Is life meaningless?
Everything shall pass. In about 5 billion years from now the sun will expand and the heat of it will destroy earth. Life on earth will perish and no one will know that you existed. The evolutionary drive to leave a legacy by producing offspring shall not continue. Nature's work--chance and natural selection--will be erased. Every good deed, every moment of happiness or sadness will soon be gone. No record of our humanity will survive when the universe expands its way to a very cold end. Given these facts, how can we say that the brief adventure that life has provided for us has any meaning?
You might say that life is indeed meaningless on such massive time scales such as of billions of years. What about the here and now? What about my life? Let's just focus on life right now, and forget what happens in the far distant future. Unfortunately the question of life's meaningfulness still remains. There is no necessity to my existence here and now. I might have not existed, and other people might have taken up my roles in society. I am not irreplaceable. There really isn't anything special about me. I'm overshadowed by 7.7 billion people and therefore, very insignificant. I believe, for me, my life is indeed meaningless.
I suppose everyone is different, so I pose the question to you: Is your life meaningful? Do you believe that you are significant?
You might say that life is indeed meaningless on such massive time scales such as of billions of years. What about the here and now? What about my life? Let's just focus on life right now, and forget what happens in the far distant future. Unfortunately the question of life's meaningfulness still remains. There is no necessity to my existence here and now. I might have not existed, and other people might have taken up my roles in society. I am not irreplaceable. There really isn't anything special about me. I'm overshadowed by 7.7 billion people and therefore, very insignificant. I believe, for me, my life is indeed meaningless.
I suppose everyone is different, so I pose the question to you: Is your life meaningful? Do you believe that you are significant?
Comments (38)
Little bit of a ramble and not well argued but it could create some interesting discussion.
Usually... rarely am I bored or feel I have no meaning. I suppose constant confusion and lots of questions about things keeps one entertained.
Quoting Purple Pond
I hope not.
I prefer to think of myself as bring my own special type of utter mediocrity into a near unmeasurable brief existence I didn't ask for but ended up having. This experience that I have will more than likely be quickly forgotten and for the most part completely unnoticed.
Yippie! I can now enjoy the ride.
To tell the truth I quite enjoy pointlessness.
Pointlessness allows a great freedom to actually live rather than just be alive - to experience rather than just fulfill - to investigate rather than just to be told to accept - to adapt rather than just stagnate.
Meow!
G
Life just goes on. Asking if life is meaningless; Which is more meaningless, the question itself or life ?
generic helpful comment: life is meaningless, it is your responsibility to make it meaningful. Happy times.
The kind of meaning you're describing is the stuff of fairy tales, but luckily there's another kind of meaning/purpose (our own) which is much more robust and satisfying...
I loathe this kind of thinking. I think that it's one of the biggest fallacies in philosophy. It's an example of begging the question. It's bad form to assume something highly controversial, then question how the contrary can be true. We should instead start with that highly controversial assumption.
Quoting Purple Pond
Yes, in my view, it would be more sensible to focus on that.
Quoting Purple Pond
These reasons you give are irrelevant to me.
Quoting Purple Pond
Yes, that's a key point: everyone is different. Yes, my life is meaningful. My life is of some significance, of some consequence, and I find meaning in various things. There are people who would be affected by my death, some greatly so. It would change things, and some of those changes would be relatively big. And I find meaning in many of the usual ways, from socialising, reading books, watching television, and so on. But it's not a black-and-white issue. There are also plenty of things about my life which I find pretty meaningless, like the monotony of working a shitty job full time.
Nothing new or remarkable on this topic. Better to move on to another one.
That's clearly absurd though. Why? Because it's individual people who have preferences, not things like the moon. We need to ask the question in the right context.
Meaning, significance, preferences are things that we do. And it's definitely the case that we do those things.
Everything shall pass. In about 5 billion years from now the sun will expand and blah blah blah so what?
If we focus on right now, the question doesn't arise.
It is. I am loved. I love others. I find some meaning in service to others. I find more meaning in gaining understandings of the way the world works. I find life enjoyable and enjoyment provides meaning.
Happiness and unhappiness (all of us have had both) give some meaning to us. No one thing can, should, or does provide us with all the meaning we have or may want. We also create meanings. Creating meaning is one of the great cultural tasks. For example "In the beginning... in Genesis is an example of a narrative that places the world and humankind in context and establishes a meaning for us. There are many creation narratives in various cultures that perform the essential task of meaning making.
Individuals create meaning for themselves, as well as for others.
Quoting Purple Pond
I am about as significant as the next fellow.
Quoting Purple Pond
If we had been provided this brief life as an adventure, then adventure would be the meaning o life.
We make meaning. If any adult thinks life is meaningless, then they just aren't trying very hard.
Are you from the realm of overflowing, superabundent tryhards?
I disagree. Although life (whatever that means 5 billion years later) will cease perhaps humanity will be well advanced enough to continue beyond our system. If and when we continue and move on to other planetary systems our history as a species will continue through others. You may think you yourself and your DNA are insignificant now and most certainly when compared to this galaxy you are (as an individual) are insignificant. But just imagine that your genetic lineage spins an interconnected web that leads to a generation of leaders and intergalactic pioneers. However this is speculation.
Is life meaningless?
No. Truly, if it was I'd commit suicide long ago. Somehow we exist and continue despite the stressors we endure in our society and we have yet to off ourselves because we find ourselves here, and now discussing this exact question on this forum.
Ah, that explains it.
What makes you think that life needs to have "meaning"? Only philosophers think so.
