Reply to Kaveski I do think meaning (in any context) does always seem to be particularly about relationships. A solitary person may find it necessary to be creative in finding meaningful relationships between different parts of themselves, or themselves and their environment. [/casual opinion]
Jesus went and spent 40 days, and Zarathustra 10 years in the wilderness. Buddha had given up his royal life and family, and went up to the mountain for meditation.
For peace and quiet of meditation and cleansing mind, maybe it is good to have no one around you apart from you for a while. Of course, they came down to the towns when they found the answers to the mystery of life and taught and enlightened the people. (Not sure about Mr Buddha, what he had done or happened since gone up to the mountain.) Anyhow, not exactly meaningless exercises I would reckon.
Life is essentially meaningless on a physical level. Giving meaning to it seems to be the only reason we are in this eddy of entropy; having exterior validation of the meaning we have given to our surroundings would make it more real and as a result more meaningful.
If meaningful interpersonal connections are the only meaning of life
It's not only interpersonal connections that make life meaningful, but any connection. Teaching and helping other people are indeed half of the ways to find meaning, the ways that make you meaningful to the world, but the other half of the ways can still make the world meaningful to you: learning things, and achieving things, which you can do even if nobody else exists.
Well, maybe you and the eminent/esteemed philosophers in this microcosm *cough* can start by investigating the nature of relationship first, yes?. Are the said philosophers clear on it? Then may be investigate the nature of meaning, yes? Investigation first, conclusion later, right? Just a suggestion, has no authority.
Reply to Kaveski Whether your life has meaning or not is not in your gift. You did not create yourself or subject yourself to a lifetime here, so you cannot be the source of your life's purpose. Your life's purpose, if it has one, is determined by someone else, not you.
If I make a knife to cut things, then that knife's purpose is to cut things even if the knife itself would prefer not to cut things (not that knives have preferences - but if they did, it'd make no difference).
Also, your opening line is fallacious. Let's say I create a knife in order to cut things. However I find that there's nothing my knife will cut. Well, that doesn't mean by knife lacks a purpose. It just means it isn't fulfilling it.
But anyway, the purpose of our lives is not to form meaningful relationships. God exists and if God's purpose in placing us here was for us to have meaningful relationships then we'd all find them easy to acquire and maintain (and they wouldn't end). But they are hard to acquire and maintain (and they always end). If you are in one, then the object of your affection could die at any moment or cease to feel for you what you do for them and vice versa.
The purpose of your life is to do your time. You're in prison. It's really the only plausible possibility, once one understands that God exists.
Those who think God exists and their life has some other purpose, are self aggrandizing idiots who grossly underestimate God's power (and have warped and sick ideas about what love involves).
Those who think God does not exist and that they have the power to give their lives a purpose are also idiots. Idiots for thinking God does not exist, and then idiots again for thinking that they have the power to give their lives a purpose despite having not created them or the world in which they find themselves. If God does not exist, then the purpose of your life is determined by whatever mucky end your parents had when they created you. That is, your life probably has no purpose at all and was just the foreseen but unintended consequence of satisfying an animal urge, or its purpose was something sad and pathetic (a misguided attemp to achieve immortality; a self indulgent desire to have someone who will look up to them etc, etc).
Anyway, there you go. Your life has a purpose and there's nothing you can do about it. And its purpose is to protect others from you; to give you your just deserts; and lastly and least importantly, to give you some opportunity to reform your depraved ways.
God exists and if God's purpose in placing us here was for us to have meaningful relationships then we'd all find them easy to acquire and maintain (and they wouldn't end).
Nonsense. Something being easy, abundant, and easily taken for granted would not remain meaningful. Relationships are valued because they aren't always abundant or easy to maintain. Also, something being finite adds to it's perceived value. Literally, the opposite of every point quoted is the truth of the matter. It is possible for people to disconnect from empathy; in which case it would seem more reasonable to think the quoted view is true.
Those who think God exists and their life has some other purpose, are self aggrandizing idiots who grossly underestimate God's power (and have warped and sick ideas about what love involves).
