Preface

WARNING: Recycled materials within.

Non-fiction frequently borrows, at least its facts, from what has been written before. Understanding Life is no exception. So why continue reading here?

We read to be enhanced somehow. We want to either: be entertained and immediately feel better; or else to gather facts, skills and general understandings that enable a future increase of our wellbeing. Clearly this is the latter. The aim here is to provide essential insights and structure, leading to easier self-examination and direction toward a better life — to offer something both readable and useful.

2nd WARNING: Commonsense philosophy ahead.

Understanding Life will be criticized for being too simple — that trying to fit the core elements of philosophy into one book of 300 pages or so is the height of folly. My response is simply this: If the basics cannot be sufficiently summarized as to be reasonably memorable, then what is the practical use of it? Ask — is philosophy only for the deep study of a myriad of fallacy categorizations, along with metaphysical ramblings and arcane ethical theories by academics? Or should we expect that the primary purpose of philosophy is to reach and help everyday people to live better? To me, the answer is obvious.

Hopefully, Understanding Life will be seen as more than a confidence trick by another self-help guru. Of course, some false confidence can help in the short-term, but more concrete facts and tools are needed to negotiate our struggles in a consistent manner. Let’s be honest. Simple answers are usually just for selling books.

History and intent …

I originally started writing much of this for personal reasons. For myself only. But somewhere along the way, I realized that it could easily benefit others. Although not perfect, Understanding Life does contain some valuable information, or at least some valuable organization for practical use. If read in an honest and diligent manner, it can provide foundational changes to one’s thinking.

A prime value of non-fiction is to how well it motivates. Maybe it empowers or inspires us to do good or great works, or perhaps it gives confidence, happiness and wellbeing. To these aims, Understanding Life attempts to provide a broad structure, accompanied with a number of useful categorizations that have been judiciously simplified. Too commonly, our lives become so complex that we just simply throw up our hands and limp away without any definitive solutions. We should be able to do better.

Purpose — we may conclude that nothing matters, or else we may consider that our lives exist for important reasons. Daily, we are required to make adequate decisions about what history’s greatest thinkers have failed to agree about. Even the absence of thought is basically a decision.

One’s purpose can vary from seeking sufficient food for survival, becoming rich, saving the environment, being the perfect parent, being a monk and devoting one’s life to prayer, or maybe becoming the world’s greatest rock star. We are all different.

The search for purpose cannot be reduced to a formula, but the search can be made simpler. Accordingly, Understanding Life tries to employ more commonsense (or probabilistic thinking) to some of the more common introspections that we encounter. In the very least, it should provide you with more confidence and the ability to communicate and feel better about your place in the world.

Practical issues regarding reality, ethics and all, have been debated for thousands of years by some of the most amazing minds, yet little consensus has been attained. Consequently, is it pointless to read further about life, particularly if it comes from someone who is neither a professional philosopher, psychologist, social nor political scientist, economist, biologist, paleontologist, cosmologist, ecologist, geologist, primatologist nor even someone who is a studied man of the cloth? Are all of these credentials essential before one can write about life? Are any of them absolutely necessary? I believe not. Hopefully I have employed enough commonsense and organization to shed some clarity. You will be the judge of whether I have been somewhat successful.

This is my personal take on life. I have tried to be as honest and balanced about it as possible. Know that since I live in the world just like everyone else, it will accordingly contain many of the passions and bias that we all share.

Let these writings stand on their own merit. Don’t look to major credentials of the writer for validation and incur a source fallacy (see Chapter 3). For one thing, as already mentioned, the author is not a scholar (which may be beneficial actually). Just embrace what you see as correct, reasonable or right, and then discard what you consider to be wrong. But try to be fair and open-minded as to the concepts being investigated. Do your own thinking. Or better yet, write your own Understanding Life. The act of putting words on paper can help toward discovery of what you truly believe and do not.

