What is the meaning of life?
I feel so lost right now.I don't know what is the purpose of it all. smile all you want but this how i am feeling right now.
LOST.....
Modern scientists say that there is probably no grand meaning to life. "You decide your own meaning", it's said. but isn't that meaningless in itself because the presumption is that:
a.) there is no meaning of life
and
b.) you decide the meaning of life.
So let's say I take up service for humanitarian causes as the meaning of life(this is the only thing I've found to be relatively meaningful than other stuff) , but by the logic of point a.) even that is meaningless. No matter what I do, but in the grand scheme of things,it's all going down. So why bother?
Then, my friends, like an innocent primary school kid asks his teachers, I ask you what is the meaning then?
P.S. : I'm sorry if you find this question stupid or if I couldn't articulate my thoughts properly. I'm new to
this.Will need some time.
LOST.....
Modern scientists say that there is probably no grand meaning to life. "You decide your own meaning", it's said. but isn't that meaningless in itself because the presumption is that:
a.) there is no meaning of life
and
b.) you decide the meaning of life.
So let's say I take up service for humanitarian causes as the meaning of life(this is the only thing I've found to be relatively meaningful than other stuff) , but by the logic of point a.) even that is meaningless. No matter what I do, but in the grand scheme of things,it's all going down. So why bother?
Then, my friends, like an innocent primary school kid asks his teachers, I ask you what is the meaning then?
P.S. : I'm sorry if you find this question stupid or if I couldn't articulate my thoughts properly. I'm new to
this.Will need some time.
Comments (41)
The human predicament is one where you are thrown into a life where you are enculturated into a society, inherit genes, encounter epigenetic changes, develop a personality, and then use that personality and interaction with the environment and social systems (that have developed through historical contingencies) in order to survive and entertain your mind. There is a drive, a Will, an angst at the bottom of our efforts in navigating this world, via our respective character/personalities/egos. This Will essentially must put forth energy and satisfy the main imperatives of survival-through-social-means and then keeping away boredom through-social-means. However, what you are realizing is why we do anything at all. I call this understanding "instrumentality". We do to do to do. We survive to survive to survive. We entertain to entertain to entertain. We cannot help but do anything else. We are burdened with surviving and entertaining our minds. We are metaphorically "thrown" into the world and must deal with it. The situation is absurd. We have our needs and wants that are never ending, always trying to be satisfied. The world turns, over and over. We keep moving forward. We keep structures going, we keep throwing more people in the world for no reason, and yet this is seen as good by some. Then, on top of this "structural suffering" of instrumentality is the contingent suffering of the billions of possible circumstances we encounter that cause physical or emotional anguish.
We justify suffering by saying that it is necessary (somehow?) because people need to be born in order to overcome it. This sounds like an absurd justification to me. So we create miserable circumstances and experiences so people can deal with them and learn from them, which didn't need to be encountered in the first place. So do we set ourselves up as some game show producers.. and apparently the newborns are the contestants that must play the game?
So we try to escape our circumstances. Hope is one avenue. Hope keeps us swinging through one goal to the next without trying to see the bigger picture. There is religious doctrine with its mysteries and secrets. There is the idea that we are living for some happiness principle (or variations of this)- there is achievement, flow activities, relationships, physical pleasure, aesthetic pleasure, and learning. Apparently some think that our goal is to experience this, and thus this instrumentality is justified. There is narrowing your thoughts by ignoring the instrumental absurdity, there is anchoring yourself in some sort of role in society, or taking on some mission that society provides as somehow worthwhile. There is sublimating your thoughts in works of art, literature, or creativity. I guess people will say some variant of these things is why more people need to be born. Why the human project is worth it. Are these legitimate or good enough reasons? Is there something to be said about the instrumentality of being? What does this indicate?
Oh and welcome to the forum.
Life is for its own sake, because there are things that we like.
What more meaning should there be?
I don't mean to encourage you to act unethically. You probably don't want to interfere with or harm the lives of others. You know it's better if you don't, because they're living beings like you. But the things that you like are, at basis, what it's about.
Metaphysics doesn't contradict that, but your question didn't seem to call for bringing metaphysics into the topic.
