Philosophy's contribution to life

LISTEN. In Happiness today we consider  the Epicurean notion that "the alleviation of suffering and especially the suffering produced by fear and anxiety" is "the most important contribution of philosophy to life." That might be right. Surely, philosophies are deficient that fail to address the problem of suffering, that fail to acknowledge the contribution of fear and anxiety to our unhappiness. These are our problems, the gods have other problems of their own. If, that is, they have the problem and opportunity of existing in the first place.  

Or so it seems to us Epicureans. Epicurus said we can only be certain of what appears to us, of how things seem. Maybe philosophy can make still larger contributions. But fear-based suffering seems a good place to start.

"The god... who marks the sparrow's fall" would watch you and me too, presumably, but does the thought of constant survreillance make you happy? Many reformed ex-theists report feeling a tremendous release from judgment, upon abandoning the presumption of an ever-watchful eye in the sky. The Epicurean solution is divine apatheia. Gods should care less about our doings and sufferings. We breathe easier assuming they're not judging and inflicting. 

"Fearfulness promotes vigilance and caution" but may also reflect mistaken beliefs, so we're tasked to distinguish the fears worth heeding from those worth losing. What's on your legit-fear list? 

Mine includes climate change, authoritarian politicians, and mis-/dis-informed citizens. It does not include fear of a punitive afterlife and eternal damnation. I have a hard time imagining what it would be like really to harbor and entertain such fears as an adult human, though I remember clearly enough what it was like to be terrified by them as a child.

"Now I lay me down to sleep/I pray the lord my soul to keep..." My parents, I always thought, were comparatively enlightened, progressive, and humane. But they taught me to recite that prayer. Or at least they didn't un-teach me, didn't insulate me from Southern Baptist hell-mongering Sunday School indoctrination. I'd had enough of it by age fourteen or so, having much earlier been frightened into "going forward" one Sunday morning and "repenting" so I could be "washed in the blood" etc. It all sounds so primitively barbaric. It was,though at the time it was just frightening and confusing. 

Will it ever be possible to discover how and why the structure and activity of atoms in the brain and nervous system give rise to consciousness and the subjective feeling of selfhood? And if we do discover that, will we feel somehow diminished in our humanity? Why should we? I can't think of any good reason. The peculiar configuration of atoms each of us instantiates, and the felt experience of being that particular configuration, is in each instance unique. The perception of self is perhaps the most human thing about us, with all the hazard and possible good fortune that implies. Our challenge is to gain self-possession and the right measure of self-reliance without being seduced by the dark side of too much self-importance. Egoman, as my friend says, must be held at bay.

Epicurus had a materialist view of soul, and if souls there be that's how they must be: parts of the finite organism, not ethereal fly-away free riders. And souls must be renewable in a secular return to life sense, for the duration of their mortal tenure. They must come to understand themselves as the ongoing "renewal of the living world... even in the constant presence of death and dying." They must nurture and prepare their replacements, the ever-aborning new souls, to perform the same function. And enjoy it.

Lucretius: "So the aggregate of all things is constantly refreshed, and mortal creatures live by mutual exchange... at short intervals the generation of living things are replaced, and, like runners, pass on the torch of life from hand to hand." Releasing the torch invites peaceful sleep, but not annihilation. The atoms disperse, new life is configured, and the race continues. 

That's what Robin Ince meant when he said some part of you may once have been, or may yet be, "mountains and apples and pulsars and... Napoleon's knee. That is a good thing. Unlike the occupants of the universe, the universe itself is not wasteful. We are all totally recyclable. And when we die, we don't even have to be placed in different refuse sacs. This is a wonderful thing." Weird and wonderful and unwasteful.

So it's not a perfect world, Plato's Timaeus notwithstanding. But it might just be good enough for the likes of us. Deconstructing the fears and anxieties that would block our embrace and enjoyment of the good-enough world is a worthy contribution. I'd just add a pragmatic/meliorist element: learn also to enjoy the effort of making good-enough better.