Since the beginning of time mankind has been wondering.
Who are we? Why are we here? What’s the meaning of life? And many more mind-blowing questions. Are these questions and thoughts really who we are?
Ever since Adam and Eve have taken a bite of the forbidden fruit, mankind has become aware of the world surrounding it, arising numerous questions. Some of these questions have remained unanswered up until today, and may never be resolved. We might never know what’s true or not, and if the truth even exists at all.
For those of you who wonder, we collected the best mind-blowing questions out there, have fun:
1. Can people really come back from the dead?
Though there are many people who have claimed to be back from the dead, how many people have actually done it? Is it even possible? What does it even mean to be ‘amongst the dead’?
2. Does God exist?
Throughout history, mankind has believed that somewhere in the sky there’s a higher power that guides us and organizes everything for us, but is it really so? Or is it merely a story that we have been telling to ourselves? Is there really an all-knowing entity up there that has it all figured out for us? A universal consciousness that lives inside of us? Or is it just an illusion?
3. What happens after we die?
Perhaps the biggest question of them all, but who can get an answer to it? How can information pass between life and our physical world and between what’s beyond life?
4. Are humans born naturally evil? Or good?
Can people choose between being good or bad or are we chained to our inner nature that can not be changed whatsoever?
5. Are there additional dimensions?
Though the question and discussion of whether there’s a 5th dimension of spirituality is a subject that has been brought up in recent years, the most advanced modern theories in Physics are still our best guesses, and haven’t been proven yet. What do you think?
6. Is the Earth alive?
In many ancient cultures and religions, the earth is considered to be a living organism with its own intelligence and needs. The thought that our planet is a unique vivid entity can make sense, but how can we prove that? Is it only a question of how we perceive life?
7. Will the universe end at some point?
Physicists and Cosmologists – Cosmology is a branch of astronomy concerned with the studies of the origin and evolution of the universe – have a clear overview about how the earth will end (‘our’ sun will run out of fuel in 5 Billion years), but the entire universe? That’s a much more complex question.
8. Do you ever really do anything out of your own conscious choice, or are we always controlled by some external stimulation or motive?
Does free will exist? Do we have a choice? How can you even know that you have a choice or is it all be pre-determined for you? This one can be looked at as either troubling – who am I if not my choices? Or as liberating – you only live once, que sera sera.
9. Does karma really exist?
Do you believe that every action you take, or even the thoughts that cross your mind are all connected together? That we are all living in an endless cycle of reaping what we have sown?
Does that scare you? Or is it calming, knowing that if the way of life is positive good things will come your way?
10. Will science ever enable us to avoid death?
The groundbreaking discoveries and advancements in modern medicine have generated a massive rise in the human life span and life quality. Is there a final frontier to what humanity can achieve in that space? Or is it just crazy – who wants to live forever?
11. Will artificial intelligence eventually take over and machines will rule the world?
The classic Sci-Fi horror scenario is more real than ever, as artificial intelligence is not only more sophisticated and powerful than ever, it is more involved and even inseparable in our day-to-day life. Could Elon Musk be the one how takes this to another level?
12. Could you meet your soul mate in a different life?
Would you know my name?
If I saw you in heaven
Would it be the same?
If I saw you in heaven
~ Eric Clapton ~
This beautiful lyric from ‘Tears In Heaven’ by Eric Clapton shows how deep this question is rooted in so many hearts, and makes you wonder about the nature of love, and how it appears through life, and even beyond life…
13. If all of the particles have been replaced in Theseus’ ship, is it still Theseus’ ship?
The classic question from Greek mythology tackles the space between objects, stories, time, and how we humans perceive them. What is Theseus’ ship, what are the properties that truelly make it his ship?
14. Is human potential capable of anything?
Many people know the story of Roger Bannister, who, on May 6, 1954, broke through the four-minute mile barrier that was thought to be ‘physically impossible’, with a time of 3:59.4 minutes. And a couple of weeks after Bannister did the ‘impossible’ his record was broken again, leaving us wondering if the human potential has no limits, and if impossible is only a matter of perspective and belief
15. Will people be able to read thoughts?
Have you ever had an intuition about something? Or thought about someone the minute he or she called you? Where did that come from?
As thoughts are electric signals that the brain transmits, the real question is whether we can intentionally collect these signals out of someone else’s mind.
16. When we forget about something, where does it go?
What does it mean to ‘know something’? Or ‘not know’ something? Is it only a matter of perspective and the capacity and/or nature of our minds, or is there really is a ‘place’ where all thoughts and things that have ‘left’ our minds ‘go to’?
17. What happens inside a black hole?
Many experiments have been conducted to try and simulate what happens in an environment that challenges everything we think we know about matter, energy, and the laws of physics as we know them.
But how can we even try to begin and understand a planet that its mass and gravity are so big that even light itself can not go through it?
18. Does fate exist?
If you’re meant to be something in this life, will all paths lead you there? Or is there only a single path that you’re destined to go through, and what seems the ‘right’ or the ‘wrong’ way are merely our perceptions? Is the path itself your destiny?