Michael Ossipoff
I don't find the question stupid, but I do wonder about the wisdom of calling yourself Krishnamurti and adopting his photograph as an avatar on a philosophy forum.
The Road Less Traveled
Your journey is yours alone but there are folks you will meet along the way that will help guide you as you explore you inner self. Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living. Maybe you are just looking around to see what might fit as an answer to your question but ultimately, it is the same amount of time whether you approach life in a positive way as opposed to a negative way. Just remember that none of us really know what is really going on, it is all about perceptions and with a little flexibility, you might find yourself moving in an unexpected direction on a prior position or conclusion that you had already identified.
Quoting Wayfarer
sorry if I offended you, I'm just a fan of K , that's all
Well... it's a good place to bounce off ideas and interact with other people
that's just another way of saying there's no meaning
Hmm...I do like the concept. But,c'mon what universe are we serving? I mean what impact can we have on a gigantic thing like the universe?
can you tell me what has any of us done something so great as to have an impact on the universe?
ok, let's go small, the earth? anything? ok, your country? your state maybe?
I know I haven't. And most people probably never will. And lets take example of people that have done something great? Alexder the great, Dead. Picasso? dead. Buddha? Dead. Mark Zuckerberg? Well he's alive. but you know whats coming.Michael Phelps. Same.
In the end, everybody's the same. As they say, death is the great equalizer
What I'm asking is why should we bother to do anything other than see for our basic needs? why try to make a million dollars? why try to get lucky? why try so hard to be someone?why not just be?
I know a lot of why's. Can't help it.
Oh thanks, I got a feeling I'm gonna love it here. also, can you explain instrumentality a bit more please?
I would say "life is meaningless" by which I mean: The universe does not provide a ready-made meaning. I also don't mean that we start at Square One when we start to think about meaning: People have been devising meaning for a long time, and some of that is available to us in our cultures.
So yes, each of us has to devise an answer to the question. We can
a) accept a meaning-of-life that already exists, as it stands, lock stock and barrel.
b) modify a meaning-of-life that already exists.
c) devise a meaning-of-life based on what you have observed, read, heard, and thought
d) accept the view that there is no meaning to life
e) keep yourself busy and just don't think about it
a = the religious option. Religions are complex constructions of meaning. Various religions suit the desires of billions of people for a meaning of life.
b = the religious heretic option. The meaning a given religion provides can be adapted for our personal needs. That might make you a heretic in the eyes of the orthodox, but as long as they don't burn people at the stake, that's OK.
c = is the hardest route. Construct a meaning of life for yourself out of your own experiences, so far.
d = the route of least resistance. Accepting a no-meaning view doesn't mean that you embrace lawlessness, suicide, joylessness, or anything else. It just means that you don't hold the view that life has some pre-ordained meaning. You can be a happy, loving and loved, joyful person or a miserable, solitary person as it suits you. In other words, the quality of your life doesn't have anything to do with whether life has a meaning.
e = a very common approach.
Follow the way that works for you. One is not better than another IF it suits you.
I used to believe that the meaning of life was provided by God. I don't believe that anymore. Now I think life probably has no ready-made meaning. However, there are activities in life that are much more meaningful than other activities. You find humanitarian causes to be meaningful. Great! Keep at it. Personally, I found most jobs (with 2 or 3 exceptions) to be pretty meaningless. That makes sense. There is a reason they have to pay people to work. I found meaning in relationships with other people (and dogs, truth be told) books, and music.
Welcome to The #1 Philosophy Forum on the Internet.
To maintain "a network of processes of production (transformation and destruction) of components which: (i) through their interactions and transformations continuously regenerate and realize the network of processes (relations) that produced them; and (ii) constitute it (the machine) as a concrete unity in space in which they (the components) exist by specifying the topological domain of its realization as such a network"
-Maturana, Varela, 1980, p. 89.
Ouch! How apt, if you want to be cynical... What was the equivalent cultural related statement/question in Schopenhauer's time I wonder? (I'm assuming there was one)
What possible 'grand meaning' can such an ephemeral thing have?
What arrogance have humans!!
No it's not. It situates meaning.