Stories, allegories and mythology... Too many books have been written with anecdotal or fictitious narrative and legends to illustrate points that could have been made in a more clear and direct manner. Yes, life is complex, but do we need to resort to “deep” mythology for directions on how to live now? We must ask whether many authors just try too hard. Seriously. There is value in looking to literature for life lessons and inspiration, but if one cannot also state the issues simply, then we should ask why.

These topics cover a lot of ground. Most books are considerably narrower in their subject matter, so they can more easily be peppered with anecdotes, metaphors and studies to illustrate, substantiate or clarify each topic in detail. However, this approach has been consciously avoided as not to cloud the major points or to become excessively long. For more details and background, look to books such as those cited in the References section at the end of the book.

Furthermore, on a similar vein, it is a common style or technique for writers to include personal stories to illustrate their points. Although these may develop a stronger connection with the reader, I consider too often that many of these (often fabricated) personal anecdotes are largely misleading. I try not to use them.

Chapter cherry-picking …

People have asked me for the chapter that I personally find the most interesting to read. The answer has changed so many times while writing this that it may be very misleading. But the question was beneficial, at least for me, in that it did prompt a review of each chapter in a different light.

For the record, I would choose Emotions as the chapter that has most frequently drawn me in. Understanding how to get in touch with your inner self is one of the most fundamental (and simplest) keys to happiness. As well, it has the benefit of enabling one to understand and work better with your fellow travellers of life.

But we are all different. So browse a bit and find something that brings value for you. Go pick a chapter within the Reality section like Philosophical Arguments per its convincing aspects. Or go find some concrete tips and suggestions on becoming happier within the chapter on Individuals. And be sure not to miss the short introduction on Street Epistemology which provides an excellent alternative to adversarial debates. Again, there is something here for everyone.

“It is easy to be tolerant of the principles of other people if you have none of your own.” - Herbert Samuel.

Excessive tolerance, in the guise of avoiding all conflict, will too often make one an enabler, or worse yet, a doormat. It is difficult to have meaningful and authentic communication without risking some offence. Understand that you are entitled to have opinions about life. So ask whether you wish to surround yourself with fluff and cotton candy — or would you rather have a life of meaning and direction? A solid and confident understanding about yourself and others can become your most beneficial and satisfying possession.

Be open enough to accept when your ideas should be adjusted, but until you change your mind about important issues, stick up for what you believe in, even should you eventually turn out to be wrong. Conversations with real content and honest opinion are both enriching and necessary for personal progress, as well as for social change.

Words matter. They motivate, convince, placate — and most importantly, they can foster better relationships. Accordingly, it always helps to acquire a better grasp of communication. Hopefully some of this will assist in how you present yourself and your ideas to others, whether they are friends or foes.

Once again — I have my journey, and you have yours. But hopefully there is enough commonality here for what is relevant for me, to also have some relevancy in your life. Although there can be substantial value for individually solving problems by ourselves, our time here is definitely limited. Some sharing seems appropriate. Hopefully, Understanding Life will work to that aim.

It would be nice now to say that these writings contain deep and amazing secrets that will change your life. That is possible I suppose, but we are all unique. Largely, any such change will depend on how open you are to ponder and investigate these ideas, while fine-tuning them to what would best fit your own personal circumstances. Meaningful lessons normally only come with considerable work. Gaining life skills and knowledge requires time and effort, whereas growing a beard only requires time. Don’t confuse the two.

Regarding life — it’s always better late than never.

Organizing these writings has significantly influenced my personal views, my confidence about many things, as well as my attitudes on how I now deal with day-to-day living. I could have used a book like this many years ago. Although my life has been relatively good overall, I would have done many things quite differently if something like this was in my hands when I was younger. But at least I have it now. I sincerely hope you will enjoy and benefit from it as well.

Introduction

The goal is for the reader to achieve a better and more confident understanding of their life. Accordingly, these materials parallel the three basic parts of practical philosophy, which are summarized very roughly as:

• Epistemology (knowledge and reasoning) - How to think.

• Metaphysics (existence and the supernatural) - What is real.

• Ethics (rights, values and purpose) - How to live.