Presumably there are things that you like. What more meaning do you need?
Alright yes, there's also the matter of consideration for the lives of other humans and other beings.
But that arises from and is consequent to, likes. ...In other words, at the basis of all that, is just the matter of things that we like.
Don't expect meaning other than that.
Michael Ossipoff
2019-W04-2 (South-Solstice WeekDate)
January 15th (Roman-Gregsorian)
Month 1, Week 4, Tuesday (South-Solstice Equal 28-Day Months Calendar)
Suggesting that we'll be around till a nova occurs, or even until universe heat-death is way optimistic.
Michael Ossipoff
Sincerely,
Paul
This is a common misreading of Derrida. Just as "nothing outside the text" is commonly interpreted as meaning nothing outside of linguistic signifiers. To which critics respond, what about the body, affect, per-linguistic perception? But Derrida isnt talking about formal language or concepts at all. Rather an economy not only prior to the distinction between language and expression, between concept and intuition, but also prior to the distinction between the 'Real' and the 'imaginary', There are numerous metaphysical presuppostions embedded within Lacn's discourse.
Every philosopher has numerous communities of interpreters who clash among themselves. For instance, there are thos who read Derrida as a Kierkegaardian-Levinasian-Hegelian theological figure(John Caputo). Others assimilate him to a neo-pragmatism in the mold of Wittgenstein and Dewey(Rorty).
I situate Derrida 'after' post-Neitzschean writers like Lyotard, Foucault, Deleuze , William Conolly and Jean-Luc Nancy. That is to say , Derrida understands and moves with them, but his step is a more radical one than theirs, and they havent grasped this.
"Derridas own deconstructionism puts forth that there should be no privileged positions. Privileged readings."
"For of course there is a "right track" [une 'bonne voie "] ,
a better way, and let it be said in passing how surprised I have often been, how
amused or discouraged, depending on my humor, by the use or abuse of the
following argument: Since the deconstructionist (which is to say, isn't it, the skeptic-
relativist-nihilist!) is supposed not to believe in truth, stability, or the unity of
meaning, in intention or "meaning-to-say, " how can he demand of us that we
read him with pertinence, precision, rigor? How can he demand that his own text
be interpreted correctly? How can he accuse anyone else of having misunderstood,
simplified, deformed it, etc.? In other words, how can he discuss, and
discuss the reading of what he writes? The answer is simple enough: this definition
of the deconstructionist is false (that's right: false, not true) and feeble; it
supposes a bad (that's right: bad, not good) and feeble reading of numerous
texts, first of all mine, which therefore must finally be read or reread. Then perhaps
it will be understood that the value of truth (and all those values associated
with it) is never contested or destroyed in my writings, but only reinscribed in
more powerful, larger, more stratified contexts. And that within interpretive contexts
(that is, within relations of force that are always differential-for example,
socio-political-institutional-but even beyond these determinations) that are relatively
stable, sometimes apparently almost unshakeable, it should be possible to
invoke rules of competence, criteria of discussion and of consensus, good faith,
lucidity, rigor, criticism, and pedagogy." Derrida, Limited, Inc.
According to your idea of what is meaningful? That is not an objective of what is meaningful, that is your own definition and cannot be applied to the universe.
Quoting Paul24
This is not a valid premise for the argument.
Quoting Paul24
This premise does not support any meaningfulness of life, it only says that we are powerful since we can control aspects of the universe. That is not the same as meaning.
Quoting Paul24
What is this a conclusion of? It's not a conclusion of any objective meaning to our life and it isn't a conclusion of any premises before it.
I fail to see how you rationally prove there to be any meaning through this argument. It's not a solid argument.
It remains -- but does it remain because of the heat death of the universe, or does the heat death of the universe happen to appear significant because the question of life's meaningfulness remains?
My suspicion is the latter. So a person who is not questioning the meaningfulness of their life will look at these facts and shrug, thinking them of no consequence.
And if that's the case then these facts have no bearing on whether life is meaningful or not. So there must be something else.
Whether we know it or not, we all belong within a family of philosophical positions/eras.
By the same token, one could dedicate their being to never settling for any particular position, even refusing tattoos on the belief that they symbolize a permanence of view. And yet, one would find over the course of their life that that changes in their worldview amounted to variations of an unfolding theme. Neither the self-same nor revolutionary overcoming rules experiencing; rather a being-the-same differently.
If you stop to think what are we, what am I, only one person in 7 billion.
Both me and you know I'm not spatial in any sense, nether are you, and nether was Einstein. We are all resumed in one in 7 billion, that live in a planet in 7, that orbits a star on infinity. So, truly, what meaning does my, or your, life have?
There is no meaning and no big picture in our existence. It just doesn't matter. All that the scientists and all the progress we made till now, only matter to our world, but not to the hole picture. So, in the end, wen everything is over, and there is no human nor any documentation of our achievements. What meaning did they had than.
Even though we have no meaning and all we do is meaningless. There is meaning in our vanity, because we are meaningful for each other, all the achievements we have are meaningful to us. That is what keeps me going, the idea that things are meaningful to me and to others, even if they are meaningless in a hole.
You don't have purpose because God created you. You don't have purpose because you reproduce to prolong the existence of humanity. You don't have purpose because you serve your country. You don't have purpose because you help other people. And it doesn't mean you lack purpose when you can't do these things. You don't lack purpose because you're a small speck in the universe.
The purpose of your life is your life. The purpose of other people's lives is their lives. To live life to the fullest and to be happy. Life is an end in itself.