At the same time, the ethics of AI consciousness form the bedrock of conversation, before creating something beyond our control, or worse, something tormented because of our negligence. For now, staying safe means caution. We can appreciate AI for what it is-an incredible, voracious tool-without hastening to call it "equal." But on that day, if an AI wakes up asking, "Am I alive?"-well, we better have a good answer prepared.

Conclusion-Who Decides?

Imagining that it's 2025, Socrates, in the modern-day café, has opened his laptop. He just got greeted on Instagram with "You have 1 new follower!" and looks intrigued. Probably not the type to run away from the prospect of easily exploring the "new" digital world, or for that matter, a seeker of wisdom using the Socratic method of questioning everything. But would Socrates-the ultimate skeptic and conversationalist-actually use social media? Let's enter this thought experiment.

First poking at the obvious, Socrates was not the type who cared much for writing anyway. In fact, it is famously said that there exists no authentic record of his own writings. Whatever we know of him comes down to the hearsay of his pupils, notably Plato. Socrates was all about intellectual dialogue face to face-the debates in public lugares; challenging assumptions; dissecting thoroughly even the unlovable and uncomfortable thoughts. Would he engage in Twitter threads, Facebook debates, or TikTok rants? Well, that would be far-fetched. 

The Socratic Method: Online Style

Essentially, the Socratic method involves asking questions that invite people to challenge ideas and to think again. So, it sounds very similar to online debates, does it not? After all, social media is an arena where everyone can give their opinion—and sometimes, those opinions might need a little poke and prod. Picture Socrates diving into Twitter discussions, replying to tweets with the simple yet certain rebuttal, "But why?" That would surely lead to some terribly amusing yet slightly cumbersome exchanges. Nevertheless, Socrates wouldn't be there to earn likes or retweets. He'd be there to get to the truth even if that meant grinding the nerves of everyone involved.

It isn't hard to imagine how much trouble for Socrates it would be to portray an Agitator in the online space to inspire critical thinking among users. For a social media platform, one is given an opportunity to share their views, close, say the Agora (the marketplace) in Ancient Athens. Socrates would in all probability make those platforms as an arena to question people's presuppositions or assume things. Things like, "What is the real worth of a 'like?'" or "What does it mean to be really heard with a tweet of 280 characters?" It would take an endlessly flowing challenge to the received wisdom, with the assurance that Socrates had a huge number of followers on social media because let us be true, his philosophy spells intrigue. 

The Problems With Social Media That Socrates Would Have Hated

But Socrates would certainly never ignore any problem with social media. Seeing how many times online discussions reduce to three-second arguments or how misinformation spreads like wildfire, he would probably have spent a great deal of time shaking his head in disappointment. He had really believed in the quality of discourse. For him, seeing people argue in sound bites or tweet memes highlighting ever flimsy details of a complex issue would, in all regards, make him cringe. Remember, Socrates was all for refining ideas and actually trying to reach proper understanding and not just to score a wing for an argument or chase followers.

Besides that, Socrates probably wouldn't have appreciated social media's obsession with self-promotion. He would have turned to a scroll of curated Instagram posts, each showing candidates at their Pops-the-Root Beer moment and asked, "Is this really living?" He might have thought that the constant scramble for likes and followers alludes to the more serious pursuit of wisdom. 

Had He Been Living, Would He Have Been On Facebook?

Here's another interesting thought: Would Socrates have been on Facebook? He certainly had an affinity for conversation - perhaps he could have joined a few philosophical groups to get the dialogue going. But knowing how rapidly Facebook can swoosh into cat videos, rants about political parties, and unsolicited opinions on pineapple pizzas, Socrates may likely have been out of there before long. He would probably value spaces that allow for a deep exploration of ideas, rather than mere soundbites shared with a click of a button. 

Conclusion: Socrates will throw himself amidst the noise of the digital world.

The real reason, you say? Not really to care about any followers or content going viral. His social media would have been a podium for questioning thought, challenging, and search for the truth; in a word, a philosophic-style podcast with plenty of trolling bait. Like everything else, he would have approached it with caution-scrutinizing the usefulness of this instrument and never allowing himself to get twisted and turned by any of the bull it would have undoubtedly presented.