You probably haven't thought deeply about the problems. Usually they expose some issue with our concepts or assumptions. Things we take to be obvious and simple aren't always on careful reflection.
On the one hand, these puzzles often arise as counter-examples to a theory within analytical philosophy, and unless you understand what they are a counter-example to, they seem pointless and even ridiculous. For example, when Russell posed his famous paradox to Frege, he was not trying to find out who shaves the barber.
On the other hand, perhaps we should consider whether analytical philosophy, following the linguistic turn [1], is creating problems for itself when it tries to find metaphysical truth by analyzing human language as if it were a formal system. For example, when David Chalmers says "even God could not create a male vixen", is he mistaking an accidental lexicographical fact for a metaphysical insight?
This may be true, but if it is the canadian journal of philosophy is doing their reputation no favors by publishing the "answering machine paradox". Paradox. Paradox. That's a funny word, isn't it? Paradox.
No, that's pretty much what the word "paradox" used to mean, but logicians of the late XIX–early XX century had hijacked it.
PARADOX, in philoſophy, a propoſition ſeemingly abſurd,
as being contrary to to ſome received opinion, but yet true
in fact.
No ſcience abounds more with paradoxes than geome-
try: thus, that a right line ſhould continually approach
to the hyperbola, and yet never reach it, is a true para-
dox; and in the ſame manner, a ſpiral may continually
approach to the point, and yet not reach it, in any number
of revolutions, however great.
Encyclopaedia Brittanica, 1771,
Vol. 3, p. 455
I was being glib, of course. Presumably there's some legitimate technical philosophical issue, and actual philosophers are capable of using answering machines and even landline telephones without having all their assumptions about reality collapse around them like a PKD novel (those born prior to 1980, anyway). But, like Jay Z, I've got problems of a more pressing nature, and legitimately don't see how this matters.
(See also the 'Problem' of Induction, which I had to spend a great deal of time on in college, and even after reading centuries of debate about it, is the least problematic 'problem' I've ever encountered. Maybe this is a linguistic issue, and philosophers should stop calling things 'problems' when the rest of us have to make rent.)
The implication here seems to be that people can't think about and discuss philosophical problems and also take care of more immediate physical concerns at the same time. Do you feel that way about other intellectual endeavors without immediate applications, like "pure" science and mathematics?
