If philosophy is talking about random possibilities and these may never happen why do we need to know about them?

This is one of the most asked questions what I hear about philosophy. I know people doing philosophy and ask them what they think of the course and some go “it’s talking about stuff we will never know and could happen but is unlikely”. The answers I get tend to be very narrow minded. So what if it never happens and it is wrong. It does not matter. A good philosophical theory to me is one that does not have many holes but makes you think and entertains you. Does god exist or can time travel happen? These are great questions that can provide the necessary information for a philosopher to come up with a believable entertaining theory.

So all theories are meaningless and are just for our entertainment? No of course not well some are some are not. If you rule something completely out and say it can never happen, and it then does happen, you will have to spend time working out how it happened. Let me explain. If you said it will never rain on Sunday and the weather said it will not rain and all tests done conformed it would not rain. So you say it will not rain. What if it does rain? What if for some reason it rains and because all your tests said it would not. You did not prepare yourself for rain. If it mattered to you, you might then try to find out why it rained and find out how you can prepare yourself in the future. You have just wasted time finding out why when if you just said it could rain and accepted there was a chance of rain, you may have had the umbrella.

Sometimes thinking about what could happen allows mankind to see into the future. Thinking about how something could happen is both entertaining and rewarding. Philosophy may be just agreements that we may never find the answer. We all like theories even completely unbelievable ones. Next time you watch a movie ask yourself “is what I just watched believable? Could it happen?” You are just putting the theory of the movie to your mind. Think not of what is not possible but that of what is possible.