Every Time I Find the Meaning of Life They Change It (book)

🔗Connect

🔼Topic:: Philosophy (MOC)

✒️ Note-Making

💡Clarify

🔈 Summary of main ideas

🗒️Relate

⛓ Life lessons, action items

🔍Critique

✅ by following this method, what will happen?

❌ the logical jumps, holes or simply cases where it is wrong...

🧱 Implementations and limitations of it are...

🗨️Review

💭 my opinions on the book, the writers style... While I do like the reflection that comes after every quote, sometimes it fails to reach a valuable conclusion, and since it is not grouped by topic, it is difficult to make a connection or an over arching message for the book.

🖼️Outline

📒 Notes

Happiness

What is the nature of happiness? What would bring us joy? According to Epicurus (philosopher), we should pursue that which gives us joy, and that is to let go of any Expectations and the chase after what we don't have. When we are dependent on the future to be happy (once I'll have this I be happy) we are setting ourselves up for desperation and failure, because the only thing it can bring once we have it is the desire for something else new, while we completely ignore what we already have. Aka "the Perfect is the enemy of good". We should practice Gratitude and focus on the present, on "internal happiness" happiness is an internal state. This is the true and deep sense of Hedonism, not to focus on sensual experiences, but on what makes us truly happy.

However, why life can't be truly hedonistic in the pleasure sense of the world. If we could use drugs and technology to get rid of pain, as anesthesia does, and keep ourselves constantly happy, why not? This is David Peirce's argument. However it becomes problematic once you consider the Hedonic Treadmill and the experience machine. We constantly revert back to a base level happiness, so drugs will be less and less effective and we would just overdose. Also there's something empty in achieving happiness this way, we believe that happiness comes from being active, not from consuming drugs. "Easy" happiness would just lead to boredom and emptiness, as Schopenhauer says.

And while Schopenhauer agrees with Epicurus premise that expectations are dictating our happiness, in his eyes there's nothing left once we detach. Without expectations, we are just empty beings floating in space.

Existentialism

And this debate is emphasized in Albert Camus writing. To know what brings happiness in life is dependent on what the goal is in life, which is something you decide on, you create your meaning, so it can never be found, and those without an answer will remain empty. Meaning is Crafted

This is also similar to "existence precedes essence" from Sartre. That we are the makers of the meaning of our lives, we bare the responsibility of our life choices. That despite all tendency to Determinism, it is we who choose to be free, as William James says "my first act of free will is to believe in free will" agency

But to truly be free is more than just a simple choice, says Nietzsche. Often we are too afraid to really be who we are, we surrender to External Influence without even knowing, thinking that our transcendence just "happens to coincide" with what society wants me to be, without having the courage to face the abyss within me until the true answer surfaces. We need to be who we are, to pursue it relentlessly, to fulfill our Will to Power without considering anybody else's opinions but our own. Anything else is a coward's compromise. A Herd Mentality.

This process of Self Reflection is valuable on its own, as Bertrand Russell supports. That asking ourselves philosophical questions, even if, and perhaps especially those who are left unanswered are not only the most pleasurable of them all, they are the most "good" of them all. That philosophical inquiry is virtuous intrinsically. Socrates I think would agree.

But what if no answer is found? What if the abyss just stairs back? Then we feel the Absurdity of existence, perhaps succumb to Nihilism, and feel void of meaning. Even David Hume mentioned that our life is as relevant to the world as an oyster. It is in those cases that we are tested. Do we choose to laugh despite everything, stick to hedonism or choose a meaning even if we know it is turtles all the way down.

Relationships

While some think that relationships are essential to our lives, Henry David Thoreau believes in the power of Solitude. Both relationships and time alone can be pleasurable or suffering. It depends on Boundaries we set with others, our level of caring and love for them, and also how we choose to spend our time alone.

Metaethics

Maybe pleasure and virtue are not mutually exclusive. John Stuart Mill Utilitarianism is just that, supporting the golden rule, that by doing good to others, we will most likely create a society where we get good acts in return. That along with utilitarianism which tries to maximize pleasure and reduce pain. Sounds good, no?

It connects to the Socrates that knowing the good and doing good are one and the same, which explains why it is better to suffer pain than inflict it. Because doing bad things is bad for society and for the soul.

