Is there a goal of life that is significantly better than the other goals of life?
Do you agree that , there are some goals that are good for you than some other goals....
I mean , goal 'A' will not be good for you as goal 'B' will be.
Considering that some goals are better for you than other goals that you set for yourself , should we ask, what is goal of life that is better than all other goals ?
[i]A goal that is perfect in sense ......
A goal that in sense , is all good ......[/i]
now .... What would be that goal?..
I mean , goal 'A' will not be good for you as goal 'B' will be.
Considering that some goals are better for you than other goals that you set for yourself , should we ask, what is goal of life that is better than all other goals ?
[i]A goal that is perfect in sense ......
A goal that in sense , is all good ......[/i]
now .... What would be that goal?..
Comments (60)
The best goal is no goal. Act from your heart and go where that takes you. Lao Tzu says:
[i]The Master, by residing in the Tao,
sets an example for all beings.
Because he doesn't display himself,
people can see his light.
Because he has nothing to prove,
people can trust his words.
Because he doesn't know who he is,
people recognize themselves in him.
Because he has no goal in mind,
everything he does succeeds.[/i]
Lao Tzu is my man.
My preferred view on this matter is that of Aristotle: the ultimate goal of life is happiness, and all the other goals only have value in so far as they help us get closer to happiness.
Underlying purposes of all goals of all humans is to achieve happiness. So according to Lao Tzu this is the best way to achieve happiness.
I think this question can be reshaped to ; "What is the best way to achieve happiness?"
Well, your question was:
Quoting No One
... And I gave an answer to it: happiness
“How to achieve happiness?” is a different and more difficult question.
I think it's a personal matter though, so I don't see what interest there could be in me telling you what makes me happy.
I think that goals in life probably fluctuate at various points in our lives. When I was working in mental health care, I remember part of my work involved sitting down with people and helping them to identify their goals in order to work towards them.
On a personal level, I have a lot to sort out on a practical level, including getting a job, and many mundane aspects of life. However, on a deeper level than finding work to support myself financially and even the fulfilment of basic pleasures I think that one of my main goals is always creativity. I am not saying that the social aspects of life aren't important but having creative outlets is essential for me.
Lao Tzu is kind of down on achievement of any sort. For me, happiness, to the extent that it is anything, is acting in accordance with our true natures.
Maybe I'm heading in a direction that is not where you had in mind. I don't want to distract from your goal in this discussion.
What are True Natures Clark?
But then again, being a sceptic in the theory I don't even know if I know anything or not.
Good question, but there's no way you can make me answer it.
. So ... Your question is ...
. Is there a Goal in Life ... and if there is ... What is it, then?
. My question to you ... is ... - "Why should Life have a Goal?" ... "Why should one be after a goal in Life?"
. Can't you just live in the present ... ? Is it so hard to be purposeless ... ? Is there a way to live without living in here-now?
. Life is present ... Life is here ... Life is now ... Here is the only place ... and ... Now the only time ...
. There is no tomorrow ... the tomorrow never comes ... Why is it so ? ... because ... when the "tomorrow" comes ... it comes ... as the present ... Do you understand, friend? ... it comes as the present ... because ... it is a present ... from nature to you ... and you just perceive the tomorrow ... when you're in it ... and when you are in it ... it's present ...
. Therefore ... one who thinks in terms of goals ... is always procrastinating Life ... In fact ... he never lives ... He can has ... though ... beautiful dreams ... while alive ... but he never lives ... he pretends to lives ...
. Goals are always inexistent ... because where goals are ... Life is not ...
. Goals are the biggest lie ... supported by your beloved society ... so your attention is always in the after ... never in the now ... So you can be always asleep ... while alive ... Always working for the stupid society ... while your Life ... while your energy ... is sliding off through your hands ... like water ... slides off through your hands ... You're never the owner of your Life ... The society is ...
. There is no goal in Life, friend ... Life as such ... is purposeless ...
. It doesn't mean ... that ... Life is meaningless ... No! ... Not at all, please do not misunderstand me! ... This is where all the so-called existentialists were wrong ... as ... Sartre or Nietzsche ...
. Life is like a seed ... in itself ... it is not enough. You will have to work hard to the seed sprouts, becomes a tree and comes to bloom ...
Ow, ow, stop twisting my arm. Ok, ok, but you're not going to like it. What is my true nature? I know it when I see it.
words don't show up to give that feeling a verbal dress.
I said you wouldn't like it.
Quoting No One
Unfortunately, that seems impossible.
