We human beings often ask ourselves questions about our existence and the world around us, because we express an innate tendency to reflect on and analyse our being and our environment.

Some of these unknowns have a simple answer, but others not so simple, for there are facts that the human mind finds difficult to understand. Sometimes, moreover, the environment is too complex and therefore venturing to defend a truth in a radical way may not be the best option.

Difficult philosophical questions to answer

In this article you can find a selection of philosophical questions that are very difficult to answer. They are as follows:

1. What is the secret to happiness?

We have all asked ourselves this question at some time in our lives and, without a doubt, many philosophers and scientists have been interested in answering it . In fact, what is the secret to be happy? Does happiness have the same meaning in the Western welfare society as in times of war? A complex answer that opens a great debate.

Several investigations have been carried out in this regard. You can learn the most outstanding results of these studies in this article: “The 10 keys to be happy, according to science”.

2. Will there be life on other planets?

One question that has been asked by philosophers and scientists alike is whether life exists elsewhere on our planet. Some people claim to have seen flying saucers, and others to have been abducted by aliens, although there is no evidence that this is so.If we stick to statistical reasoning, it seems unthinkable that no other type of life exists considering the infinity of galaxies and planets.However, it can also be argued that the fact that no extraterrestrial organisms have visited us may be an indication that life on other planets may be scarce or non-existent. Or at least, not evolved enough.

Now, regardless of whether aliens have walked the earth or not, is there life in other areas of the universe? We still don’t have an answer to this question, but surely humans will continue to search for some form of life outside our planet.

3. How can the Universe be infinite?

One of those difficult questions to answer is if the cosmos has limits . Human beings only know a small part of the universe, but it seems to be infinite. Can that be possible?In fact, many astronomers claim that the universe is expanding, so technically it would not be infinite but finite.From many people’s point of view it seems hard to believe and, in fact, even to imagine.

4. Are we good or bad by nature?

As Ortega y Gasset said, man is thrown into the world without an instruction book . We do not have a guide on how we should behave. But are we good or bad by nature? Are we born with the clean slate that Locke spoke of? Scientists claim that the environment conditions us greatly, but what influence does genetics have then?

No doubt, these questions are difficult to answer. Logically, the environment plays a determining role in our behavior as Philip Zimbardo demonstrated in his experiment at Stanford prison. But even so, it seems hard to believe in these times that, for example, during the Nazi era, so many people were capable of killing so many poor innocents. Most of us can’t imagine that there are people who are as cruel and capable of barbaric acts as those of the Holocaust.

5. Does justice exist?

If we take a look around, we will realize that life is not fair. Barbarism is the order of the day in different parts of the world, and the way people are judged varies from culture to culture . Is life itself fair or unfair?

6. What is the best moral system?

The previous point leads us to reflect on what is the best moral system and, in reality, it is extremely complex to distinguish between good and evil. Some people may defend at any cost that violence is always unjustifiable. But… what does an individual do in times of war if a group of subjects commits a barbaric act against his family? Undoubtedly, the context has to do with answering this question, and life is too complex to believe in a universal morality and ethics.

7. Is there life after death?

There is no evidence that after death our soul will dwell in “Paradise” or a better world. But it must also be said that the opposite has not been proven. This question, which fits perfectly with esotericism, has also interested some philosophers who have argued that there is something beyond death. Now, what does this ‘something’ consist of? It is difficult to answer .

8. Is the Big Bang theory true?

Perhaps this question has been tried to be answered more from science , but from the human mind it is almost impossible to understand or imagine the theory of the Big Bang. Although science seems to have found evidence of the Big Bang, what is time, then? This question can lead us to reflect on something that has a certainly complex and difficult answer to visualize, since it is very counterintuitive.

9. Why is there something instead of nothing?

Our presence in the universe is too complex to explain in words. Our day to day life leads us to live life and let ourselves be enveloped by everyday problems, which we perceive as normal and for which we perceive that life has some meaning. But, possibly, at some point some of the questions will have come to our consciousness: “How can it be that we have life? How can it be that there are all these things in the Universe? Or, why do these physical laws that govern us exist? Nothing in modern physics explains why we have these laws and why the Universe works like this.

10. What is the meaning of life?

Existentialist and humanist philosophers have often wondered about the meaning of life and its significance. This can be interpreted on an individual level from the search for identity . Now, does life have meaning or is everything a coincidence?

11. Do we have free will?

In the words of Rousseau: “Man is born free, but he is born chained on all sides”. This leads us to the dilemma of determinism . In the philosophy of action there are two currents with two different visions: according to the compatibilist perspective, of which David Hume is the maximum defender, the determinism of action is compatible with the possibility of attributing moral responsibility and free will.

However, there is also the incompatibilistic perspective, which argues that it is not possible to consider determinism and moral responsibility together . In fact, recent studies suggest that we make decisions even before we are aware of them, and Antonio Damasio, in his book called Descartes’ mistake , states that emotions are present even in decisions that we believe to be rational.

12. Can we experience the world objectively?

Many times we think we perceive the real, objective world, but is that really so? Everything we see, feel, smell, etc., passes through our sensory receptors and reaches our brain to process the information. Now, what would the world be like if we had the vision of hawks or the smell of dogs? Surely, different.

13. Does God exist?

Does God exist? For atheists, logically, no. For believers, evidently, yes . Only agnostics confess to be ignorant about the answer to this philosophical question.Science has not found any proof that God exists and, in fact, the study of cognition and psychological mechanisms, historically, has been more related to atheism than other fields of knowledge. You may be interested in learning more about this topic in this article: “Can you be a psychologist and believe in God?