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These two philosophical problems used to seem nonsensical to me, and certainly not relevant to much of anything in my life—or anyone's! But now the picture has changed a bit!

When I was a student at Amherst College, I majored in the philosophy of science. On this show, I've often talked about my hero, Ludwig Wittgenstein, who attempted (successfully in my opinion) to "solve" all the problems of philosophy. He wanted to help those of us who were "afflicted" by an attraction to philosophical problems to see through them and understand precisely how and why they were nonsensical. He hoped to provide a "treatment" for philosophers so we could give up the need to obsess about nonsensical philosophical problems.

Once you see through the these problems, they become kind of like a joke, and you can use jokes to help other people see through them. For example, here's a kind of lame joke about the question of whether or not the universe is "real." Wittgenstein said that before we try to answer questions like that, we might want to ask ourselves if these questions even makes sense! And if it a philosophical problem doesn't make sense, it isn't a real question, so we won't need to deal with it. In other words, questions that don't make sense don't need to be answered because they're not real questions.

Take the question, "Is the universe real?"

You could ask, "Well, what would it be like if the universe weren't real? What would that look like? How would things be different?" If you can't answer that question, the question might not make sense.

To most of us, philosophical questions wound nonsensical because we are taking words, like "real," out of the contexts in which it DOES make sense. For example, we can ask : "Is this painting real? Or is it a fake?" That question does make sense. It has an obvious meaning, since many valuable paintings are copied and are fakes, and they try to pass them off as the "real" thing.

But what would a "real" or "fake" universe look like? How would it differ from our universe?

Now let's think about another example that is mildly humorous. Let's imagine you're driving through Iowa in the summer, and you spot a farmer working in his corn field. You're interested in speaking to him because you are writing a story about your travels in Iowa, and want to talk about the lives of farmers.

So, you pull your car over to the side of the road and shout, "Howdy! What are you doing in the field?"

The farmer seems pleased and grabs a gorgeous stalk of corn and holds it up and proudly shouts, "I'm growing corn, and it is real!"

Well, that's great that he's happily growing corn, but what does the tag-on, "and it is real" mean? It doesn't actually mean anything, because farmers don't grow "unreal corn." So, in this context, the word has no meaning.

Now, if you were on a movie set, they might actually be using artificial corn as a prop, so now the contrast between real and unreal corn becomes meaningful.

This is a very humble point, but it's the very heart of what Wittgenstein was trying to make us aware of. Philosophical problems kind of sound meaningful and puzzling, but most of the time, they are simply a kind of nonsensical use of language.

Now, in personal relationships, we might also have a notion of when people are being "real" or fake. And we often act fake because we don't think we're good enough just the way we really are. So, for example, you may hide your shyness in social situations because you're ashamed, and telling yourself that your shyness is incredibly weird and abnormal, and makes you "less than" other peop