We know intuitively that some sensations are much better than others, but if we were asked: How much better is this sensation compared to that other sensation?
We wouldn't even know how to begin to answer that question, since we don't have the tools to measure such a thing (though perhaps in the future neuroscience could produce such a tool, I doubt it).And sometimes we don't even know if a sensation is superior to another.
Didn't Mao Zedong settle that issue? I think it depends on how we define "happiness" in the first place. And then "best ways to achieve" it.
:rofl: The best Taoist is no Taoist!? :chin:
Jokes aside,
1. Best goal: Don't cause problems.
2. Better goal: Solve problems
3. Good goal: Find problems (to solve)
4. Bad goal: Hide problems
5. Worse goal: Aggravate problems
6. Worst goal: Cause problems
My two bitcoins worth.
I think that knowledge is important, but it depends what we do with the knowledge. It is a bit difficult to narrow goals down to the main one and, so, my choice of creativity probably includes knowledge, because that involves the creative interpretation of information into knowledge. I believe that creativity probably includes most aspects of our existence.
Yes, but humans being all different, it will a bit difficult to find that. Of course you can try.
. "Shouldn't humans look forward to future in a more positive way?"
. Why?
. Why do you say that?
. Are you aware about the implications of that simple idea, friend ... ?
. Why look forward to future in a more positive way ... ?
. I would like you to seriously meditate over that thought of yours ... because ... that thought is a trap from the ego ... it is made and cunningly produced by the society ... so you can forget about the misery of the present ... and dream beautiful dreams about a positive future ... that's impossible friend ...
. That thought ... Had led and has been leading to ... uninterrupted religious wars ... and that religious people ... talk about Love and Peace ... but all of them live for war ... have you ever noticed that?
. It is from that thought that all the religions are born ... Please do not accept what I'm saying ...
. You meditate deep into it ... do not think about it ... you just make a three hundred and sixty degrees turn on your being ... you reach to your innermost core ... and you'll see it as a fact ... Religion is the opium of the masses ... Karl Marx was not wrong about it ... it was a good insight of him ... at least the theologian religion ... But he was not a meditator ... Hence his misery ... Hence his violence ... Hence his revolutionary ideas ...
. A truth ... only ... comes from a Truth ... And ... A lie ... only ...comes from a lie ... friend ... That was one of the insights from Vyasa on the Upanishads ...
. So if your present is a Lie ... it cannot ... turn to a Truth ... in some moment of the future ... that's impossible ... friend ...
. Now - the only time; Here - the only place ... right?!
. The future is that which is not yet ... and that which is not yet ... will be perfect ... just ... if that which is ... is perfect ... because the tomorrow is the outcome of the today ... do you understand ... ?
. So ... if you're a so-called poor in spirit ... if you live miserably while alive ... you'll not ... reach to Heaven ...
. Because ... at the first place ... There is no Heaven and there is no Hell ... God is Here-Now ... you're God, I'm God ... When you reach to self-realization ... you recognize that you're perfect the way you're ... you don't need any improvement ... you're God itself ... How God needs improvements ... ?
. While alive ... you should make your Life a Heaven ...
. Yes ... the society tells you that you cannot be the way you are ... All the schools and universities say that ... in one way or another ...
. But the society does not want you to be a human being ... because ... to be human is to be free ...
. Society wants you to be a slave ... In a tremendous subtle way sure ... So subtle ... that ... one is unaware about it ... The society gives you entertainment ... but cannot give you pure happinness ... it gives you respectability ... Still ... one do not respect oneself ... and ... therefore ... others ... for the pure sake ... of respect.
. Happiness is something that comes from your innermost core ... nobody can give you ...
Goal of a lesser value: I must tie my shoelaces.
Goal of a greater value: I must pay my mortgage payment before its due date.
Goal of a lesser value: I must put on the record, "Vico Torriani's Greatest Hits."
Goal of a greater value: I have to pick the kids up from daycare.
There are literally trillions of goal-pairs where one goal is of a lesser value than the other one.
The Toronto Maple Leaf hockey team bough a new goalie from Venezuella. During his first game, you could hear the announcer on TV: "The Bay City Rollers' Forward winds up... he shoots... But Jesus SAVES!!"
One goal that was not achieved. Next period, the forward shot a goal in the net. In the third period, seven goals were shot, and Leafs lost to the Rollers 24:4.
Which one of the goals was less, and which one was more valuable?
For example, what is the purpose of a stone? Isn’t it to serve as a building block? On this analogy, a human being is as though the building block of the community, a proper and fit citizen to help form the commonwealth.
