# Worldview Questions Pick any question that interests you. If a memory from your life comes to mind, start there. The follow-ups are optional. You can keep names and identifying details out of your answers, skip a question, or stop whenever you want. ## Origin and lived experience ### WV-001 Which experiences have most changed how you see the world? - What did you believe before? What changed, and what stayed the same? ### WV-002 What, if anything, has working with a group or being part of an organization changed about how you think? - What did you notice about who made decisions and who took responsibility? Which of those lessons still hold for you? ### WV-003 Has a time you helped someone, or needed help yourself, shown you something you hadn't understood before? - It could have been at work, while volunteering, or in everyday life. Did anything challenge an assumption? What would be unfair to conclude from that one experience? ### WV-004 Have you come to understand anything new about how you think, learn, or pay attention? - What became clearer? What are you still figuring out? Did it change how you judge yourself? ### WV-005 Has a close relationship changed or clarified any of your views? - What changed as you got to know the person? What helps people work well together when they see things differently? ### WV-006 What, if anything, has caring for or guiding someone taught you about responsibility and care? - How did what they needed shape what you could offer? If their needs changed over time, how did you adjust? ### WV-007 What has shaped how you think about disability and the different kinds of support people need? - You can draw on something you've noticed, heard, or experienced. What do people tend to expect from someone who needs support? What might those expectations miss about dignity or independence? ### WV-008 Which early influences do you still recognize in your views today? - Family, culture, work, places, or people can all matter. What have you retained, revised, or rejected? ## Knowledge, evidence, and changing your mind ### WV-009 What makes a belief worth trusting? - How do you weigh your own experience, research, gut feelings, and other people's expertise? When might each lead you wrong? ### WV-010 Can you think of a belief that mattered to you and later changed? - What changed your mind? If you'd heard objections before, why did they land differently this time? ### WV-011 How do you decide what to believe when credible sources disagree? - How do you assess incentives and uncertainty? When do you suspend judgment? ### WV-012 What helps you notice when you might be defending a belief because you want it to be true? - What would make you pause and check? What do you do if you catch yourself doing it? ## Human nature, agency, and change ### WV-013 What do you think most often explains why people do what they do? - How much weight do you give motives, habits, incentives, relationships, and circumstances? Where does your explanation break down? ### WV-014 What kinds of personal change do you believe are possible? - What helps change last? Have you seen anything that makes you question your answer? ### WV-015 How do you weigh personal responsibility against circumstances a person didn't choose? - Does your answer change with age, disability, power, or what resources someone has? Where would you draw the line in a real example? ### WV-016 What does freedom mean to you in practice? - Which constraints matter most? What responsibilities come with the freedoms you value? ## Ethics, fairness, and responsibility ### WV-017 What do people owe each other, including people they dislike? - What's the least you think someone owes another person? When does asking for more become unreasonable? ### WV-018 How do you decide whether an action is right when every available choice has a cost? - How do you weigh intentions, consequences, principles, and relationships? What would you refuse to do? ### WV-019 What does fairness require when people start from different circumstances? - When do treating people the same, giving people the same chance, helping those in need, and rewarding effort point to different choices? ### WV-020 What does someone need to do to repair harm they've caused? - Where do owning up to it, making amends, and changing what you do fit? What role, if any, does forgiveness play? When might repair be impossible? ## Meaning, mortality, and a life worth living ### WV-021 What makes a life well-lived by your own standards? - What would make you feel that way about your own life? What could look successful from the outside and still fall short? ### WV-022 Where do you think meaning comes from? - Do you discover it, make it, inherit it, or understand it another way? Can something matter without a larger purpose? ### WV-023 What place does suffering have in your view of life? - Can suffering shape what matters to someone without having to serve a purpose? What do you think people get wrong about it, if anything? ### WV-024 Does knowing that life ends affect how you choose to live? - Has it changed what you do or what you say matters? How do you think about regret or unfinished work? ## Religion, reality, and uncertainty ### WV-025 What do you currently believe, doubt, or leave open about God, religion, or spirituality? - What shaped how you see it? What might give you a reason to reconsider? ### WV-026 How do you understand luck, randomness, and fate? - How does that view affect credit, blame, gratitude, or disappointment? What remains uncertain? ### WV-027 What do you think consciousness is, and how sure are you? - Which explanations make sense to you, if any? Does how you think about it affect the way you live or treat other beings? ### WV-028 How do you think people should live with questions they may never resolve? - When is uncertainty tolerable? When do you still need to act or commit? ## Power, institutions, and society ### WV-029 What makes authority legitimate? - What matters most: how someone got the authority, what rules they follow, how well they do the job, or what happens as a result? When is it right to disobey? ### WV-030 How do you decide whether an institution deserves your trust? - What earns your trust or costs it? How do you tell when the problem is with the institution itself? ### WV-031 What should a society guarantee people, and what should people provide for themselves? - What guides where you draw the line? How would you handle competing needs when there isn't enough to go around? Is there a public issue or cause you feel strongly about, and what draws you to it? ### WV-032 How should people with sharply different values share a society? - What requires tolerance, compromise, or resistance? How do you think about speech and harm? ## Relationships, loyalty, and belonging ### WV-033 What makes a relationship worth maintaining? - What role do trust, affection, shared history, or effort on both sides play? When might you decide to leave? ### WV-034 What does loyalty require, and where does it become harmful? - What would you do if loyalty pulled you