Reply to Cheshire Oh do think it through Dumbartonshire. God is all powerful. So he could give you all the benefits of a meaningful relationship without any of its frustrations and anxieties if he wished. That you may be unable to imagine how is no constraint on him. You really need to stop thinking God can't do things, or can't do x without doing y. He can create meaningful relationships for us all in the blink of an eye.
He hasn't. He let whether we find one be a matter of chance and ensures they all end. Why? Coz he clearly doesn't like you. He wants to leave you to dwell in ignorance in a dangerous world among depraved people. How do I know that? Because you are dwelling in ignorance in a dangerous world. Think that's a mistake? Think God makes those? Think he loves you? Then you are a very bad lover!
Reply to Cheshire Er, ok. That's a shame, given there's so much of it. Why would someone who thinks you're great plonk you on a world that's 73% covered in poison?
Oh, cos he loves you. That's right. L is for love.
Reply to Bartricks I don't suppose to know what other people think about me; much less what impression I'm leaving with a self perceiving universe. I just try to show it what I like to see.
Reply to Cheshire I don't know what you are on about, but it sounds a bit navel gazy to me.
Anyway, should you want to understand the purposes for which you are living a life here, reasoned reflection will reveal to you that you are doing porridge.
God: I've made you a cake and i am going to force you to eat some.
Bert: ooo, thank you - it must be because you love me so much. I am so loveable.
God: I made it with flour and sugar and eggs and almond essence and some broken glass and some dog poo.
Bert: oo, sounds yummy. You must have put the glass and dog poo in it to enhance the loveliness of the almond essence. You love me soooooo much.
God: no, I put the glass in so you'd cut your mouth to buggery and shred your innards and make you die slowly of internal bleeding. And the dog poo I put in to diminish the flavour of the almond essence and sugar, because I don't want you to derive too much pleasure from eating the cake.
Bert: Aw, you love me soooooo much. This is the yummiest cake. Almond glass and dog poo is my favouritist cake ever!!! I am going to build you a big house and sing songs to you in it.
Reply to Cheshire I have no idea how you'd arrive at those conclusions. If it is to look at stuff, why are there blind people? And why isn't everything unremittingly beautiful?
Apply your reason and stop the daydreaming!
I have no idea how you'd arrive at those conclusions. If it is to look at stuff, why are there blind people? And why isn't everything unremittingly beautiful?
Apply your reason and stop the daydreaming!
Gladly, it's obviously all conjecture. But, if you look at the tricks animals do like bird nests or spider webs. We seem to naturally develop a knack for language and proceed to label and describe the world. If in fact all matter is collectively 'awake' then it seems we add something. Otherwise it seems a bit excessive relative to a natural environments survival demands.
Look at stuff, was a satirical placeholder for the whole of human internal experience. I want to focus on this mistake "And why isn't everything unremittingly beautiful?" The same reason the abundance of relationships don't make relationships more valuable. Value derived from scarcity isn't a complex idea. Consider the juxtaposition as an example. Doesn't work without contrast. But, it is used to convey meaning in media constantly. We see the spaces between things as much as things.
Reply to Cheshire I still don't see how you're arriving at your conclusion. If God exists, what possible reason is there to think that this life's purpose is to, well, look at stuff or any of that other guff you mentioned? It's just silly and self-indulgent and unreflective.
When would a good, all powerful, all knowing person stop taking an interest in you and leave you to your own ignorant devices in a dangerous world? When you've behaved so badly they no longer like you and when you've attempted to do something similar to others of your own free will.
I mean, what does a good person do with such an individual? Destroy them? Maybe, but not necessarily, for good people don't like to destroy others if they can help it (and if that good person is all powerful, then they can always help it). Eradicate their free will and determine them to behave impeccably? Again, maybe, but not necessarily because, once more, good people value free will and prefer it when others are freely behaving impeccably rather than doing so because they've been determined to by someone else. What about just putting them away - putting them in another place, away from the abodes of the blessed and make them live among their own kind, to run the gauntlet that they would willingly have made others run if they'd had the opportunity? Well, yes, that seems like something a good person might do with a git. Let them go and stew in their own juices. Take no interest in them, at least for a bit.