What is the purpose of a plant? Isn’t it to nourish our bodies? Then we are as nourishment for the polity, each doing our special work that sustains it. What the purpose of a horse or mule or cow? Thusly a general rides his cavalry to victory, carried on the backs of the citizenry and fed by the milk of his wealthy supporters.
What, then, is the purpose of a general? To guide his army to victory. And after victory is achieved and peace reigns? What then? He fashions his stones, waters his plants, feeds his horses and mules and cows so that, when he needs to go to war again, he has the best possible accoutrement.
And what is the purpose of an Alexander or Caesar or Napoleon? One who would rule the whole world? Who either died young, was assassinated, or exiled? And, finally, what is the purpose of a thinker, in his ivory tower, who, in his hard-fought-for leisure thought on these would-be world conquerors and meditated upon their meaning?
Madness.
Would any goal that you set for yourself, as long as it authentically represents you, be a goal worth striving for?
In terms of "good", you would have to define what you mean by "good." Are you seeking to ground the goal in a moral / ethical foundation? If so, what would that be?
I feel like what you are telling me is correct but unless I dig deep into your idea , I can't be sure .... So I will seriously meditate over that thought of mine.
By the Way ,You have a very nice grip over Rhetoric.
Your notion of what you reap in terms of happiness could seem bizarre and worthless to another. Likewise their idea of happiness and the goals they have pursued to achieve that happiness could seem just as bizarre and worthless to you.
Perhaps the only meta-goal is growth itself. Or as per Nietzsche:
One must want more to become more. For this is the doctrine life itself preaches to all living things: the morality of development. To have and to want to have more, in a word, growth – that is life itself.
It’s not a goal because it isn’t quantifiable or measurable, but it gives me a sense of direction, at least.
I’m inclined to think that’s all we really need.
[quote=Wikipedia]According to Plato's Apology, Socrates' life as the gadfly of Athens began when his friend Chaerephon asked the Oracle at Delphi if anyone were wiser than Socrates; the Oracle responded that No One was wiser.[/quote]
:rofl: :clap:
No One
Scroll down to Favorite Philosophers and Favorite Quotations :lol:
this is why I love Canada :grin:
I have only seen uncommon wealth. And I wonder where that came from :chin:
Wealth is pretty common now in the USA. I’m about to receive my third stimulus check, and my sister, worth over $2 million, is receiving hers too.
But, back to the topic: we in this day of advanced egalitarianism and extreme individualism tend to look at ourselves as isolated and equal individuals who can invent and re-invent ourselves. This shows how much Nietzsche’s ideas have pervaded our self-consciousness. But we forget that that philosopher was seeking to inspire a very rare sort of person; a civilization-constituting sort of being, like Moses Jesus or Muhammad—not a “creative” finger-painting kindergartner.
Human beings in ancient times, on the other hand, were very differentiated and unequal, much like their languages: Greek and Roman society was as complex, as full of hierarchies and differentiated roles as the conjugated verb forms and noun cases of Latin and Greek which served their various linguistic needs. It is as difficult for us to understand with our modern mindset such complexity in societal relations as it is for an English speaker to learn the accusative, or appreciate the subjunctive or optative.
That is why discussion in this thread of the proper or best goal or purpose of a human being is so aimless and subjective—when it is not at all obvious that subjectivism and individualism are the proper perspectives from which to view the question. For example, is it obvious that it is not the proper goal of a woman to remain in the home, tend to its economy and take care of the children? Does the fact that this idea is outdated and universally scorned mean that it is not true?
Again, is it obvious that no man is born to serve, to be subservient to his superior fellows, and others to lead? Don’t we instinctively sympathize with a man whom we see relegated to an inferior position by adverse circumstance, though his qualities suggest he should occupy a higher place? Don’t we likewise resent the advancement by good fortune of a man whose qualities indicate he should serve rather than command?
The democratization of society may lead to the optimization of each individual to set his or her own goals as freely as possible; it may also lead, on a mechanistic analogy, to a multiplicity of different natural “gears” failing to anymore mesh and set the machine of society in motion. In a clock each gear has a specific purpose, role and function; is human society like a clock?...or is it rather like a scale, on which individual equal weights are placed in order to come up with the right balance?
I think that it's all about how you approach your goals. There are some that are better than others, as that a person should believe in something like eliminating poverty would be more noble than something like believing that they should become the king of Earth, but, outside of few outliers, I think that it's just generally in the approach. People often become lost in the pursuit of self-actualization to the point of irony.
