Friday, February 15, 2019

February philosophy

Seven of us today on a sunny warm February now that the mist has lifted.
Watched a video of Jordon Peterson grilled by a BBC journalist although not philosophy it was educating. Another video on gratitude brought them almost to tears. Finally I read this paper from the Internet about Albert Camus.


The meaning of life: Albert Camus on faith, suicide, and absurdity
Albert Camus was a Franco-Algerian philosopher with some great insights on the meaning of life, why you should look to this life and not the next, and why suicide is a poor choice.

Albert Camus was a Franco-Algerian writer who preferred not to be called a philosopher. He is often associated with the existentialist school of thought, though he preferred to be considered separately from it. His life and way of thinking are rather different from most philosophers and even the existentialists he is grouped in with.
His ideas on how to live our lives and deal with existence are bold and often less than comforting. Despite this, he can give us insights into how to cope with our existential dread and offers us some suggestions on how to live our meaningless lives.
On suicide
“There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide,” so claims Camus in his essay The Myth of Sisyphus.* By starting with the question of whether life is worth living, Camus places the problem of how we are to live our lives squarely in the centre of his thought.
For many people, a life without meaning is not a life worth living. Camus understands this and tackles the problem head-on. He concludes that suicide is of little use to us, as there can be no more meaning in death than in life, and turns to questions of what makes life worth living. When it comes to what meaning we might find, however, he is of little help.
The meaning of life
Camus makes a rather bold claim on the meaning of life: there isn’t one and we can’t make one either. He argues that it is impossible for us to find a satisfying answer to the question of the meaning of life, and any attempt to impose a meaning on the universe will end in disaster, as whatever meaning we pick will be sent up later. He further denies that science, philosophy, society, or religion could ever create a meaning of life that would be immune to the problem of absurdity.
The absurd
Camus’ entire philosophy is based on the idea of the absurd. Humans have a drive to find meaning in things and where it doesn’t exist we usually try to create it. However, as the universe is cold and indifferent to this quest for meaning we will always be faced with absurd situations where our attempts to find meaning fail. Our lives are meaningless and will remain so.
However, Camus doesn’t see this meaninglessness as bad. He explains that to understand that life is absurd is the first step to being fully alive. While the problem of living in a world devoid of meaning is a big one, it is one to be solved like any other.
What makes life worth living then?
Across his body of work, he praises sunshine, women, the beach, kissing, dancing, and good food. He loved sports and was a champion soccer player in his youth. He took great enjoyment in the little things and encourages us to do so as well. Just because life is meaningless doesn’t mean it can’t be enjoyable! Indeed, the meaninglessness is just a background fact, like gravity, that must be reckoned with.
The absurd hero
Camus has a critique of those who try to endure the meaninglessness of life by imposing meaning on it. While that can bring us comfort, those systems of meaning are, themselves, doomed to failure over the long run. The universe remains indifferent to us, random events happen, and we will again face meaninglessness.
He points out that Kierkegaard, for example, understood that life was absurd but fled towards God rather than embracing the fact. The French existentialists also did this in a secularized way which is why Camus didn’t identify with them.
Camus would later fall out with his former friends over their support of Soviet and later Chinese Communism. An event with ramifications that lasted the rest of their lives.
Camus tells us that the answer is to embrace the meaninglessness. The person who can truly know that life is absurd and get through it with a smile is an Absurd Hero. Camus was a real-life example and he sighted the literary examples of Don Juan and Sisyphus for us to look to. “We must imagine Sisyphus happy,” he tells us, for the absurd hero is able to carry out a life as meaningless as eternally rolling a boulder up a hill and find enjoyment in it anyway.
He also encourages us to reject the idea of an afterlife because it is not only unlikely but also because an attempt to live in such a way as to assure you get into the next life detracts from this one. Trying to justify this life by pointing to the next one is just another way to deny the meaninglessness of life, no matter how you phrase it.
So, what should I do today?
Camus recommends that you: get outside, enjoy the sunshine, go for a walk by the beach, play some football, have lunch at a café with a friend, refuse to give into despair, and embrace the meaninglessness of existence by choosing to carry on with what you enjoy doing despite the lack of meaning to your actions.
Can we find a meaning of life that can satisfy our need for one? Camus says no, but that this needn’t be a problem. We are still living here and now and have every ability to enjoy ourselves. Life is worth living and should be embraced as it is. While it is difficult to face meaninglessness without retreating into the loving arms of religion, science, society, or even producing meaning ourselves, Camus encourages us to bravely face the absurd with a smile on our face.

New Study Reveals the Surprising Effects of Spirituality on the Brain

The study’s findings are in line with other similar research aimed at demonstrating a correlation between a person’s predominant state of mind, brain functioning and other physical reactions in the body. For example, a recent study by Kaliman et al. (2014) found that intensive meditation positively affected gene expression. The expression of genes that are involved in inflammation, and more generally in the body’s stress response, were downregulated, meaning that these processes were reduced or muted, which positively affects a number of markers for overall health and wellbeing.
Changes in gene expression are likely related to many of the actual physical changes the brain experiences as a result of meditation and mindfulness practices, as well as one’s overarching beliefs and thought patterns such as those found in the participants who placed a high degree of emphasis on spirituality.
The rapidly expanding field of neuroscience is discovering in short order that the brain is actually an incredibly dynamic organ that responds to our mental patterns and habits, either directly or indirectly, and can cause a cascade of other related changes in the body. Armed with this knowledge, it becomes crystal clear that our state of mind is hugely important in our overall health and wellbeing and that adopting time-honoured spiritual practices such as meditation and mindfulness, are simple, yet highly effective ways to realize these benefits.
*Camus uses the Greek legend of Sisyphus, who is condemned by the gods for eternity to repeatedly roll a boulder up a hill only to have it roll down again once he got it to the top, as a metaphor for the individual's persistentstruggle against the essential absurdity of life

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