Well, there you go. That's your situation. You're not here because someone likes you - I mean, look at the place, for christ's sake. And consider your own ignorance. It's huge. There's barely anything you know - barely anything any of us knows for certain. You think an all knowing, all good, all powerful person would make you languish here in ignorance if they loved you? That's completely mental. Pretty much any awful thing you can conceive of can happen to you here and in the next minute. At any time - any second - you could be pitched into agony. You think a good person would subject you to a lifetime in a world like that if they were fond of you? If you were a good, innocent person that they loved??? Blimey!! How deluded are you?
If God exists, what possible reason is there to think that this life's purpose is to, well, look at stuff or any of that other guff you mentioned? It's just silly and self-indulgent and unreflective.
My concept of God is better suited to the purpose I mentioned. It's something closer to integrated information theory than perhaps children's stories. Quoting Bartricks
You think an all knowing, all good, all powerful person would make you languish here in ignorance if they loved you?
I don't think this definition is even relevant. It's a description of what a person would be as God or imagining themselves as God. It's a version for children's stories put forward. Quoting Bartricks
You think a good person would subject you to a lifetime in a world like that if they were fond of you? If you were a good, innocent person that they loved??? Blimey!! How deluded are you?
It's another example as "person god"; I don't think it is the way things are so I don't have to consider the conflict you seem to be concerned about.
My concept of God is better suited to the purpose I mentioned. It's something closer to integrated information theory than perhaps children's stories.
Yeah, you don't believe in God. Here's someone else who doesn't believe in God: "My concept of God is the concept of a tuber that grows in the ground and has a brown skin and white interior and tastes pleasant boiled, mashed or roasted". That's not God, that's a potato.
Reply to Cheshire No, I think you don't believe in God. You believe in a potato.
If God exists, then the purpose of our lives is easily discernible by some rational reflection. We are in a prison being punished by being made to live in ignorance in a dangerous world along with others who have committed crimes similar to our own. So the purpose of our being here is a) to protect innocent others from us; b) to give us what we deserve; and c) rehabilitation.
If God does not exist, then the purpose of your life is going to be determined by what motivated your parents to create you. And so your life either has no purpose at all, or a very silly one.
Them main point, however, is that you - we - don't get to determine the purpose of our lives. This seems to be something that many today don't get.
determined by what motivated your parents to create you.
You said rational reflection created this masterpiece? Are you the type that assembles a jig saw puzzle with a hammer? What was the worse idea that this replaced? Quoting Bartricks
Them main point, however, is that you - we - don't get to determine the purpose of our lives.
Even if I assumed your previous statements were correct this wouldn't follow in any definitive sense. Quoting Bartricks
No, I think you don't believe in God. You believe in a potato.
Closer to a potato than modified santa claus, but I also don't think you believe in God, because it's not what I believe in.
You said rational reflection created this masterpiece? Are you the type that assembles a jig saw puzzle with a hammer? What was the worse idea that this replace?
I don't know what you're talking about. Purposes. For your life here to have a purpose, either you or the environment in which you find yourself needed to have been created.....for a purpose. And that purpose will be the purpose of your life. Simple.
Closer to a potato than modified santa claus, but I also don't think you believe in God, because it's not what I believe in.
I believe in the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent person. And that's the standard definition of God. By contrast, what you're using the word 'God' to denote is a potato.
Reply to Pfhorrest If others didn't exist you wouldn't have language or science or philosophy or any form of culture; you would have nothing to do except try to survive,
I think he means in the case of a zombie apocalypse or something, where you’re the only one left alive who’s meaning doesn’t center exclusively on eating brains.
I don't know what you're talking about. Purposes. For your life here to have a purpose, either you or the environment in which you find yourself needed to have been created.....for a purpose. And that purpose will be the purpose of your life. Simple.
