The former. I think that “life [in general] is good” is just a way of explaining what is meant by “having a positive outlook on life”, while “[my] life can be better” is a particular belief that influences whether or not you have the positive outlook.
[my life can be better] produces [positive outlook] and [positive outlook] is another way of saying [life (ie the lives of humans in general) is good]
or: “If I believe that my life can be better, then I believe that life-of-humans-in-general is good.”
I’m not implying that you actually believe this, just that this is what you were saying “positive outlook” meant. Am I right? From this perspective a positive outlook seems like a non-sequitur, since the future quality of my life may not provide much information about the lives of other people. Not to mention the fact that some people have good lives with bright futures and some have bad, hopeless ones, so the notion of life-in-general seems meaningless. From this I conclude that I do not have a positive outlook.
I agree with the first interpretation if you replace produces with presupposes or is the sort of thing you believe if you have the feeling of.
I also didn’t mean that [positive outlook] involves people at all: I think it’s more of a feeling about existence in general. It’s true like you say that there is so much variety from one person to another and over time, and that [life in general] as a concept doesn’t make much sense when you really think about it, but that doesn’t stop us from having a feeling about it. We know that it’s silly to talk about whether chocolate ice cream tastes good in general, and yet if you have always loved chocolate ice cream, there is a strong feeling that the goodness is an attribute of the ice cream itself rather than a description of your preferences, which is what you believe when you stop to think about it. The feeling for chocolate ice cream is to the feeling of [positive outlook] as the thought of “I love chocolate ice cream” is to the thought of “my life can be better” (can be better as in “has no upper bound” rather than “has nowhere to go but up”).
I feel like I’m expressing myself so poorly that I should just stop before I confuse even more.
By life in general do you mean the lives of humans in general, or just your own life, extended in time?
The former. I think that “life [in general] is good” is just a way of explaining what is meant by “having a positive outlook on life”, while “[my] life can be better” is a particular belief that influences whether or not you have the positive outlook.
“Influences” is vague, but I take it you mean:
[my life can be better] produces [positive outlook] and [positive outlook] is another way of saying [life (ie the lives of humans in general) is good]
or: “If I believe that my life can be better, then I believe that life-of-humans-in-general is good.”
I’m not implying that you actually believe this, just that this is what you were saying “positive outlook” meant. Am I right? From this perspective a positive outlook seems like a non-sequitur, since the future quality of my life may not provide much information about the lives of other people. Not to mention the fact that some people have good lives with bright futures and some have bad, hopeless ones, so the notion of life-in-general seems meaningless. From this I conclude that I do not have a positive outlook.
I agree with the first interpretation if you replace produces with presupposes or is the sort of thing you believe if you have the feeling of.
I also didn’t mean that [positive outlook] involves people at all: I think it’s more of a feeling about existence in general. It’s true like you say that there is so much variety from one person to another and over time, and that [life in general] as a concept doesn’t make much sense when you really think about it, but that doesn’t stop us from having a feeling about it. We know that it’s silly to talk about whether chocolate ice cream tastes good in general, and yet if you have always loved chocolate ice cream, there is a strong feeling that the goodness is an attribute of the ice cream itself rather than a description of your preferences, which is what you believe when you stop to think about it. The feeling for chocolate ice cream is to the feeling of [positive outlook] as the thought of “I love chocolate ice cream” is to the thought of “my life can be better” (can be better as in “has no upper bound” rather than “has nowhere to go but up”).
I feel like I’m expressing myself so poorly that I should just stop before I confuse even more.