Are you familiar with the concept of a conscious universe? The universe is analogous to a living organism structured on levels of reality. It is an ancient idea. Plotinus referred to it as the emanations of ONE as the source of creation and the Great Chain of Being.. But obviously this is difficult to explain in a post. Someone copied an excerpt from Jacob Needleman's book "A Sense of the Cosmos"
http://www.tree-of-souls.com/spirituality/5157-conscious_universe_-_jacob_needleman.html
If you re open to the idea that the universe is a hierarchy of intentions, then Man has the potential for conscious evolution. We exist as the man animal and a creature of reaction. Conscious evolution leads in the direction of a higher level of being within which the man animal can evolve towards becoming a conscious being. If this excerpt makes sense perhaps we could explore what creates a conscious human perspective as opposed to our more usual conditioned indoctrinated perspective. The idea is that as we are, we serve a mechanical necessity. Organic life on earth serves a mechanical purpose of transforming substances. However we have the potential of serving a conscious purpose that we can awaken to.. Some are drawn to this purpose much like a moth is drawn to the light. If life in Plato's cave offers sufficient meaning then why contemplate these things? But as Plato said: "man is a being in search of meaning." Those drawn to this quality of meaning beyond what the world provides are drawn to the ability to experience and reflect conscious universal purpose as opposed to the habits acquired during cave life.
Excerpted from a letter Simone Weil wrote on May 15, 1942 in Marseilles, France to her close friend Father Perrin when she was already very sick:
At fourteen I fell into one of those fits of bottomless despair that come with adolescence, and I seriously thought of dying because of the mediocrity of my natural faculties. The exceptional gifts of my brother, who had a childhood and youth comparable to those of Pascal, brought my own inferiority home to me. I did not mind having no visible successes, but what did grieve me was the idea of being excluded from that transcendent kingdom to which only the truly great have access and wherein truth abides. I preferred to die rather than live without that truth..............................
Simone was attracted to what the world could not offer. Your question asks if it was worth pursing a life dedicated to the experience of truth at the expense losing oneself in the shadows on the wall in Plato's cave. Only a person with a similar hunger in the heart for the experience of truth as opposed to imagination will understand. Most will just consider it foolish. Albert Camus called Simone the "only great mind of the times." Does it mean anything if it interferes with our smart phones?
My metaphysics implies that:
1. Someone who was going to be born into a world like this would just be born into a different one, if everyone in this world refused to reproduce. I myself wouldn't want to have a role in bringing someone into this world, but I don't really believe it makes a difference, for the reason expressed in the sentence before this one.
2. A person is born because they want, need, or somehow merit birth. Not because someone reproduced.(In an infinity of possibility-worlds, someone will.)
Michael Ossipoff
With what justification?
You mean how is it implied by my metaphysics?
According to that metaphysics, a person's life-experience possibility-story is a complex system of inter-referring abstract if-then logical facts about hypotheticals. After all, all of the abstract logical facts are inevitably there anyway, and need no explanation. I mean, no one denies that there are those abstract logical facts. That's all that's needed.
(Even a "Nominalist" has to acknowledge them as things, by referring to them, when he says he doesn't believe in them.)
The protagonist of that story is its essential, central, primary component. ...because a possibility-story is a life-experience possibility-story only because it has a protagonist.
It seems reasonable to suggest that that protagonist must be someone who has some sort of involvement with life, in order for him/her to be the protagonist/experiencer of a life-experience story. If so, then a desire for, or need for, or at least some kind of subconscious involvement with life is something that goes with being the protagonist of a life-experience possibility-story.
So then, that's why I said that you were born because of some wish, need, or other subconscious emotional involvement toward life. Therefore, among the infinity of systems of inter-referring abstract facts, is one that is a life-experience possibility-story about you.
All of that seems reasonable with or without reincarnation. It's equally true of a first and only life, as much as for a new life-experience story that matches the remaining subconscious inclinations and feelings when someone is unconscious after death.
If all that sounds like a fantastic suggestion, I suggest that it there isn't a less fantastic alternative suggestion.
Michael Ossipoff
Michael Ossipoff
Quoting krishnamurti
Do you need to know the purpose of it all, to not be lost?
Source: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/life-meaning
I don't see how it is meaningless to say that you have the freedom to define your own meaning. It seems to me that you find it necessary for someone, or something, else to define your meaning. Who, or what, has that right, or power, over you? Why would you just give that power away and say that it's meaningless?