To use myself as an example, as a Pacifist, I think that the purpose of international politics should be to facilitate conflict resolution. I consider for this to be a lofty ideal that I should hold dear. What I recognize is that, though this does happen to some extent, that just simply isn't what international politics is like. Failing to cope with this in the past is how I came to become as a stereotype of a Pacifist spy attempting to bring about global communism. What I was unwilling to accept was that there just simply wasn't too much that I could do to change the world for what I, at least, considered to be for the better. Having not accepted this, I then undertook what was kind of a political crusade. As much as anyone doesn't want to be told what place they have in the world, I have decided to share this anecdote so to suggest that, though people kind of ought to have lofty ideals, they really should remain within the realm of the possible. I'd have been much better off volunteering for the War Resisters' International, the local Pacifist non-profit, or a human rights organization or something. I could have made a substantial difference by focusing upon a particular conflict and engaging with the work that people are already doing. I, instead, created what I believed to be an intelligence operation so as to somehow generate peace on Earth. I think that just about everyone would agree with peace on Earth, but I must admit that that was kind of grandiose, to say the least.
Philosophers often, I think, develop these rather grand, but ultimately kind of vague concepts that they believe can effect a global paradigm shift akin the Copernican Revolution. I think that this is a symptom of that the intellectual class who, at least, attempts to orchestrate contemporary culture has yet to absolve itself of the celebration of what just simply is hubris. You had "great men" in past eras of history because of that, given that there was some form of aristocracy or another, there were only a few men who had been offered an extraordinary education. You could think that you could be published by this or that publisher someday and that, to get there, you could be published in this or that journal and that would be an entirely sensible thing to do, though you still may have to accept taking this or that research position or this or that adjunct professorship. They say that life is what you make of it. I don't know. I also made the inverse mistake. I thought that my goal in life should be to become a barista. I was of kind of slacker ethos before I fell into the politics of the ultra-Left. I probably would've been better off maintaining that ethos, but I will say that only aiming high enough to be making more than minimum wage with tips is also indicative of certain Postmodern pessimism. I only really thought that because I felt like it didn't matter what I did; I just wasn't going to have a future. You should just want to have a good life. All that really matters aside from the community that you participate within or help to create is that. Whatever goals get you there, I would say, are good.
I know it's a partial quote, out of context, but it seems that the hapless chap was used as a substitute in the pyramid, when a building block was missing from the inventory.
Your “hapless chap” seems to me to be like a piece of cardboard you pull out of a nearby dumpster or chance upon in the trunk of your car when you are stranded on the side of the road because you ran out of oil and lack a proper funnel: you take that chap and bend him in your hands into the shape of a funnel, stick his narrow end into the intake, and pour in the needed lubrication.
The same sort of thing can be done in a sudden war, especially when you have superior technology: you recruit the youngest most physically hale sorts of men, as the US did in WWII, and bend their unformed minds to operate guns and drop bombs...
...but it is better, if you can, to train your soldiers in peacetime for war...and to always keep a proper funnel behind your seat or in your trunk.
continent.
Quoting Todd Martin
Personally I tend to favour balance over ingenuity. But I don't know if or how this extrapolates to (modern) society. It's definitely worth pondering.
Quoting Todd Martin
What?!? :monkey:
I'm not quite sure what a goal is in this context. I sometimes make plans; I rarely set goals. Are they the same?
I do agree that it is important to unlearn misery because misery can be such a rut. Perhaps, that could even be a goal in the psychological treatment of depression.
I am not sure how much cognitive behavioral therapy does work on unlearning depression, but it does enable critical thinking about the way we view our experiences. I have worked with cognitive behaviorial therapists when I worked in an inpatient therapies unit, but the focus was more behavioral. However, that may have been because most of the patients were in hospital for obsessive compulsive disorder, so had programmes designed by therapists designed for this. However, I have been impressed by CBT, especially the ABC model. Did CBT come into your cognitive science course?
Btw, I'd encountered CBT some time after my graduate studies in cog. psych. while helping a suicidal bipolar girlfriend find an adequate therapy group to meet with regularly. Eventually I was allowed to observe (remotely) and discuss the approach and techniques with the therapist who was also a trained (Stoic) philosopher.
I do agree that CBT is best used in conjunction with medication rather than instead of it. But, one newer development is online CBT. When a therapist told me she was leaving her job to work in the development of online therapy I was very sceptical, but I suppose it may help people before they get to the point of needing anything more, and I have found that just reading about habitual thinking, like in mindreading, black and white, as well as catastrophic thinking make a lot of difference in the interpretation of daily events.