19. Will we ever be able to predict economic crashes?
Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) was a hedge fund that was founded by two Nobel Prize-winning economists, Myron Scholes and Robert C. Merton, with positions of a little over $1,000,000,000,000. Yes, 1 Trillion dollars. The fact that it was managed by 2 Noble Prize winners didn’t prevent it from losing its investors all of their money plus receiving a $3.6B bailout package from the federal reserve.
If the smartest people in the world that run our economy are apparently not that smart, could it be that we could never avoid financial crashes? Or does it mean that these crashes are a sign and that despite the fact that the entire system is wrong, we have a chance to build a viable economy if we start all over again?
20. Do We Have A Body Or Only Mind?
Your mind controls everything. Every time you want to eat, it is your mind the generates this feeling based on internal sugar and other nutrients parameters. When you move your little finger, it is your mind that does it. So do we have a body or is it only a conduit, an extension, of our mind?
21. Do heaven and hell exist?
Do you believe that somewhere in the could up high there’s a magical garden full of bliss, joy, and eternal peace that is waiting for the good ones? Or a firey red excruciating world of suffering, punishment, and eternal torture that waits for the sinners in the belly of the earth?
The fact that this idea was conceived in our minds makes you think at first glance that it’s likely to be pure imagination, that someone made it up. But on the other hand, where did that idea come from, to begin with?
22. Are religions real or not?
How can you know if the miracles that are described in the ancient scriptures dated hundreds and thousands of years ago actually happened? Though the spiritual core of every religion is quite accessible and understandable, some key aspects of every religion are making you wonder if it is really true or not.
23. Who am I?
One of the most ancient questions has several perceptions and perspectives. But whether it is a western or oriental overview, one can not research this question seriously before taking a closer look at Eckhart Tolle’s awakening story.
24. What is dark energy?
The fact that even in the modern era with using today’s state-of-the-art technology, scientists still can not determine exactly the amount of matter and energy in the universe, makes us wonder: is it a scientific question or a philosophic one?
25. Are you coming back to life in another body after you die?
Reincarnation and the cycle of death and rebirth is a significant theme in Buddhism, where it is believed that your soul comes back to this world over and over again in a form that matches your level of consciousness and purity. But how can you prove that or believe someone that tells you about witnessing or experiencing such reincarnation?
For those of you that look for proof and even scientific documentation, the truly mind-blowing ‘Many Lives Many Masters‘ book by psychiatrist Brian L. Weiss is a must-read.
26. Are you judged in the afterlife for what you did in this life?
The concept of judgment is slightly different than the classic one of heaven and hell, as it leaves an open question. If, after you die, you are indeed being judged, what will happen to you afterwords? Who will judge you? And what force will execute your reward – whether it’s a good one or a negative one?
27. Are we alone in the universe?
Life exists on earth because of 2 main reasons: water, and optimal distance from the sun. Not too warm not too cold. Out of the billions of galaxies in the universe, there must be another planet where these 2 reasons exist as well, but what kind of life exists there? If such life does exist, how come we’ve never encountered any other life forms so far?
28. Can our thoughts become actual things eventually?
Einstein’s famous equation E=mc² has revealed to the world that energy is equal to matter, and that all matter is a form of energy and vice versa. And What thoughts are actually? As thoughts are electromagnetic signals and wave patterns that the brain produces, what makes them different than matter?
Could it really be that simple?
29. What is consciousness made of?
When you have a thought, in what space does it take place? It has to be facilitated somewhere, right? Does that space is what consciousness is really made of? Or is it nothing more than tricks of the mind, that it all happens internally in your grey cells?
30. How did life begin?
The most common theory of the ‘big bang’ claims that the universe and life in general began in a massive explosion. But what was before the big bang? Was there life ‘there’, in where the big bang took place? And if there were no life ‘there’, how could any life emerge from that space?
31. Is deja vu real or is it just a feeling?
How can you know if an inner intuition of yours is really something that had happened to you, or only a trick of your mind? A mirror reflection of something that you saw in a movie or heard about from a friend? How can you know for sure that you have really experienced that something, that it is not only an illusion?
32. Is it possible to master the relationship between mind and body?
Can you make yourself healthy just by thinking positively? And on the other hand, can you cause yourself harm by constantly thinking negative thoughts? Can you even change your natural-born characteristics like hair color, height, bone structure, and intelligence?
33. Is time travel possible?
In short, backward time travel is not necessarily physically impossible. Yes, according to Nasa, time-traveling is possible, but it’s not exactly what you think, and moving back and forth through time as a human might never be fully achieved. But if it is possible to build a technology that enables time traveling, wouldn’t we have an endless amount of time to build it?
34. Does The Past Exist?
Does yesterday exist or is it only memory of yours? When you remember yourself as a young child, is that memory true? What makes it true? If everybody tell you that you are wrong about this memory, and eventually persuades you that you are wrong, what does it say about the past? Is there only a single past and course of events, or is it changing? Does it even exist?