Parts A, B and C of Understanding Life are therefore as follows:

Part A - Tools

Chapters 1 to 3 outline various approaches to successful problem-solving, ranging from basic reasoning techniques including cursory logic, to that of common fallacies. The purpose of these chapters is primarily to raise general awareness of both — the positive need to be open minded, and to the negative effects of improper or manipulative argumentation about what can or cannot be proved. Note that in comparison to many writings, the role of probability is considered here to be a more central and substantive aspect of practical argumentation. As will be stated a number of times, we must clearly acknowledge that probability is an important underlying premise of most of our everyday logic.

Part B - Reality

Reality is simply the establishment of what does and does not exist, including the physical or natural world, and also the non-physical or supernatural world. This determination is accomplished via the topic of evolution (Chapters 4 to 8), and then to that of the existence of gods and the supernatural (Chapters 9 to 13). Evolution is covered here only because many fundamentalists argue that evolution and theism are basically opposites. All arguments shown for both evolution and theism are clearly categorized and condensed to enable clear considerations of each.

Part C - Life

Chapters 14 to 22 are about finding practical direction or purpose in life via the tools provided by behaviour and philosophy. Behaviour is more about motivation of the short-term, which largely centers on our emotional makeup derived from innate traits and acquired tendencies. Philosophy deals with the more intangible concepts of life by means of providing intellectual guidance and ethical justifications through longer-term considerations. Living well is essentially about achieving a balance between these differences — knowing when to allow one’s basic emotions to enjoy themselves; and when one should employ more disciplined, methodical and forward modes of thinking.

Then, moving from the basic foundations of motivation via behaviour and philosophy, cursory discussions are given about some of the problems for reconciling the goals and behaviour of individuals to those of groups. And of course, like any humanist-type book, there just has to be a “Principles for Life” list close to the end so that we all can live happily ever after. If only it was so simple...

Finally, the last chapter, Living Well, finishes with a self-indulgent personal rant like most books allow an author to do.

Amongst all of this, there are numerous lists and thoughts which are sufficiently easy and practical enough to be used in everyday life. Although the subject matter does frequently lean toward the theoretical, these short discussions are felt to be essential, thereby enabling the reader to more clearly develop a useable personal foundation for confidence of reality and life choices.

Living a good life with confidence and mental wellbeing is clearly more complex than simply reading a book. However, following the basic structure as provided in Understanding Life is considered to be a significant step toward keeping one’s goals organized.

Understanding Life covers a number of interrelated topics, but two highlighted ones are about beliefs and population management. Although individual happiness and associated group cooperation are usually life’s most sought-after direct objectives, it is felt that much of the success of both, the individual and the group, would substantially advance whenever belief and overpopulation issues become better resolved. Is this utopian thinking of the author? Well, you get to choose whether this viewpoint is appropriate.

But we all should be more aware of the more direct route to emotional happiness, and accordingly it is hoped that the reader will benefit from the discussions included. Sometimes we have to be reminded to practice more self-awareness to experience life more strongly. Look to the later part of the chapter on Emotions for some thoughts on this matter.

A wasted life is... well wasted. It is not enough to be good; we also should strive to be good for something. That may sound a bit trite, but too many people feel their lives are disconnected and unhappy, while lacking meaning and purpose. For this reason, it is hoped that some of this material can serve as a checklist or guide toward clarifying many of the relevant issues that we live. Understanding Life has been written in plain language — it is ready for you to hang your own ideas on.

Included at the tail end of Understanding Life are a number of References as well as short discussions on each. They are not there to make this book thicker. It is hoped that the reader will seriously consider reviewing this list to benefit from same.

And finally, as to the style used herein, it is clearly labelled and linear in its approach, thereby enabling appropriate reasoning, argumentation and discussion about each point being made. It is intended to be a read-over-and-over-again book to both inspire as well as to organize, including that of even providing skeletal presentations about a number of relevant topics. For this reason, most chapters can be approached separately. So follow in sequence, or not. Happy reading.

Understanding Life

A Commonsense Guide to Reality

. . . Much more than a silver-bullet solution