Two-Sentence Shockers: Philosophy Edition

Small Stories for Big Brains

Stories by Paul Victor Tims (Copyright) who asserts the moral and legal right to be identified as the author of these works. Cover image created using AI.

THE ABYSS
When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back and, sometimes, that staring becomes something more. Anyway, have you met my wife, The Howling Void of Meaninglessness at the Bottom of the Human Soul?

ABSURD
This just in: Albert Camus sued over rights to philosophical hypothesis! “He’s a fraud and I’m the real father of Absurdism,” claims Alphonse Campbell, a talking rainbow-coloured alligator in a jaunty little bowler hat and bow-tie.

DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED PART 1
You ask why I unleashed tidal wave of flesh-eating ants upon the world and my answer is simple – utilitarianism! We must seek the greatest good for the greatest number of sentient beings and, let’s be honest, there are an awful lot of flesh-eating ants!

DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED PART 2
You ask why I killed millions of innocents with a giant space laser and my answer is simple – Kantianism! Some things are always right, others are always wrong, and if space laser are wrong then I don’t want to be right!

YOUR BRAIN ON DESCARTES
Look, it’s fine: Descartes tells us that the mind is a non-physical substance unbound from the laws of ordinary matter and only related to the body via dualist interaction. Ergo, I should be able to trepan your skull and hide this big bag of drugs in your brain with no negative consequences whatsoever!

THE TROLLEY PROBLEM
Five weeping, grateful strangers thanked their saviour – the man who had diverted the trolley onto another track, killing one man to save their multiple lives. They didn’t see the hammer hidden behind his back; didn’t know that he hadn’t saved them forever, only saved them for last.

SHIPPING OUT
Look, Captain Theseus, I don’t care whether the ship will still be the same ship if we replace it piece by piece over a given period of time! I just wish you weren’t running this experiment in open waters during a bloody storm!

COLOUR THEORY
Mary had lived her entire life in black and white, studying colour while trapped in a black and white prison, but today was the day: the doors were opening and Mary was witnessing colour for the first time; learning something truly knew that she could never have known from pure, theoretical study. Mary, as it turned out, was colour-blind.

BUTTERFLY
The greatest thinker of his age, Zhuangzi, was hoping against hope that he was a man dreaming he was a butterfly and not the other way around. His learned colleague Confucius had just fetched the bug spray.

IMMOVABLE AND UNSTOPPABLE
So, er, guys – you know that experiment we ran yesterday where we introduced an unstoppable force to immovable object to make sure it wouldn’t end the universe at scale? Were we, er, expecting them the force and object to, um, enjoy it a bit too much?