I wish that I were about to and able to write something worthy of the title of this blog.
I start with an excerpt from the blog of the Maverick Philosopher: “There is a discrepancy between the seriousness with which we take our projects and the indifference with which we view them from ‘on high’ under the aspect of eternity. This discrepancy is inescapable since both the subjective and objective viewpoints are essential to being human and they necessarily conflict.” (Typeface emphasis is mine.)
On this point, I totally agree. I spent in excess of an hour today replacing the pump on our birdbath fountain — no further evidence is needed to demonstrate to me that I (like other humans) willingly undertake trivial efforts to achieve (from the perspective of eternity) objectively insignificant results. Question is, why? Don’t I have something better to do? Yes, of course I do, and yet I rarely do it, or I do very little of it.
The problem is, everything is insignificant when viewed “under the aspect of eternity.” You and I have no idea how the future will unfold. There is an endless expanse of future, but all we have access to is an ever-vanishing present and only as much past as we have managed to stuff into our brains. We are disadvantaged when it comes to viewing life with an eye on eternity. Not just disadvantaged but clueless.
We have limited ways to influence the future and sketchy internal models as to how our actions might or might not shape the future or benefit others. Yet we act boldly, blind to outcomes. In our culture, failure to act is tantamount to abdication. For us it is better to act insignificantly than not at all.
And so we act, knowing that we occupy an insignificant slice of eternity. It just so happens that this slice is the most significant parcel of time we can imagine, because we happen to occupy it. But why should such meager lifespans as our own be held up against the aspect of eternity? What denizen of the future time-traveled to our century and sold us this bill of goods, that our acts should benefit the future more than our present?
My answer to the question posed in the title of this blog: no, philosophy does not matter. Philosophy tries to answer things with words that evolution already answered with DNA.
I think that you make it too complicated. It’s great to sometimes do mindless things–it gives you time to think about other things. Washing windows is an example. It’s not hard, you can listen to the birds and the windows look great when your done. I don’t like having dirt between my view of the world. The fountain gives nice gurgling, peaceful sounds while we sit on the deck, and it holds my nice plants and a few rocks. It’s worth fixing. Enjoy the moment no matter what you are doing.
In the macro, it doesn’t matter. In the micro, it does. An individual life is a game with its own rules, like poker or Monopoly. Doesn’t affect the rest of life, really, but rules, approach, integrity, are all vital within.
Thank you for listening and for your thoughtful comments.
Isn’t it funny how many atheists seem to think more about religion than most religious people do? But I suppose if you have faith, what’s there to think about? Same with philosophy. I find I have very little patience with writing that is labeled “philosophy,” but I often enjoy discussions like this one. And I sometimes envy our dog. Philosophy does not matter to her. She is so naturally in the moment, enjoying every walk like it’s the first one she ever took. Excited about every new bowl of kibbles (she’s a Lab). Thrilled by any attention. Not much worried about tomorrow. But the way our human brains evolved to be so flexible, able to plan and share our thoughts through language and all, we often end up worrying too much about artificial constructions like eternity and God, in addition to tomorrow’s dental appointment. Searching for patterns and significance all the time. Presuming “agency” or purpose in everything. The Universe is big and puzzling and beautiful, surely there must be a reason for that? All the key physical constants are “just so” so matter can be stable and water can dissolve stuff and carbon can form the right kinds of bonds and things can be alive. It is all for us, right? Nope. I think it is all just this way for no reason at all. It’s just the way it is and we humans happened to show up en masse, one of evolution’s more successful experiments. But fortunately evolution also gave us the ability to enjoy many things (just a side effect of the need to enjoy food and sex to ensure survival, but I’ll take it). We have curiosity. We can enjoy communication and work and even fixing a birdbath. Woo-hoo! And we can each influence an infinitesimal piece of the future, and after you perform a surface integral over all those small deltas with the proper weighting factors, pretty soon it will be 2033. Plus there are children and grandchildren, our genes’ own walking time machines.
By the way, what was the question?