I believe in the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent person. And that's the standard definition of God. By contrast, what you're using the word 'God' to denote is a potato.
My God has enormous feet. It is the definition of a "super person". It's derived from imagination.
Reply to TheMadFool
I do agree that the idea of loneliness, depression, and extreme suffering can be seen as potential grounds for suicide, but this may come in the context of us being encouraged and socialised to think of our worth according to these values. It is only one way of looking at life, and I am not even sure that the people who really get to the point of suicide do so on these grounds.
My own view is that interpersonal relationships and meanings change so much, and so any valuing of self in connection with these is arbitrary, and misses seeing one's life in a wider context, of the human quest.
Reply to TheMadFool
But, I don't play video games, or even have a way of playing them and I feel that I am on a quest daily, in real life interaction, this site, finding books and music, and so much more.
But, I don't play video games, or even have a way of playing them and I feel that I am on a quest daily, in real life interaction, this site, finding books and music, and so much more
Reply to TheMadFool
If only it was simulation. As it is, I phone home to my mother and update her each evening, tidy up my bed, wash, stop looking at my phone before going to bed, and start the process again the next day. I think that I am starting to describe the absurdity described by Camus. No wonder I need this site, to structure meaning, and I don't even have the time for video games, preferring music on headphones before going to sleep, reflecting on the mixture of social dramas, or lack of them.
If only it was simulation. As it is, I phone home to my mother and update her each evening, tidy up my bed, wash, stop looking at my phone before going to bed, and start the process again the next day. I think that I am starting to describe the absurdity described by Camus. No wonder I need this site, to structure meaning, and I don't even have the time for video games, preferring music on headphones before going to sleep, reflecting on the mixture of social dramas, or lack of them.
Bullseye, Jack. You taught me something today, not your first though. I finally got Camus' Sisyphusian analogy of the meaninglessness of life. Let's take the life of an ordinary person - fae's born (Sisyphus starts rolling the rock up the hill), nursed until fae becomes a toddler, fae'll then attend school, college? possibly but no guarantees, then employment, maybe fae'll marry and have kids but this too is a question mark, then retirement and finally, finally, fae passes away (Sisyphus reaches the top of the hill with the rock and the rock starts rolling downhill) , the eulogy, the burial, from flesh to bones, bones to dust, and dust to dust. Some will remember fae, talk about him, keep fae's memory alive but eventually nothing of/about fae'll remain, not even memories (Sisyphus's rock is back where it was, at the bottom of the hill. It's as if fae never even existed (Sisyphus having not existed is the same as Sisyphus having rolled the rock up the hill only for it to roll back to where it was).
I think he means in the case of a zombie apocalypse or something, where you’re the only one left alive who’s meaning doesn’t center exclusively on eating brains.
Perhaps that is what he had in mind. If so, I don't see that scenario being much different: I doubt he would have the time or resources to do much but struggle to survive; his "meaning" would center almost exclusively on avoiding having his brains eaten.
If meaningful interpersonal connections are the only meaning of life, then a life without any interpersonal connections is totally meaningless.
I generaly agree with this, tautology or not. I think meaning is not created solitary but meaning is created in exchange with others. That exchange is interpreted and the interpretation is what is called meaning. Without any other there is nothing to interpret.
Trouble is that at some point you need to support your claims, else all you're doing is speculating on, e.g., the mating habits of hobbits or unicorns.
What a pointless thing to say. I have said that if God exists our lives have a particular purpose (or set of purposes, more exactly). And your response? "Oh, the problem with that is that it depends on whether God exists". Er, yes. That was the point.
And I can prove God exists and have done so here umpteen times. Not my fault most of you are incapable of following an argument. But that's not the topic of this thread, so I didn't provide it here.
But even in its absence, what I said was highly significant. For the point I was making - a point lost on most people who love themselves too much and think they're little gods in their own right - was that whether your life has a purpose or not is not something that is in your gift. The purposefulness of your life depends entirely on others, not you.