You say, "in the grand scheme of things, it's all going down". So what? You exist in the grand scheme of things. You are part of the grand scheme of things. The grand scheme of things wouldn't be the same without you.
To unpack that: we are born with "why"-asking machinery in our brains, and that machinery, which normally has a pragmatic point (is useful in life) just naturally tends to keep asking "why?" At which point it bumps up against the question of existence as a whole - why existence as a whole?
But consider: normally, asking why depends on relative juxtaposition of things. Why this? Because that, because some other thing. But there's no "other thing" against which existence as a whole can be juxtaposed. Unless you posit it. And that's "God." If God is defined as self-existent, unmoved Mover, etc., then the why-series comes to an intellectually satisfying end.
But the problem is, nobody has any evidence of God, unless they're just circularly arguing that existence itself is the evidence of God.
So since the 18th/19th centuries, the position has increasingly been taken that since there's no evidence for God, there's no need to worry about Him. But because the "why" question is compulsive, we keep bumping up against a God-shaped-hole. The final question has no satisfying answer.
Which is why some people have taken to transcendentalizing secular goals (e.g. equality). But that's no use either (and leads to megadeaths).
The road less travelled here is simply to suspend judgement and be ok with suspending judgement. Acknowledge that we simply don't yet have a satisfying answer to that ultimate question. The God answer could be the right answer, but we have no way of deciding or figuring it out, or deciding between that and the universe being a stupendous accident.
So the problem becomes one of being ok with not knowing. And also realizing that all the normal human stuff seems to get along quite well without having to know. For example, you are born with a certain level of benevolence (it varies along a bell-curve, and some don't have it - human sharks, so to speak) and your parents probably trained you to be nice. The lack of an answer to that fundamental question doesn't mean you have to go against that inclination and training, and turn yourself into a serial killer who never gets up in the morning.
Or to put it in the cute terms of Werner Erhard's est seminars: it's all empty and meaningless, but the fact that it's empty and meaningless is itself empty and meaningless. Now, to be strictly accurate, we don't actually know that it's empty and meaningless either (for all we know, it might be full and meaningful after all, and one or all of the God solutions human beings have come up with might be right); but if it is empty and meaningless, then that solution applies: the fact that it's empty and meaningless doesn't affect us one way or the other, it has no implications for our daily lives, and changes nothing.
I'm happy to find this thought discussed by someone else. Yes, it's when the 'why' targets existence as a whole that it reveals itself to be a lyrical why, a 'pseudo-question.' Quoting gurugeorge
Right. Nature (the way things are) is a system of postulated necessary relationships. We can answer local why-questions in terms of these relationships. But the system as a whole must remain a brute fact. There is no object outside of the system to put the system into a necessary relation with.
But I don't see how a metaphysical God object brings the why-series to an end. Because that still leaves God as a brute fact. So we don't escape brute fact. A certain kind of believer can ignore this, because that image of God is emotionally satisfying. But logically we still have existence as brute fact. With a first cause we have only concentrated the unexplained at a point.
I often question the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, and I find that Alan Watts makes some very beautiful and compelling arguments as to why I shouldn't worry about it.
I'm not really into the cheesy music and imagery people use when making videos of his speeches, but the things he has to say are so worth sitting through some cheesiness. Also, if you prefer to hear his full talks and ONLY his talks (without any music) you can find those as well, but this video is shorter and to the point.
To elaborate a bit more on what he says, life doesn't need meaning to be worth living. Life doesn't need meaning for any reason at all. Music has no meaning, the purpose of music is simply to listen to it. Dancing has no meaning, the purpose of dancing is simply to dance. When you watch a film, you aren't watching it for any reason other than the enjoyment of watching it. You aren't gaining anything from it, you just do it for it's own sake.
Think of life in the same way. It's very possible that there is, in fact, a meaning that we simply are not aware of. But you can make peace with the possibility that there is no meaning by realizing that it doesn't need meaning to be lived and enjoyed. Do it for the sake of itself. The point of life is to live, plain and simple.
I think you've put your finger on the problem here. We build our sandcastles between the tides. We can understand goals that pay off in 5 years or even 20 years (depending on our age). This future-orientedness is 'mature' and 'civilized.' But extend it a little too much and it threatens us with a vision of terrible futility.
