I Never Studied Philosophy, But What If?
Boy, The What If's In Life! As I look around and observe through a 20 mile telescope I see things that just do not make any sense to me any more. It seems I can remember a day when life did not have the stresses that it has today. For such a high Technological/Scientific Society we sure are missing the Mark. You Know? The Head of the Nail!
I picked a book of my library shelf up called " Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics" by Martin Ostwald. I believe the book was my oldest daughter's, left behind after her college days. I have not asked her if this was a mandatory read yet, but I will soon. I would like to discuss it with her sometime, but not until she has lived a little to experience some things in life.
But back to this Philosophy stuff.
First I have not finished the book. In matter of fact I have only read the first book. There are ten books, not chapters. But what I have read so far opened my mind and explained at least a little what I am seeing through the eyeglass. All of a sudden I was able to at least comprehend how and why we have arrived to these strange days we are in.
Aristotle was a student and a teacher in the years 366 B.C to 322 B.C.
I have always been a technical type person where reading weird stuff works for me, I can comprehend technical blue prints and manuals so boring stuff excites me and I can see where reading a book like this would be, lets say "Not" for most. To clarify, most people would pass this book up in a heart beat.
But for some reason "Philosophy and The Probability of The What If's" has always been apart of me.
The beginning of this book, The Introduction, talks about Aristotle's life's work and a brief break down of what will be discovered while reading this book. Martin obviously saved me a little time understanding what I was going to encounter when I read on.
As I started to read the first book the theme was "The Good". To understand the Good one would have to look at the activities of humans. In the Good everything revolves around humans reasoning. As this is what makes us different from all the other mammals on this planet. We can Reason and understand The Good and The Bad, make decisions from it in the direction of "The Good", always...period!
But the next twist was, how taking action, through our activities, that the Good can go to the Bad. This alone to me was an eye opener because the next thing all this related to were politics and how the Philosophy of the Good is Political for the whole of the Good knowing that there will be Bad because of the Good. To me that explained where we are at today as a whole, bottoming out on control of the Good. Where more Bad is coming out possibly because of the Over Powering of The Good.
It started to scare me while I was reading this stuff. I wasn't liking how I was relating today's world to what was being discussed 2300 plus years ago. We maybe great at Science and Technology and the Study of Politics and seeking "The Good" it has to make one wonder with the populations we have today how "The Good" is taking care of "The Bad".
I love Probability, The Barometer of Good and Bad
Even though I have never studied this stuff in school I feel after observing life, our activities and understanding that if it happens once it will more than likely happen again. The Odds of something happening can be predicted, calculated and determined with the probability to happen. Gambling teaches us this. So do the State Lotteries, Insurance Companies Practice it and obviously have it Down to a Clear science to be profitable at it enough to grow into empires of protection from the gambles of loosing ones life and or our possessions. What a biz, based on fear!
I Love a good metaphor that goes along with the science of probability to make a reasonable decision as to what is "Good" to avoid "The Bad". I think I make a lot of my decisions in my everyday life using tools like that. Where knowing something from experience and relating it to a real time situation that demands a quick decision and it is always to the "Good".
If I further break down my activities and decisions to the Good I wonder if I have categories of priorities for the Good. After all we make plans, we make decisions, we live for it and when you have it good you really don't worry about it. I remember those days, when I did not think about what others were doing with the "Good", after all the Philosophy for all is for "The Good" with the understanding that "Bad" will come with it in some shape or form.
The times have been tough, financially my savings and investments have dwindled to my personal property and I am hanging on to that. I fear going to the bar to socialize or visit someone in the evening and have a cocktail due to the Zero Tolerance Laws and getting pulled over while under the influence. If this is Good then why do I feel the need to socialize, eat, drink and be merry, which makes me feel life as I love to cook and entertain. But the cookie cutter Good says if I feel confident and want to gamble on living life the way I want to, without trespassing on someone I am okay there. But if I step onto our own state/county {the citizens own this stuff mind you) public infrastructure and you have had any influencing substance legal or illegal medicines in your body you are in violation. May it be a car, a bike, a go cart, a golf cart, a moped, a skate board or just walking. Even if there are no complaints from a citizen that someone trespassed against them the State will take it upon themselves to become the complainer against me or you. Now I ask you is Good reasoning or is this The Good dealing with what was created from the Good into Bad? It makes me wonder where it became law to curtail, judge, fine and tax the free travels of a human as long as the human does not trespass on another human, I thought that was what insurance was for.
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