Comments (49)
For peace and quiet of meditation and cleansing mind, maybe it is good to have no one around you apart from you for a while. Of course, they came down to the towns when they found the answers to the mystery of life and taught and enlightened the people. (Not sure about Mr Buddha, what he had done or happened since gone up to the mountain.) Anyhow, not exactly meaningless exercises I would reckon.
It's not only interpersonal connections that make life meaningful, but any connection. Teaching and helping other people are indeed half of the ways to find meaning, the ways that make you meaningful to the world, but the other half of the ways can still make the world meaningful to you: learning things, and achieving things, which you can do even if nobody else exists.
Something is meaningful when it has the potential to result in a desirable end. When there is no such end in sight, things start to look meaningless.
This isn't really an observation., it's a tautology.
If green beans are the only meaning of life, then a life without green beans is totally meaningless, right?
Well, maybe you and the eminent/esteemed philosophers in this microcosm *cough* can start by investigating the nature of relationship first, yes?. Are the said philosophers clear on it? Then may be investigate the nature of meaning, yes? Investigation first, conclusion later, right? Just a suggestion, has no authority.
If I make a knife to cut things, then that knife's purpose is to cut things even if the knife itself would prefer not to cut things (not that knives have preferences - but if they did, it'd make no difference).
Also, your opening line is fallacious. Let's say I create a knife in order to cut things. However I find that there's nothing my knife will cut. Well, that doesn't mean by knife lacks a purpose. It just means it isn't fulfilling it.
But anyway, the purpose of our lives is not to form meaningful relationships. God exists and if God's purpose in placing us here was for us to have meaningful relationships then we'd all find them easy to acquire and maintain (and they wouldn't end). But they are hard to acquire and maintain (and they always end). If you are in one, then the object of your affection could die at any moment or cease to feel for you what you do for them and vice versa.
The purpose of your life is to do your time. You're in prison. It's really the only plausible possibility, once one understands that God exists.
Those who think God exists and their life has some other purpose, are self aggrandizing idiots who grossly underestimate God's power (and have warped and sick ideas about what love involves).
Those who think God does not exist and that they have the power to give their lives a purpose are also idiots. Idiots for thinking God does not exist, and then idiots again for thinking that they have the power to give their lives a purpose despite having not created them or the world in which they find themselves. If God does not exist, then the purpose of your life is determined by whatever mucky end your parents had when they created you. That is, your life probably has no purpose at all and was just the foreseen but unintended consequence of satisfying an animal urge, or its purpose was something sad and pathetic (a misguided attemp to achieve immortality; a self indulgent desire to have someone who will look up to them etc, etc).
Anyway, there you go. Your life has a purpose and there's nothing you can do about it. And its purpose is to protect others from you; to give you your just deserts; and lastly and least importantly, to give you some opportunity to reform your depraved ways.
Nonsense. Something being easy, abundant, and easily taken for granted would not remain meaningful. Relationships are valued because they aren't always abundant or easy to maintain. Also, something being finite adds to it's perceived value. Literally, the opposite of every point quoted is the truth of the matter. It is possible for people to disconnect from empathy; in which case it would seem more reasonable to think the quoted view is true.
That's me!
He hasn't. He let whether we find one be a matter of chance and ensures they all end. Why? Coz he clearly doesn't like you. He wants to leave you to dwell in ignorance in a dangerous world among depraved people. How do I know that? Because you are dwelling in ignorance in a dangerous world. Think that's a mistake? Think God makes those? Think he loves you? Then you are a very bad lover!
Oh, cos he loves you. That's right. L is for love.
Anyway, should you want to understand the purposes for which you are living a life here, reasoned reflection will reveal to you that you are doing porridge.
God: I've made you a cake and i am going to force you to eat some.
Bert: ooo, thank you - it must be because you love me so much. I am so loveable.
God: I made it with flour and sugar and eggs and almond essence and some broken glass and some dog poo.
Bert: oo, sounds yummy. You must have put the glass and dog poo in it to enhance the loveliness of the almond essence. You love me soooooo much.