against honesty or fairness? When might calling something loyalty be an excuse? ### WV-035 How do you decide what access another person should have to your time and energy? - How do you decide what you owe someone and where to set a limit? What would you do if someone ignored it? ### WV-036 What do you need from friendship and community? - Has that changed over time? How do you tell when you belong somewhere and when you're under pressure to fit in? ## Identity, culture, and social expectations ### WV-037 Which parts of your identity matter most to how you live? - Which are chosen, inherited, or assigned by others? Which labels help, and which constrain you? ### WV-038 What expectations about how you should act, if any, have you kept, questioned, or set aside? - You might think about expectations tied to gender or another part of your identity. Which have been useful? Where do broad expectations fail to fit individual people? ### WV-039 Which traditions do you think deserve preserving, and how do you decide? - What makes a tradition worth keeping or changing? How does your answer depend on who gets to take part? ### WV-040 Has an experience changed how you see people whose lives differ from yours? - Did it challenge an assumption? Is there anything about their experience you still find hard to understand? ## Work, money, ambition, and success ### WV-041 What do you want work to contribute to your life? - What matters to you about earning a living, getting good at something, helping others, gaining recognition, or having independence? What if those goals pull you in different directions? ### WV-042 What does having enough money mean to you? - What would having enough make possible? How do you tell the difference between wanting security, wanting more freedom, and wanting to keep up with others? ### WV-043 What would you refuse to sacrifice for success? - What counts as success to you? If you've faced that choice, did your decision match what you thought your limit would be? ### WV-044 How do you decide whether to persist, change direction, or stop? - How do you tell when something's hard and when it doesn't fit? What tells you that you're staying because of what you've already put in, or leaving to avoid the hard part? ## Curiosity, learning, pleasure, and beauty ### WV-045 What makes something worth learning even if you don't see a practical use for it? - What do you like finding out for its own sake? Does an interest need to become a project? ### WV-046 What makes a story, artwork, or piece of music valuable to you? - How do pleasure, truth, craft, surprise, and emotional response matter? Can you value work you disagree with? ### WV-047 What place should play, rest, and enjoyment have in a good life? - How do you tell when rest helps you get back to something and when you're putting it off? What do you make time for simply because you enjoy it? ### WV-048 How do you choose what deserves your attention? - What pulls you away from what matters? What makes you willing to stay with something difficult? ## Health, bodies, dignity, and care ### WV-049 What does living well in your body mean to you? - What matters to you about health, strength, appearance, comfort, or independence? Has your answer changed over time? ### WV-050 What does dignity require when someone needs care or support? - How do you weigh what someone wants and what keeps them safe? Has anything you've seen or heard shaped your view? ### WV-051 How should people weigh present enjoyment against future health? - Which tradeoffs feel reasonable? How much control do you believe people actually have? ### WV-052 Is there something about aging, illness, or disability that you think is often misunderstood? - What have you read, heard, or noticed that informs your view? Where might someone with a different experience see it another way? ## Nature, technology, and the future ### WV-053 What responsibilities do humans have toward animals and the natural world? - What grounds those responsibilities? How do you weigh human needs against other forms of life? ### WV-054 How do you decide whether a new technology improves life? - Who benefits, and who bears the cost? Who can use it? What gets easier, and what might people give up control over or come to depend on? ### WV-055 If you use AI, what do you think you should stay responsible for? - What would you hand over to AI, and what would you still decide yourself? How would you tell if it was changing the way you think? ### WV-056 What would meaningful progress look like for the next generation? - Which improvements would matter most? Where might the technology get better while life gets worse for some people? ## Thinking methods and borrowed ideas ### WV-057 What do you actually do when you need to think through a difficult decision? - What do you look at first? What helps you sort out the decision and see whether it worked? ### WV-058 Is there an idea from philosophy or another field that you use in your own thinking? - What have you used it for? Have you changed or dropped any part of it? ### WV-059 How do you decide whether a pattern from one field applies in another? - What makes the comparison useful? What differences might make it misleading? ### WV-060 How can you tell when an explanation you rely on might be leading you wrong? - What would make you doubt it? What would you do if it stopped fitting what you see? ## Competing values and disagreement ### WV-061 Which things you value pull you in different directions, if any? - What happened the last time you had to choose? Do you need to settle the conflict, or is it something you'll weigh each time? ### WV-062 Can you think of a time when what you did and what you believed didn't line up? - What got in the way? Was it a habit, something outside your control, another value, or a belief you might rethink? ### WV-063 Which commonly accepted view do you disagree with, if any? - What's the best case for the view you disagree with? What reasons do you have for seeing it differently? ### WV-064 Is there a disagreement you find hard to talk about fairly? - What makes it hard? What would you want to understand before judging the other person's position? ## Expression, conviction, and self-correction ### WV-065 What makes writing or speech feel true to what someone means? - What difference do tone, rhythm, and context make? Can words sound like you and still get your view wrong? ### WV-066 How do you want to express a strong belief while remaining open to being wrong? - What details make your position clearer? When should you say plainly that you're unsure? ### WV-067 If you find out you got something wrong in public, what do you think you owe the people who heard you? - Does it matter how many people heard it, what happened because of it, or what you meant to do? What would a good correction look like? ### WV-068 If you asked an AI to speak from your perspective, what would you want it to understand first? - What should it ask you instead of guessing? What should it do with views you're changing, keeping private, or still figuring out?