For many children are probably the 'meaning' of life. They carry the torch forward. Progress accumulates that way. There is also social progress. Our deeds reverberate for generations perhaps. Politics and art are what I have in mind. But if the species will eventually go extinct (which seems likely enough as we look as far as possible into the future), these secondary projects also begin to look futile. We don't seem to be able to escape the general death and futility of all things.
So then we shift toward the intensity of the moment and toward dying well, I think. Some of my favorite rock songs treat this theme of personal annihilation, and it comes off ecstatic, beautiful. War isn't pretty, but I think it too has offered men a way to charge at death in a maximum intensification of the moment. Then of course there's just our usual tendency to become engrossed in the situation at hand and forget mortality and futility. So futility or meaninglessness is something like an effect that comes and goes with a certain kind of thinking. We speak of 'meaninglessness' from a certain mood. Is it the truth about life? Yes and no. We speak of the eternity in the moment in other moods.
I've had this thought, too, in my own words. But I've never been able to get my friends or even my girlfriend to understand what the hell I'm talking about.
Fascinating. It does occur to me that we exist largely as possibility. We are haunted, haunted, haunted by the things we could do, should have done, no longer can do, might become able to do. What is fully there seems to be only a small part of what is humanly there.
Alan Watts is a great introduction to philosophical questions for someone who never got his feet wet before. But after some time, it gets tiring - he says the same thing over and over in different ways, and that's that. He has great breadth, but little depth.
One great book of his that I very much enjoyed (though I've found the same ideas better expressed and in much greater detail) is Behold The Spirit - his thesis on mystical Christianity.
"The protagonist of that story is its essential, central, primary component. ...because a possibility-story is a life-experience possibility-story only because it has a protagonist. }— Michael Ossipoff
Yes,that's what it all really only amounts to.
And the gravitas of the regrets and dilemmas that you mentioned is removed by the insubstantial-ness and ethereal-ness of what metaphysically (describably, discussably) is.
That's why I say that this metaphysics implies an openness, looseness and lightness.
This finite life (or finite sequence of finite lives) in the world of identity, things, time and events, is only part of our overall life, which, we all agree, ends with well-deserved timeless peaceful rest and sleep.
But while we're in this temporary eventful story part, it's worth noting its insubstantiality, openness, looseness, lightness.
It doesn't have the grim limits of the world that the Materialist believes in.
Michael Ossipoff
Yes, life doesn't have or need meaning.
Michael Ossipoff
Not if you're only asking about metaphysical reality.
If the topic is limited to metaphysical existence, I don't think there's a problem like that, because I don't think that the systems of inter-referrng if-then facts that metaphysics leads to need to be justified by or juxtaposed to anything outside their own context.
No, not metaphysically.. We've discussed why there couldn't have not been abstract facts, of which our physical worlds consist.
There's no reason to believe in a metaphysical brute-fact..
A system of inter-referring abstract if-then facts about hypotheticals doesn't need a relation with something larger or global...or anything outside its own inter-referring context.
So, when you speak of that "necessary relation", you're talking about a "need" that isn't.
Not all Theists believe that God is an element of metaphysics, or, in any sense, an "object".
Explanation doesn't go past metaphysics.
But, if you're referring to metaphysics and metaphysical reality, the metaphysics that I've described doesn't have or need any assumptions or brute-fact.
No, not in metaphysics.
Michael Ossipoff
I agree that he says the same thing over and over in different ways, but there are people (such as myself) who benefit from hearing the same concept put into different terms sometimes. It serves as a reminder or a refresher, in a sense. Making me reflect on something I already am aware of, but have lost sight of, and helping me see it from a different angle.
But I do agree that he is more of an "introductory" philosopher. He touches on questions related to life, the universe, religion, god, etc. but doesn't get real in-depth with them most of the time. That's also something I like about him, though, and something I find I benefit from every once in a while. Although I do love how complex and technical philosophy can get, sometimes it helps to look at things from a simpler, more basic perspective. I think a lot of people can benefit from it, especially if you have a tendency to really overthink everything and get stuck on the details, because that can make you lose sight of the big picture. Alan Watts is basically all big-picture. I need that sometimes.