God: no, I put the glass in so you'd cut your mouth to buggery and shred your innards and make you die slowly of internal bleeding. And the dog poo I put in to diminish the flavour of the almond essence and sugar, because I don't want you to derive too much pleasure from eating the cake.
Bert: Aw, you love me soooooo much. This is the yummiest cake. Almond glass and dog poo is my favouritist cake ever!!! I am going to build you a big house and sing songs to you in it.
God: Jesus!
Apply your reason and stop the daydreaming!
Gladly, it's obviously all conjecture. But, if you look at the tricks animals do like bird nests or spider webs. We seem to naturally develop a knack for language and proceed to label and describe the world. If in fact all matter is collectively 'awake' then it seems we add something. Otherwise it seems a bit excessive relative to a natural environments survival demands.
Look at stuff, was a satirical placeholder for the whole of human internal experience. I want to focus on this mistake "And why isn't everything unremittingly beautiful?" The same reason the abundance of relationships don't make relationships more valuable. Value derived from scarcity isn't a complex idea. Consider the juxtaposition as an example. Doesn't work without contrast. But, it is used to convey meaning in media constantly. We see the spaces between things as much as things.
When would a good, all powerful, all knowing person stop taking an interest in you and leave you to your own ignorant devices in a dangerous world? When you've behaved so badly they no longer like you and when you've attempted to do something similar to others of your own free will.
I mean, what does a good person do with such an individual? Destroy them? Maybe, but not necessarily, for good people don't like to destroy others if they can help it (and if that good person is all powerful, then they can always help it). Eradicate their free will and determine them to behave impeccably? Again, maybe, but not necessarily because, once more, good people value free will and prefer it when others are freely behaving impeccably rather than doing so because they've been determined to by someone else. What about just putting them away - putting them in another place, away from the abodes of the blessed and make them live among their own kind, to run the gauntlet that they would willingly have made others run if they'd had the opportunity? Well, yes, that seems like something a good person might do with a git. Let them go and stew in their own juices. Take no interest in them, at least for a bit.
Well, there you go. That's your situation. You're not here because someone likes you - I mean, look at the place, for christ's sake. And consider your own ignorance. It's huge. There's barely anything you know - barely anything any of us knows for certain. You think an all knowing, all good, all powerful person would make you languish here in ignorance if they loved you? That's completely mental. Pretty much any awful thing you can conceive of can happen to you here and in the next minute. At any time - any second - you could be pitched into agony. You think a good person would subject you to a lifetime in a world like that if they were fond of you? If you were a good, innocent person that they loved??? Blimey!! How deluded are you?
How could you learn things and achieve things if no one else existed?
What about connections to other things; animals, environments, creative pursuits, are they not meaningful?
What would you need others for?
I don't think this definition is even relevant. It's a description of what a person would be as God or imagining themselves as God. It's a version for children's stories put forward.
Quoting Bartricks It's another example as "person god"; I don't think it is the way things are so I don't have to consider the conflict you seem to be concerned about.
Quoting Cheshire
Yeah, you don't believe in God. Here's someone else who doesn't believe in God: "My concept of God is the concept of a tuber that grows in the ground and has a brown skin and white interior and tastes pleasant boiled, mashed or roasted". That's not God, that's a potato.
If God exists, then the purpose of our lives is easily discernible by some rational reflection. We are in a prison being punished by being made to live in ignorance in a dangerous world along with others who have committed crimes similar to our own. So the purpose of our being here is a) to protect innocent others from us; b) to give us what we deserve; and c) rehabilitation.
If God does not exist, then the purpose of your life is going to be determined by what motivated your parents to create you. And so your life either has no purpose at all, or a very silly one.
Them main point, however, is that you - we - don't get to determine the purpose of our lives. This seems to be something that many today don't get.
Quoting Bartricks
You said rational reflection created this masterpiece? Are you the type that assembles a jig saw puzzle with a hammer? What was the worse idea that this replaced?
