A branch of philosophy that studies the nature, origin and limits of knowledge. Technically, I'm learning about this in the philosophy course I was forced to take, but I much prefer what I found myself in one of my rabbit holes. One thing that epistemologists question is knowledge vs true belief.

Plato described knowledge as justified true belief. In order to know something; you must believe it, it must be true, and it must be justified by good reason or evidence. However, this was challenged by Gettier in the 60s, he proved that you can have a justified true belief that still isn't knowledge.

For example, if you look at a clock that reads 2:30pm, you believe the time is correct. Suppose it is correct and you are justified in the fact that clocks usually work, but suppose that clock had been broken for days, stuck at 2:30pm but just happened to also be 2:30pm when you looked at it.

Ultimately, I just found this interesting and it does suggest there is more to defining knowledge than what Plato proposed. Although, I'm not sure what that improved definition is, I imagine a distinction may involve considering ontology as well.

Soulmates are a really interesting concept I recently learnt about, the concept goes as far back as greek myths and Plato, although in neither case was it ever referred to as soulmates. Orpheus and Eurydice are seen as a story of soulmates, two people fated to be together, where their bond transcends life and death (if you like this story you should def see hadestown in theatre - it was amazing and the soundtrack is phenomenal)

Similarly, in Plato's symposium he tells a story of how humans were created with two bodies, four arms and four legs but were split in half by the Gods. As a result, each person has a longing to find their other half, separated but destined to reconnect.

I also like the Eastern view, like in Buddhism that soulmates are closely tied to the concept of Karma and reincarnation. Souls are bound together through past actions and continue to meet through multiple lifetimes. The idea that you have a soulmate in every lifetime and that in every lifetime they are the same.

The word soulmate was later developed by an English poet during the romantic era. Creating this idea that soulmates share a deep, unique connection that transcends all other relationships - it's the ultimate form of romantic connection.

But my favourite is probably the invisible string theory that originated from East Asian mythology and the red string of fate. This red string may stretch or tangle but will never break. Its origin is in chinese mythology with the man under the moon, who was a God responsible for matchmaking. He would tie a red string around the ankles of two people destined for each other, which now in modern times has translated into predestination and inter-connectedness.

I just finished reading 1984 and it's such an interesting book. It's a dystopian where society is under a totalitarian regime by Big Brother. The 'party' surveils everything - including thoughts to prevent dissent. They essentially rewrite history to align with their ideals. But they don't do this to meet any specific goals or profit in any way, it's like they are exercising this power just because they can.

It also introduces this really interesting concept of newspeak, where the party are essentially reinventing the language by reducing it, as a way to control peoples thoughts. It's basically an example of linguistic relativity or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which is the idea that language shapes thought and influences the way people perceive the world.

By removing words such as freedom and rebellion, people struggle to perceive it as a concept. Without the language to express their idea of it, it simply ceases to exist to them. I understand that language is constantly evolving and when something is discovered or created we name it, but I wonder if there are any concepts beyond human understanding because we don't have the language to explain it, thus we don't perceive it.

Like the example between colours, in Russian there are more words for different kinds of blue, so to a Russian person there are things that are two distinct colours where as to an English person they are both simply blue, it's not that they can't see the difference, just that to them its a different shade of blue vs another colour and cannot perceive that they are distinct in the way Russians can.

Also, going back to the book, I love when books (or movies) don't necessarily have a happy ending. Winston literally got betrayed, tortured and let back out into the world brainwashed all after having read about how unfair and unjust the world really is. Him being betrayed by O'Brien was such a plot twist but such a clever way for the party to prevent dissent. By luring out the rebellious by creating a fake rebellion and a fictional person 'Goldstein' who explains the science behind the party's doing, only to betray the rebels and have them tortured anyway.

I guess parts of the world do live in some similar situation of being permanently censored and that's even more scary that it's no longer just a dystopian but reality. Imagine having to use the dark web consistently to avoid censorship, but also knowing authorities can still monitor it, so imagine getting caught anyway.