Why Must All Things That Live Ultimately Die?

Before answering the question, it might be wise to ask, ‘What is the purpose of life in the first place — why does anything live at all?’ What seems evident to every observer is that living things go through an inevitable sequence of birth, development, decline and death. In other words, birth is the start of the road to death.

Of course, philosophically, this is a materialistic view of life which is adopted by many of the world's human population without question. However, there are those who do not accept the finality of this naive observation. It is, of course, well known that followers of several religious factions believe that life does not end with death of the material body. Some believe in a future material resurrection, some in a spiritual life here-after, and some believe that we are reincarnated in a different body to the one we discard at death.

The unfortunate situation with regard to death is that, although there have been claims for the proof of spiritual survival, most people are fairly certain that no one has been back from the 'other side' to tell us about it. We sometimes hear of those who are brought back from the brink; and, oddly enough, they all relate the same experience of a peaceful drift down a long tunnel towards a bright light, and some are very annoyed at having been dragged back. Of course, neurologists and psychologists do not accept that this indicates transfer to another form of existence; drifting towards a bright light is to them an indication of the last flickering electrical discharges of the dying brain. Until the real truth is revealed it seems that the answer to the question is confined to the simple scientific explanation, that all living things die to make room for the next generation. However, none of us are forced to accept it, and, in philosophy at least, the search for the truth goes on.

Can You Reflect Over Your Own Reflections?

Of course. Try it now. Reflect on what you had for breakfast today (maybe it was oatmeal). Now reflect on why you are reflecting on your breakfast (probably it was because I suggested it). You are reflecting on your reflection. Here's another example: reflect about the last time you made a choice (perhaps it was the choice to have a look at this blog). Now, reflect as to whether it was a good choice. Again, you are reflecting about your reflection.

In this latter example, however, your ‘second-level reflection’ enables you to judge whether your first level action (the choice) was done well or badly, and gives you a chance to be able to do it better in the future. You can go to a higher level again, by reflecting on what makes a choice a good choice.

Second-level reflection is important because it enables us to improve our thinking. Philosophy often involves second-level reflection.

What is the Relationship Between Happiness and Work?

There probably isn't a direct relation between work and happiness except in the most extraordinary cases. The relation is probably via fulfillment. You cannot be happy in any deep sense without fulfillment. Freud described work as a 'path' to happiness. He noted that work is a source of satisfaction only where it is freely chosen, and sadly this probably isn't the normal case. Even then he talks of 'professional activity' and not manual labor.

Freud said in The Future of an Illusion that civilization rests on a 'compulsion' to work. I don't think people feel, in the main, compelled to do a job. For Freud, the impulse to work is a sublimation of sexual instincts. That is, the impulse to work displaces erotic instincts and provides satisfaction through being involved in reality, or the human community. However, Freud claimed that persons differ and the man who is predominantly erotic will prefer to seek the path to happiness through relationships, whereas a narcissistic man will seek satisfaction in his mental processes. Furthermore, he urges people not to seek satisfaction from a single aspiration.

When we work from necessity, this is because we need money. But there are all sorts of other ways in which we can look at work. It might be bringing up the children or doing the gardening, and in this sense most people are compelled to work because we naturally seek fulfillment and strive for happiness.

How Do You Explain Déjà Vu?

When we experience déjà vu, we feel something which is happening has happened before and I'm not sure if this involves different time dimensions, since it essentially involves memory, which is of the past. I like the theory that déjà vu is concurrent memory and consciousness of a single situation. It is thought that the brain races forward and acquires information before it enters consciousness, so informationally, in the brain, there is a memory. When we then become conscious of the situation, the brain matches this with what has become a memory as far as the brain is concerned — since it rushed forward. We then have both a memory and consciousness of a current situation.

What is the Perfect Lifestyle?

I think this is the wrong question. I think the question would be better as "What is the perfect lifestyle for me?" If we agree that different people have different likes, preferences, values and commitments, then no one lifestyle will suit all.

