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Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

(Sitaram's comments in Philosophy chat)

What is the single most important question (other than this question
which I now ask)?

It just now occurs to me that various philosophical
questions/statements are framed in terms of "I" rather than "WE", (I
think therefore I am,... "what is I"), ... might there be some
significance to this? yet, should the "we" be spoken of, it must of
necessity be spoken by one "I" as spokesperson, representative

Then there is the royal "we" (apparently Nixon used the royal "we")

"We, the people, in order to form a more perfect union"

"we" of necessity, seems to imply some prior agreement, some unity,
belonging

If "I" is one, and not two, then how do we "talk to ourselves", have
inner dialogues in solitude, and if we write in solitude, to whom do
we address our words (at the moment of writing, since we are alone)

Isn't precision always an ideal, approached by accuracy, but never
fully reached?

http://www.pbs.org/deepspace/timeline/

I suppose, on some level, happiness is whatever various people say it
is,... there is a popular book "what is happiness", where each page
is the response of some famous or wealthy or powerful person to the
question "what is happiness"

Happiness for the lion is not necessarily happiness for the lamb

Last week I read something about reductionism, where someone stated
that many of our problems begin when we add "-ness" to a word...
saying "red" is very different from saying "redNESS"

The difference, in part, comes when someone like Plato or Socrates,
begins talking about the ideal form of beauty, justice, happiness,...
some universal, from which particular instances somehow draw their
being and nature

I am suddenly reminded of the first sentence of Tolstoy's Anna
Karenina: "all happy families are happy in the same way, but every
unhappy family is unique in the nature of their unhappiness"
(paraphrasing)

Funeral shrouds have no pockets

Happiness is always qualified by our mortal nature

Happiness is not like a vaccination.... endowing you with something
long term... some vaccination against sorrow, loss

For some, happiness is vicarious, we help or benefit others, an
orphanage, the elderly,.... the disabled..., for such, happiness is
an idea, attitude,...

Pleasure is different from happiness...

Sufferings are lessons, but not all lessons are sufferings

Usually, the happiness which most religions offer is a "rain-check",
fungible happiness (storing up treasures in heaven)

A good book to read is Viktor Frankl "Mans search for Meaning", which
speaks of instances of happiness in a concentration camp

Sometimes, it is our anxiety to be happy which is a cause of our
unhappiness

Happiness is different from euphoria

Drug addicts and alcoholics experience moment of euphoria, but seem
to be unhappy as a group

The famous dialogue between the philosopher and the king in the
beginning of Herodotus history, where the philosopher said to call no
man happy until you might see his entire life, and the manner of his
death

From early childhood, happiness is something which is expected of us
(like good behavior)

Unhappiness is often connected with some unfulfilled goal (the sorrow
of a childless couple), yet it seems to me that happiness as a
prolonged state of being is rarely the result of a fulfilled goal

Unhappiness has to do with our expectations (which are opinions,
sometimes correct, sometimes incorrect)

Happiness often involves acceptance, surrender to inevitabilities,
cessation of unrealistic expectations

Children are often inexplicably happy over the simplest of things....
it is so simple to be happy, but so difficult to be simple

Hence knowledge may be a source of unhappiness

Would you prefer to be that genius on a desert island, and die
unknown, or do the public aspects of genius (recognition) hold some
appeal

The stature of geniuses can only be measured against a throng of
simpletons (or mediocrity), and even a genius may be dwarfed by
greater genius

We spend so much time in soliloquy before our dressing-room mirrors,
emoting, as clowns who would play Hamlet

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is most intellectual of the all

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king: genius is relative

The romantic stereotype of the suffering artist, the self-sacrificing
hero martyred for an ideal

You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make it draw a conclusion

Wallace stevens' poem "Man with a Blue Guitar" has a lot to say about
some of these topics (or imply if you will), the genius, the hero..

I wonder if native Americans had some equivalent to philosophy, and
if not, why not, religion seems to be more pervasive among peoples
than philosophy, though in some sense "science" has spread around the
world

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