But where does the will to do good comes from? Is it "in our nature" to be altruistic to our close community, or are we only doing good because we choose to do so? And what about doing the things we believe are good, even if we don't feel the urge to do them, like Peter Singer's argument for global altruism. Is it thoughts or feelings that guide our moral behavior? morality is both rational and emotional

Identity

What are we? Are we just a collection of random atoms? Are we divine beings with an immoral soul? It seems that even our identity is questionable, like Derek Parfait's argument about psychological continuity. It's not our physical body that determines who we are, but rather the connection we feel towards our past selves. Our beliefs, hopes, thoughts, that what makes you you. Which means that both your clone or AI replica of you can also count as "you". Suddenly your personal identity isn't so "personal" anymore, while also supporting the idea that "you" change over time. Who you were as a kid might really be just 10% of who you are now. While you have the same body (sorta), you are really not the same person. Identity is not binary, it's a continuum.

Highlights

Highlights

• “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” (Location 115)
• desiring what we do not have now diminishes or even cancels out our appreciation of what we do have now; and second, when we take a moment to consider the outcome of actually getting that something else that we now desire, we will realize that it is just going to put us back at square one—desiring yet something else. The overall lesson is: Enjoy the present—it’s as good as it gets. (Location 126)
• “We are always getting ready to live, but never living.” (Location 164)
• Spending time regretting anything is another sure way of missing what is right in front (Location 174)
• there is no ultimate point of happiness. There is always a higher mountain thataway. For someone seeking ultimate bliss, this is a sobering thought. It all starts to feel futile. But not to worry: Soon enough the mountain on which we are currently sitting becomes our new normal consciousness and our level of happiness feels more or less the way it always has. (Location 294)
• “If the world were a paradise of luxury and ease, a land flowing with milk and honey, where every Jack obtained his Jill at once and without any difficulty, men would either die of boredom or hang themselves.” (Location 375)
• “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” (Location 447)
• If the fundamental question of philosophy is “What is the meaning of life?” then we have to begin by tackling the problem of whether or not our individual lives are worth living—and therein will lie our answer. (Location 459)
• Once a person is absolutely clear on the fact that it is his choice whether to continue living, he has arrived at the point where he either has a reason for living or does not. Equivocation is over. And choosing to remain alive—choosing life—is the prelude to creating one’s own meaning of life. (Location 485)
• The meaning of life is not something we look for, it is something we create. (Location 490)
• “My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.” (Location 492)
• “Existence precedes essence.” (Location 562)
• the important stuff is mine to determine, like how exactly I want to live, what I want to do with my limited time on Earth, what I am willing to die for—the qualities that fundamentally make me an individual. (Location 578)
• Nietzsche agreed that we create our own lives, but he maintained that not all chosen meanings of life are created equal. (Location 604)
• To think for yourself you must question authority and learn how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable open-mindedness, chaotic, confused vulnerability to inform yourself.” (Location 640)
• Russell is not just saying that thinking is a prerequisite for leading a gratifying life as Socrates meant when he said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Rather, Russell believes that examining life is one of the essential treats that make life worth living. (Location 731)
• Philosophy] keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect.” (Location 754)
• “the philosophic life is calm and free.” Epicurus believed that life does not get any better than that; a tranquil life is brimful of pleasure. But then Russell raises his sights even higher for the life of the philosophical mind. He concludes that “through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.” (Location 776)
• suitable partners feel drawn to each other’s fundamental character. “They are disposed in this way towards each other because of what they are, not for any incidental reason.” And “Such friendship is, as one might expect, lasting, since in it are combined all the qualities that friends should have.” (Location 902)
• Absurdism emanates from the dissonance between man’s natural desire to find meaning in his life and the impossibility of finding that meaning in any rational way. The absurdity does not lie in a logical contradiction, but in an existential contradiction; it is the primary puzzle of human existence. We long for meaning but we can’t get it. (Location 1127)
• The Golden Rule is a utilitarian concept. It is in my own best interest to follow the Golden Rule because by following it I will promote the greatest good for the greatest number of people, and that, most of the time, is good for me. (Location 1271)
• the major problem of moral philosophy is to figure out how to bridge the gap between our tribal instincts and this multitribal world we live in. (Location 1430)
• Parfit believes that over time personal identity is nothing more than what he calls “psychological continuity,” all those ongoing memories, personality traits, mannerisms, interests, (Location 1501)
• it is an illusion to think of identity as a static, absolute phenomenon as we usually do because ultimately identity is a matter of degree—it’s all relative. (Location 1527)
• “Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.” (Location 2053)
• even when we think we have lost all control over our lives, as a prisoner does in the extreme, we may yet control our attitude toward life. We may find meaning in our bare existence. That is one freedom of which no one can rob us. (Location 2077)
• Finding something to feel positive about gives life meaning. (Location 2098)
• “You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.” (Location 2212)