Here is the rest of our chat conversation which ran like this:
Greig (9:14:50 PM): I think life has the potential to become clearer. But, most events, including life, are a combination of good luck, and good decisions. I'm not sure clarity is a given.
Uncertainty (9:17:30 PM): =)
G (9:17:49 PM): That’s one answer. I call it my virtue/luck answer
U (9:19:08 PM): In that case, I guess I'll focus on making good decisions, and try to worry less about the clarity. I guess - it's just sometimes difficult to know if the decisions you're making are good. Some are clear. Like - meth is bad.
G (9:20:18 PM): The other answer would be to restate the question. It's not the end of life that's unsettling: to reach the end is a given. The real question is the beginning: how did I get here! I mean not birth. That's a given. But here: in this state of affairs. What is it to be here.
U (9:19:56 PM): But most things are more up in the air. I don't know; I don't think we can know.
G (9:21:21 PM): I think there are multiple ways to live a life.
U (9:21:22 PM): See my earlier comment about being unsettled =)
G (9:21:27 PM): Ok
U (9:21:28 PM): What ways?
G (9:22:05 PM): I'm straying from your original question. Wait. I'm going to write a blog post about this. Let me think about this
U (9:22:28 PM): Ok =)
G (9:22:58 PM): Your question about an unsettled life is a great question. It hits on a more fundamental question: What is the good (life). What makes life good (or not)? Is a good life possible?
U (9:24:25 PM): I like to think so. I suspect that a good life would be unstressful, but avoiding all stress might make the life I lead less good =) Maybe useful versus enjoyable?
G (9:25:45 PM): You're hitting on major aspects of the issue. 1. Useful 2. Pleasure (hedonism). The useful argument goes like this: the greatest good for the greatest number. That's utilitarianism. You get efficient subways but no art. The pleasure argument: eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you may die. But it dismisses the reality principle. The god argument is not an argument. [This last comment alludes to a fb post on U’s wall that read: “You don't need it because you only have to rely on God. TRUST!”]
U (9:29:40 PM): Are we very good at judging what's useful?
G (9:30:41 PM): Good question.
U (9:30:41 PM): Right. Although it may help us to experience less personal stress by removing our sense of responsibility.
G (9:31:13 PM): Then then there's the Protestant argument: adversity breeds life. Without stress, there's no possibility for the possibility of something new If life is all vanilla
U (9:32:03 PM): Well, yeah, but too much is *stressful*.
G (9:32:04 PM): Is that the good?
U (9:32:16 PM): Probably not.
G (9:32:28 PM): The good is not easy to grasp. If it's not pleasure, it's not unstress. ??? Is it something like a combination of fulfillment and attaining the golden mean. Like take any virtue. Courage. We say the courageous man is a good. [And I am taking this from Aristotle. God I sound like a teacher in this chat]. But there's a spectrum
U (9:34:13 PM): And it depends on what he's up to when he's out being courageous.
G (9:34:25 PM): If I'm too courageous I'm foolhardy and if I'm not courageous enough I'm a coward. And if im only courageous once. I'm not a life long lived courageous. So it seem if the attainment of virtue Leads To the good It's a life long project of hits and misses. Aristotle once said no one can know the good unless he lived ir *it Which is a clever way of saying nothing Lol
U (9:36:09 PM): =)
G (9:36:34 PM): So at the end of the day I'm not sure if there is a guarantee on happiness Or the good Plato said the unexamined life is not worth living But I'm not sure if he knows Paris Hilton
U (9:37:25 PM): Well, how do you know she doesn't examine her life?
G (9:37:33 PM): Maybe I'm being sexist
U (9:37:34 PM): Ah. She's a pretty successful business woman.
G (9:37:42 PM): Strike against me. Bad example. You're right
U (9:38:08 PM): So, Plato is saying that there's no point if living if we don't worry about whether we're living well?
G (9:38:16 PM): Kinda lame huh?
U (9:38:28 PM): Lil' bit.
G (9:39:18 PM): Paris Hilton doesn't have to an examined life to be successful
U (9:39:30 PM): True.
G (9:39:38 PM): If that were true we'd all want to be philosophers
U (9:39:44 PM): =)
G (9:39:58 PM): Which is a profession made to support examiners
U (9:40:24 PM): Do you examine yourselves or mostly other people?
G (9:40:45 PM): I tend to examine ideas. But if I'm going to examine myself. I do it psychoanalytically. Gah.
U (9:41:33 PM): I'm just going to mention that I'm not sure that I have a technical understanding of that word.
G (9:41:34 PM): Gah!
G (9:41:47 PM): I go to Freud.
U (9:41:54 PM): Wasn't he kind of a jerk?
G (9:42:27 PM): Basically psychoanalytic thinking is trying to uncover unconscious motivation for why we do stuff. While Freud is truly not the paradigm of Christian virtue I think he is dead on about that. But anyway uncertainty.
U (9:44:25 PM): Is [it] just uncertain, and we all have to just learn to deal with it?
G (9:45:00 PM): Gah! Let me get back to you. Lol!
U (9:45:19 PM): =) Ok. I'm gonna get back to plotting [Marking plots of data for analysis purposes]. And less worrying about uncertainty in an unpredictable future. It's always nice talking to you, G.
G (9:46:21 PM): You too! Ttyl.
U (9:46:28 PM): Bye! =)
G (9:46:44 PM): Yah yah yah tah tah
