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The alternative to Philosophy is The Matrix (flawless global alienation).

Our thinking is unconsciously molded by philosophers that died hundreds or even thousands of years ago.

This is not an alternative to philosophy. This is philosophy. I'm afraid you have not escaped yet, sir.

Oh, precisely, I'd never argue that we can escape it. Philosophy is the vehicle we have to make our consciousness able to navigate reality.

A point that I'd try to put some light on, is that, among many dangers, we can get lost in false worldviews that trap our consciousness in apparently true realities that are ultimately false by a delicate house of cards/lies/mistakes.

The Matrix, or more appropriately, Plato's Cave, made that point infinitely better than I could ever do.

You might argue that getting this molding "for free" as it were, is exactly the reason we don't need to study them.

That won't work in your best interest. Would be like being a citizen of The Matrix, seeing something suspicious that only agents can do, and opting for staying willfully ignorant about it, or even boycott its investigation.

That's exactly what the people in Plato's Cave did.

How ironic is that?

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