But even my new version seems wrong to me. It assumes that we can rank lifestyles best to worst. But if we agree (and I think there are good arguments that we must) that each person's likes, preferences, values and commitments do not form a perfectly coherent whole (so that some preferences are somewhat at odds with others — e.g. I want to be a sports star, and I want to travel extensively while I'm young), then while we can say that some lifestyles are better for me than others, we will come to a conclusion that, among the better ones, this lifestyle (training every day) is better in this way (making me a sports star), while that lifestyle (setting off overseas on an open ticket) is better in some other way (travelling), and there does not seem to be any way of saying that one is absolutely better than the other.

So now the question becomes, for me, "What would be a good lifestyle for me — one I would be happy with?" And while asking other people is a perfectly good way to go about answering this, there will not be a single answer for all of us, or even for me alone, and I will have to make my choice as best I can among the alternatives. When I do, some possibilities open up and others close down. As long as I end up happy, it doesn't matter that some of my preferences were never fully met.

What is the Difference Between History and the Past?

The most simple and direct illustration of the difference between history and the past is your own life. Assuming that the universe was not created five minutes ago by a playful Deity, you do have a past. Much of it is unknown. There is some number which is the total number of your heart beats from the moment as an embryo when your heart started beating, to the time you reach the end of this sentence. That is an unalterable, objective fact about your past.

We are story-telling beings. That is a fundamental fact about our 'natural history'. When we look at the course of our own lives we feel compelled to re-construct the actions we have done and the events that have happened to us in a way that makes some sort of sense. Why is it necessary to do this? Why not just lay out all the 'facts' that we are able to recall to memory, or reconstruct from external evidence?

Explanations in the form, 'X caused Y to happen', whenever they are available, will be part of this collection of facts. But causal explanations will not always be available, or, when they are available, may be highly conjectural. What is the real, objective explanation of any human action? How far back do you go? From this perspective, it seems an impossible task.

Yet we do explain our past actions. We succeed in telling a coherent story about our own lives. Of course, there will always be opportunities for self-deception. But remember that these personal 'histories' have to stand the test of the questions and criticisms of others. If your attempt at autobiography falls apart under the most cursory examination, then that is as good a sign as any that the historical claims you have made regarding your own life are false. But what exactly does that mean?

A record of your actions and the events that happened to you in the past can only be true or false. Either what the diary records, or what your memory tells you, happened or it didn't. Such records constitute the evidence for a history. By contrast, a history can only be more or less coherent than another history based on the same historical evidence. Some philosophers would draw the conclusion that a history cannot strictly be 'true' or 'false'. I would rather say that when we are concerned with history, rather than with the past, questions of truth and falsity remain open-ended, not just with respect to the possibility of uncovering new evidence, but also with respect to the possibility of seeing past events in a new light.

What I have said about personal history, about constructing an autobiography, is intended to generalize to all history. Just as I can attempt to tell my history, so I can attempt to tell yours. Or we can attempt to tell ours — or theirs. It is not necessary that the span of one's own life should be placed within the history that one is telling. Yet it seems to me that a good historian always does succeed, in imagination, in putting himself in the historical period that he is recounting, and by so doing, enables the reader to do the same. A historical account is believable, makes sense, to the extent that we can imagine what it was like to have been there.

If God Really Exists Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?

I certainly don't know, but here is an answer based on the supposition that God exists:

It is that certain bad things that happen, what are often called evils, are necessary evils. That means that without these evils certain good things could not exist, and that these good things are worth these evils so that it is better for these good things to exist even if the evil things also exist, than for the good things (and of course the evil things) not to exist.

You know how sometimes you are willing to accept a necessary evil because you believe that only that way can you have a good thing whose goodness is worth the bad thing? For instance, suppose your dentist tells you that you need a root canal procedure. Not a pleasant thing. But you have it done anyway because unless you do you will have greater trouble. So you have this unpleasant procedure for the sake of a healthy mouth. You accept an evil because it is a necessary evil. Now, let's apply this to the question. We all believe that compassion for people in trouble or in need is a good thing, don't we? On the other hand, isn't it true that for there to be compassion, there have to be people in trouble, perhaps very ill? You could not be compassionate about nothing! So, according to this answer, certain kinds of evils exist for the sake of the compassion which is good.