What does it mean to live a good life?
This is one of the oldest questions in philosophy and one that surely occurs to every thoughtful person. For scientists, it is also a question embedded in the choice of subjects we investigate, our reasons reasons for investigating them. Is it more important to extend the boundaries of knowledge, or to make others’ lives better? And whichever goal you prefer, how best do you pursue it, and how best do you reconcile the goal with your natural curiosity?
I won’t pretend to answer any of these questions for you. Goodness knows I have not finished answering them for myself.
But there are different temperamental approaches to what it means to live the good life. These approaches are sometimes best explored and communicated in fiction.
I recently revisited the story of The Lord Of The Rings, and was struck by how, at the moral heart of the story, sits a forceful, romantic conservatism: a vision of the good life in which each person knows his or her place and lives in harmony with the natural order of things. Change, when it comes, is violent and disruptive, and the moral imperative is to restore ancient order.
By contrast, another of my favourite pieces of fiction is Kim Stanley Robinson’s ‘Mars’ trilogy — a trilogy similar in heft and scope to Tolkien’s, but animated by a radically different moral temperament. In this world, while change can be traumatic, it represents the freedom and agency of humans to choose to do better. Here, there is no prelapsarian paradise to return to, only the opportunity, with each day, to choose anew to make the world better – or not. (Incidentally, it also includes some of the best descriptions of extremophile biology in popular fiction!)
Does science give us any hints about it? It’s true that science, strictly speaking, deals with what is, not what ought to be. But surely we found ourselves most at peace when living in accord with what we understand the world to be.
Two observations came to mind:
First, just about every phenomenon we measure or modify involved change. Change is at the heart of physics, chemistry, biology and all their various friends and relations. In fact the great insight of twentieth century physics (and later mathematics and biology) was to show that our observations were not separate from the change going on around us, but integral with it.
At the same time, in order for us to practically do science, we have to have a measure of faith that while the universe is constantly in flux, it is also reasonably consistent. That while stars may ever be swirling around each other, the meaning of gravity and its relationship with mass is pretty much the same here in the Milky Way as it is over in Andromeda or further afield; and that the same chemical elements have the same electron orbital energies whether they are in a chloroplast or a metal refinery.
Where does this leave us? Perhaps with a need for a balanced perspective. We know, from the intimate way we watch and measure the world, that change is in its very essence. And so, the good life cannot mean stasis. But also, that as human beings observing and being part of the world, we do need a place of rest, of relative calm where we can know ourselves and the world around us.
What is your temperamental approach to change? And where do you find your place of calm and consistency among the world’s whirling flux?