The Philosophy of Ibn Sina
Explore the revolutionary thought experiments of Ibn Sina (Avicenna), the thinker who reshaped world philosophy. Learn to isolate pure consciousness, dissect how your mind reads meaning, and trace the fundamental logic of existence.
Like Duolingo, but for The Philosophy of Ibn Sina. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
A short one: 12 levels across 2 sections, about 24 minutes end to end, roughly 5 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Investigating Your Own Mind and Dissecting the Nature of Reality. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in The Philosophy of Ibn Sina
- The Floating Man experiment strips away all external senses and physical feelings
- Even with zero sensory input, a person would still be certain that they exist
- Self-awareness happens directly and instantly without needing evidence
- Knowing you exist does not require deducing it from physical clues like a heartbeat or breathing
- You can easily doubt whether your hands, feet, or torso exist in thought
- You cannot doubt that you exist to do the doubting, showing mind and body are distinct
- Constant bodily sensations and sensory feedback run continuously from birth
- This endless sensory stream distracts us from noticing pure, underlying consciousness
- An instantaneous creation would have no memories, learned words, or bodily senses
- Even without past experience, immediate self-awareness of an 'I' remains intact
- Physical senses capture visible and tangible properties like color, sound, and shape
- The estimative faculty perceives non-physical meanings like danger or care that the eye cannot see directly
- Different internal faculties handle sensory binding versus value judgments
- A sheep does not see 'danger' as a physical color or shape; its inner estimative sense grasps the threat directly
- Estimation reads non-physical meaning (intent, threat, friendliness) immediately without needing prior logical deduction
- Eyes only register sight and the tongue only registers taste; neither can perceive what the other detects
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives The Philosophy of Ibn Sina the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
If you floated in the air with zero senses working, what would you still know?
Get it right to open this lesson and 11 more in the app.
Where The Philosophy of Ibn Sina takes you
- 1
Investigating Your Own Mind
- Isolating Consciousness with the Floating Man
- Decoding Perception with Ibn Sina’s Inner Senses
- 2
Dissecting the Nature of Reality
- Separating What Things Are from Whether They Exist
- Tracing Contingency to Find the Ground of Being
2 sections · 4 units · 12 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
Tomo is in ChatGPT
Tomo is also a ChatGPT plugin: the same playable courses, built and played inside your chat.
Add Tomo to ChatGPT- What to ask
- “Make me a Tomo course on black holes.” “Turn this chat into a Tomo course.”
- What you get
- Quick questions with instant feedback, hearts and stars, ready to play in about a minute.
- Where it goes
- No sign-up to start. Connect your Tomo account and your streak carries on in the app.
You pick the voice
The Philosophy of Ibn Sina is taught in the Explain Like I'm 5 style: no big words. promise.. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
More Philosophy on Tomo
The Big Questions of Philosophy
Explore the central questions that have challenged thinkers for millennia. Learn how to weigh ethical dilemmas, spot flawed logic, question everyday assumptions, and examine what it means to live a meaningful life.
Buddhism: The Architecture of the Mind
Move beyond basic mindfulness into the profound psychological and philosophical frameworks of Buddhist thought. Explore the mechanics of suffering, the nature of the self, and the logic of interdependence.
The Great Conversation: A Map of Western Philosophy
Trace the evolution of human thought by connecting the world's most influential thinkers and the movements they sparked. Move beyond isolated facts to see how ideas argue across centuries.
Philosophy and the Mind
Explore where psychological discoveries meet timeless philosophical questions. Learn why you think, feel, and react the way you do, and build the tools to examine your own mind with clarity.
How Thinkers Understood the Mind
Discover how ancient philosophers, Enlightenment rebels, and early psychologists decoded human nature. Learn practical historical frameworks to question your own assumptions and decipher why people act the way they do.
Hermeticism: The Seven Laws of the Universe
Explore the ancient wisdom of Hermes Trismegistus and learn the seven universal principles that bridge the gap between science, spirit, and the mind.
Start The Philosophy of Ibn Sina today.
Download Tomo, search The Philosophy of Ibn Sina, and play your first lesson in under a minute.