35. Does The Future Exist?
When you think about how your life will look like tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, and so on, it is only happening in your mind. But when tomorrow arrives, you experience it is today, right? You experience it as the present moment, as now. So does the future exist? Or is it only an endless sequence of now?
Roughly 80% of the mass of the universe is made up of material that scientists cannot directly observe. I.e., the vast majority of what exists out there is undetectable. This one’s so troubling that it’s even hard to begin and try to think how to tackle this question in a manner that would make a little sense.
37. Can time really go backwards as Einstein claims?
According to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, time passes more slowly the closer you are to fields of gravity. This means that strange distortions of space and time can occur near black holes, which have mind-bogglingly intense gravitational pulls. Despite recent breakthroughs, it is still uncertain whether it is possible or not, but even discussing about the option of it makes it one of the most mind-blowing questions out there.
38. Are humans made of the same matter as the ocean and stars?
If, as presented in one of the above questions, matter and energy are indeed equal, then the entire universe is made of the same matter, same energy. But if that is true, why do we die? Or how come there is no universal spirit that connects our human consciousness with the consciousness of the ocean and stars? Or is there a unifying principle at the core of it all?
39. Is it possible to predict the future?
40. How can you tell if this life is real or not?
The famous ‘Cogito, ergo, sum‘ philosophical statement that was made in Latin by René Descartes at 1637, usually translated into English as “I think, therefore I am”, is to show how old this question is, and how wise people throughout history have been looking for an answer to it. But if only the one who doubts exists, according to Descartes, what makes us know that the rest does exist?
41. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
On the one hand, if sound is vibrations, then the falling tree certainly does make a sound, because it produces vibrations in the air. Even if there’s no person or other animal around to hear the sound, it does have a measurable impact.
But on the other hand, what exactly do we mean by ‘make a sound’? if there’s no listener to hear the sound of the fall, is it considered to be sound? Doesn’t it mean that there has to be a counterparty that will listen, and be the ‘receiver of the sound that provides it its properties?
42. Does love exist or is it just chemistry of the brain?
Our brains are ultra-sophisticated survival instruments, developed by millions of years of trial and error to maximize our chances of survival. So does love exist only because it’s beneficial for our survival? Does the brain chemically ‘rewards us’ for being in love and makes it feel good simply because it increases our species’ chances of survival?
43. How smart can one person be?
William James Sidis is quite possibly the smartest man who ever lived. Born in Boston in 1898, William James Sidis made the headlines in the early 20th century as a child prodigy with an amazing intellect. His IQ was estimated to be 50 to 100 points higher than Albert Einstein’s, reaching an astonishing IQ level of 260. Will anyone ever be able to top that?
But the future hasn’t happened yet and it is open, and so is this question. Who knows how smart will be the baby that will be born tomorrow or 200 years from today? There could always be a black swan that dramatically changes everything we thought was true, and in this case, possible.
44. What Makes Something True Or False?
“History is written by the victors.” This simple quote tells it perfectly. Is something considered to be true only because everyone agrees that it is true? But what if everybody is wrong? Does that make it less true? What’s the difference between something true to something false anyway?
45. Are we living or slowly dying?
Everything that is born is destined to die, nothing lasts forever. The more interesting part is how the period between these two ends is perceived. Is it only a matter of wording and perspective? If you have X days to live, how many days do you have to die? Does death necessarily mean the end of life? Or is life the beginning of death?
46. Can babies think?
Do you have to use words to think? Can thinking take place without words? If so, how would a baby think? What happens in a baby’s mind when it scared, happy, stressed, or joyful? How can it be expressed in its mind?
47. Does Failure And Succes Exist?
‘I have not failed, but found 1000 ways to not make a light bulb‘ said Thomas Edison, and how can you argue with that? When you’re taking the labeling of a course of events or actions out of the equation, what’s left? Does a specific result have a ‘successful’ nature? Or a ‘failing’ one? Or is it nothing but perspective and social conventions?
48. Can People Sense Negative Or Positive Energy?
They say that dogs smell fear, and you probably know that feeling when you’re meeting someone for the first time and automatically get a great vibe from them, or an awful feeling from them? If everyone’s had that feeling once, how far can this go? Can we sense natural disasters or great joy or victories of people close to us?
49. Who Do We Owe The Global $69,000,000,000,000 debt?
All of the countries in the world altogether owe a gigantic monstrous 69 Trillion dollars debt, but who did they borrow it from? What happens if the world is not able to serve its debt – which people or nations will not get their money back (plus interest)?
Also, if debt is an instrument of the future, i.e. countries are taking money now promising to bring it back in the future plus interest, and the future as stated in question no.35 does not necessarily exist, how can we ever be able to pay back more than we currently have?
50. What Is The Meaning of Life?
42.
Well we had to lol.
Perhaps the biggest question of them all, with so many answers. So many people, cultures, religions, beliefs, efforts, dreams, customs, traditions, societies, and civilizations have tried to answer this question. What do you think?