Quoting Bartricks Even if I assumed your previous statements were correct this wouldn't follow in any definitive sense. Quoting Bartricks Closer to a potato than modified santa claus, but I also don't think you believe in God, because it's not what I believe in.
Er, no. The exact opposite, Dumbartonshire. Rational discernment. Ratiocination. Not a guess.
Quoting Cheshire
I don't know what you're talking about. Purposes. For your life here to have a purpose, either you or the environment in which you find yourself needed to have been created.....for a purpose. And that purpose will be the purpose of your life. Simple.
Quoting Cheshire
I believe in the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent person. And that's the standard definition of God. By contrast, what you're using the word 'God' to denote is a potato.
I think he means in the case of a zombie apocalypse or something, where you’re the only one left alive who’s meaning doesn’t center exclusively on eating brains.
You couldn't pass a Turing test.
Quoting Bartricks My God has enormous feet. It is the definition of a "super person". It's derived from imagination.
Loneliness -> Depression -> Suicide
Extreme suffering -> Depression -> Suicide
I guess there's not much of a difference between loneliness & extreme suffering!
I do agree that the idea of loneliness, depression, and extreme suffering can be seen as potential grounds for suicide, but this may come in the context of us being encouraged and socialised to think of our worth according to these values. It is only one way of looking at life, and I am not even sure that the people who really get to the point of suicide do so on these grounds.
My own view is that interpersonal relationships and meanings change so much, and so any valuing of self in connection with these is arbitrary, and misses seeing one's life in a wider context, of the human quest.
When I see the word "quest" I feel like I'm in a video game! :smile:
But, I don't play video games, or even have a way of playing them and I feel that I am on a quest daily, in real life interaction, this site, finding books and music, and so much more.
Simulation Hypothesis
If only it was simulation. As it is, I phone home to my mother and update her each evening, tidy up my bed, wash, stop looking at my phone before going to bed, and start the process again the next day. I think that I am starting to describe the absurdity described by Camus. No wonder I need this site, to structure meaning, and I don't even have the time for video games, preferring music on headphones before going to sleep, reflecting on the mixture of social dramas, or lack of them.
Bullseye, Jack. You taught me something today, not your first though. I finally got Camus' Sisyphusian analogy of the meaninglessness of life. Let's take the life of an ordinary person - fae's born (Sisyphus starts rolling the rock up the hill), nursed until fae becomes a toddler, fae'll then attend school, college? possibly but no guarantees, then employment, maybe fae'll marry and have kids but this too is a question mark, then retirement and finally, finally, fae passes away (Sisyphus reaches the top of the hill with the rock and the rock starts rolling downhill) , the eulogy, the burial, from flesh to bones, bones to dust, and dust to dust. Some will remember fae, talk about him, keep fae's memory alive but eventually nothing of/about fae'll remain, not even memories (Sisyphus's rock is back where it was, at the bottom of the hill. It's as if fae never even existed (Sisyphus having not existed is the same as Sisyphus having rolled the rock up the hill only for it to roll back to where it was).
Quoting praxis
Perhaps that is what he had in mind. If so, I don't see that scenario being much different: I doubt he would have the time or resources to do much but struggle to survive; his "meaning" would center almost exclusively on avoiding having his brains eaten.
Good point.
I generaly agree with this, tautology or not. I think meaning is not created solitary but meaning is created in exchange with others. That exchange is interpreted and the interpretation is what is called meaning. Without any other there is nothing to interpret.
What a pointless thing to say. I have said that if God exists our lives have a particular purpose (or set of purposes, more exactly). And your response? "Oh, the problem with that is that it depends on whether God exists". Er, yes. That was the point.
And I can prove God exists and have done so here umpteen times. Not my fault most of you are incapable of following an argument. But that's not the topic of this thread, so I didn't provide it here.
But even in its absence, what I said was highly significant. For the point I was making - a point lost on most people who love themselves too much and think they're little gods in their own right - was that whether your life has a purpose or not is not something that is in your gift. The purposefulness of your life depends entirely on others, not you.
By being blind and stupid. Ask me another.