Author Topic: Is the unexamined life worth living?  (Read 1087 times)

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Offline sleeplessdreamerr

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Is the unexamined life worth living?
« on: September 26, 2014, 01:38:09 am »
Just as title suggests, What are your thoughts? Is ignorance bliss? Should we evaluate every aspect and question all that we come across, or is it better to leave certain things as they are?

Offline Bart the General

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Re: Is the unexamined life worth living?
« Reply #1 on: September 26, 2014, 01:44:52 am »
All life is worth living it's just that to experience potential richness of it it usually takes some mindfulness and examination to an extent.

I guess that's not really true, fuck your copy and pasted quote thread that's so open ended and vague it's pretty useless, maybe its intention was to be so broad that it HAD to provoke discussion so FON and obbe can come in with "wut is lyfe tho????" because they took acid once and vaguely remember what it was like *cringe*

Anyways, life is nasty brutish and short in the words of a lazy alcoholic, anything you can do to make it any less of those three things is good in my book

Offline sleeplessdreamerr

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Re: Is the unexamined life worth living?
« Reply #2 on: September 26, 2014, 01:53:42 am »
All life is worth living it's just that to experience potential richness of it it usually takes some mindfulness and examination to an extent.

I guess that's not really true, fuck your copy and pasted quote thread that's so open ended and vague it's pretty useless, maybe its intention was to be so broad that it HAD to provoke discussion so FON and obbe can come in with "wut is lyfe tho????" because they took acid once and vaguely remember what it was like *cringe*

Anyways, life is nasty brutish and short in the words of a lazy alcoholic, anything you can do to make it any less of those three things is good in my book

haha The point in posting this was to have a open discussion on the matter. I am studying this stuff in college and i just wanted to read what other people thought on the matter. No matter what anyone has to say, even if i disagree, i love to read/listen to others opinions and perspectives on the matter.

Butt, if i might add, I do find some truth in your first thought.

Offline Bart the General

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Re: Is the unexamined life worth living?
« Reply #3 on: September 26, 2014, 02:17:56 am »

Butt, if i might add, I do find some truth in your first thought.

You would if that's what you're studying.

But if that's the tip you're on I can drop some ol' "the world is actually inside you and the 'external' one is just the imagination of your senses+it, there is no such thing as objectivity because your imagination is what creates it." But the truth is that everyone knows/does this to an extent so there's no point in saying anything is "unexamined" because everyone does this all day every day, whether they're staring up at the ceiling thinking about their GF or taking a shit.

It sounds gay as fuck but to really know anything you first have to know yourself

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN9x6zckn18

I'm gonna imagine I didn't make this post

Offline equanimity

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Re: Is the unexamined life worth living?
« Reply #4 on: September 26, 2014, 02:44:39 am »
It's nice to examine our lives, but to say it's not worth living if we don't is going pretty far.  We're all here for a reason, and even if we live our days out as hopeless addicts or something we will get to wherever it is we're going.

Is it even possible to not examine your life as you live it?


typicallyequanimity@gmail.com

Offline Obbe

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Re: Is the unexamined life worth living?
« Reply #5 on: September 26, 2014, 03:07:21 am »
Life is what you make it.
All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies.
&T

Offline Bart the General

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Re: Is the unexamined life worth living?
« Reply #6 on: September 26, 2014, 03:12:09 am »
Life is what you make it.

Please make yours end quickly by your own hand you drooling retard

Offline Lanny

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Re: Is the unexamined life worth living?
« Reply #7 on: September 26, 2014, 06:06:27 am »
I think the unexamined life is, at least under some conditions, worth living and I hold that you need to have a pretty twisted ethical system to claim otherwise. If you're a utilitarian and you think utility is represented by anything other than self examination (which encompasses basically every stream of utilitarianism there is) then you have to concede that the unexamined life is worth living if it's possible for it to produce utility through other means of equal or greater degree than through self-examination.

The deontologist has to bend even further backwards to cling to the "the unexamined life is not worth living" claim. They have to hold that self-examination is an absolute duty of all moral agents and failure to do so results in whatever it is that particular brand of deontology threatens the non-compliant with (hell is a popular theme).

Really the only place it makes sense is in virtue ethics (which it doesn't seem to be a terrible stretch to think Socrates subscribed to). If you want to admit that self-examination is an intrinsically good human virtue then you can reasonably cope with the claim but making an argument for any system of virtue ethics is a pretty difficult task.

Offline Obbe

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Re: Is the unexamined life worth living?
« Reply #8 on: September 26, 2014, 11:01:02 am »
Life is what you make it.

Please make yours end quickly by your own hand you drooling retard

No.
All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies.
&T

Offline Remy

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Re: Is the unexamined life worth living?
« Reply #9 on: September 26, 2014, 12:28:43 pm »
The answer varies from person to person. Some people like over thinking their lives, and strive to make it better than what it is. While others are happy living as they are, not questioning their existence despite doing the same routine every day for years.

And others, just don't think it's worth it.

I don't think there is one answer to that question since everyone is different.

Offline splooge gook

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Re: Is the unexamined life worth living?
« Reply #10 on: September 26, 2014, 12:48:23 pm »
the unexamined life is neither worth or not worth living because there's no internal conflict to decide these things for the unexamined life. duh.

implying we are actually intelligent enough as a species to consider our life as "examined" and not a disorganized clusterfuck of changing viewpoints and feelings

i'll go ask a squirrel what his existential viewpoints are. will report back.
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Offline Dionysus

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Re: Is the unexamined life worth living?
« Reply #11 on: September 29, 2014, 11:50:14 am »
Relentless examination of your own life is almost the opposite of living. Grace is allot more important than theories I think, and while some examination in the form of self awareness is fantastic, perpetually compulsive extrapolation is kind of like tearing apart a flower to see how it works, thus killing the flower.

Offline LOVE

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Re: Is the unexamined life worth living?
« Reply #12 on: September 30, 2014, 09:27:51 am »
Live without internal examination now, be examined posthumously by thousands in the distant later?

Offline Built To Last

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Re: Is the unexamined life worth living?
« Reply #13 on: September 30, 2014, 04:24:05 pm »
When I was younger, I was all about self-examination. But now, I find that all I want to do in life is to eat, sleep, shit, and breathe.