The Meaning of Life
Like many people, I'm always obsessed by a philosophical question - what is the meaning of life?
After years of thinking, I recently got some thoughts on that.
I write down my coarse thoughts below and would like to hear your ideas.
What philosophical tradition these thoughts are related or belongs to?
Has anyone proposed similar ideas to the public? Who if yes?
What flaws do you see in this essay?
For anyone replies the questions, I really appreciate your help.
Here is goes:
On the Meaning of Life
Lives exist in the universe. What is the meaning of them and what should they do to fulfill that? This question is important since it guides everyone's everyday behavior. This essay tries to give an answer.
Darwin's discovery of evolution showed us a seemed meaningless universe. It excluded gods and universal objective moralities from the account of life's meaning. But when we examine wild species, we found all of them struggling, suffering and yet striving, without a single exception. Surely they are pursuing something and seem to have found their meaning. The evolution theory already gave the answer - continuation of existence itself is the only and ultimate goal. For better illustration, consider this: for anything that lives do, reasons can always be found. For example, why humans cooperate? Because they can do more. Why they want to do more? Because they can have more resources for their existence. But as for why they want to continue existing, there is no why. It's just that if they don't they don't and the universe is left to those who do. In that sense, lives achieve much more than non-living matters since they preserve, further or reinforce their existence (through metabolism, response to stimuli, reproduction and evolution etc.). In other words, lives found meaning by themselves in this seemed meaningless universe - to continue existing, to perdure.
So lives join the race of continuation from the very beginning and developed many different forms of it. By 'the form of continuation', it means the physical form, the behavioral model, the environments of residence, the artificial objects built and used, the minds, the beliefs shared, the organizational structure and system (if any), etc., i.e. all the things that is critical to the continuation of existence of the physical being in question. Many species and sub-species on earth are forms of existence. They have many common components. For example, reproduction is a component of most forms of existence. It continues the existence as well as reinforce it by spreading instances. Evolution, which enables lives to improve their forms of continuation, is another common component itself. On one hand, evolution finds better forms of continuation, such as to develop a powerful brain for better coping with the world. On the other hand, evolution also enable lives to diverge to explore different forms of continuation. That is how so many species come into being. This diverging also has the effect of not 'putting all eggs in the same basket'. Because you will never know what event will cause some species to stop continuing.
So forms of continuation are not static. They are evolving and diverging, which is good in the sense of its quality, which is measured by the possibility of continuing infinitely. For example, although insects and germs have larger quantities and can exist in much harsher environments than human. Human's form of continuation is still better. One reason is that humans are already developing the ability to escape from earth to avoid extinction caused by great catastrophe, which is bound to come even if the ecosphere is lucky enough to escape asteroids and super volcano etc. since the earth and the sun have lifespans.
During the development of forms of continuation, some lives joined together to form bigger and stronger forms of continuation. For example, cells joined together to form more capable multi-cell organisms. Sexual reproduction joined genes of individuals of a species together to form a shared and more vigorous gene pool. So the scopes of forms of continuation are also changing along with evolution, from a single molecule that copies itself, to a cell, to an individual, to an internally mating group. The components within a form of continuation work together for its continuation, since no separate part of a form of continuation can achieve the goal alone. If it can, the separate part becomes a form of continuation itself. There are also conflicts and competitions within a form of continuation. Such as competitions between genes and individuals in a sexual-reproduction species. This is also a component of its form of continuation and is good for keeping better genes in the gene pool.
So every life should strive for ever better form of continuation in order to achieve the goal of perdure, forever. That's the only meaning of life, if any.
So what should humans do according to this meaning of life? Somethings are obvious. For example, humans should colonize outer space and to diverge into multiple forms of continuation in order to change the current status of 'all eggs in the same basket'. Another example, an extremely happy, peaceful and delightful paradise world should not be the ultimate goal since it is static, only reflects the adapted psychological needs of past and conflicts with forever searching of better form of continuation. Somethings are not obvious and need deeper research. Such as, should human create artificial super-intelligence? Should human manipulate their genes? What social system should be adopted? These questions should be carefully studied and tested before taking action since, if not done well, it may incur catastrophe like fascist did. When studying and testing them, the meaning of life is the tool of judging good from bad.
After years of thinking, I recently got some thoughts on that.
I write down my coarse thoughts below and would like to hear your ideas.
What philosophical tradition these thoughts are related or belongs to?
Has anyone proposed similar ideas to the public? Who if yes?
What flaws do you see in this essay?
For anyone replies the questions, I really appreciate your help.
Here is goes:
On the Meaning of Life
Lives exist in the universe. What is the meaning of them and what should they do to fulfill that? This question is important since it guides everyone's everyday behavior. This essay tries to give an answer.
Darwin's discovery of evolution showed us a seemed meaningless universe. It excluded gods and universal objective moralities from the account of life's meaning. But when we examine wild species, we found all of them struggling, suffering and yet striving, without a single exception. Surely they are pursuing something and seem to have found their meaning. The evolution theory already gave the answer - continuation of existence itself is the only and ultimate goal. For better illustration, consider this: for anything that lives do, reasons can always be found. For example, why humans cooperate? Because they can do more. Why they want to do more? Because they can have more resources for their existence. But as for why they want to continue existing, there is no why. It's just that if they don't they don't and the universe is left to those who do. In that sense, lives achieve much more than non-living matters since they preserve, further or reinforce their existence (through metabolism, response to stimuli, reproduction and evolution etc.). In other words, lives found meaning by themselves in this seemed meaningless universe - to continue existing, to perdure.
So lives join the race of continuation from the very beginning and developed many different forms of it. By 'the form of continuation', it means the physical form, the behavioral model, the environments of residence, the artificial objects built and used, the minds, the beliefs shared, the organizational structure and system (if any), etc., i.e. all the things that is critical to the continuation of existence of the physical being in question. Many species and sub-species on earth are forms of existence. They have many common components. For example, reproduction is a component of most forms of existence. It continues the existence as well as reinforce it by spreading instances. Evolution, which enables lives to improve their forms of continuation, is another common component itself. On one hand, evolution finds better forms of continuation, such as to develop a powerful brain for better coping with the world. On the other hand, evolution also enable lives to diverge to explore different forms of continuation. That is how so many species come into being. This diverging also has the effect of not 'putting all eggs in the same basket'. Because you will never know what event will cause some species to stop continuing.
So forms of continuation are not static. They are evolving and diverging, which is good in the sense of its quality, which is measured by the possibility of continuing infinitely. For example, although insects and germs have larger quantities and can exist in much harsher environments than human. Human's form of continuation is still better. One reason is that humans are already developing the ability to escape from earth to avoid extinction caused by great catastrophe, which is bound to come even if the ecosphere is lucky enough to escape asteroids and super volcano etc. since the earth and the sun have lifespans.
During the development of forms of continuation, some lives joined together to form bigger and stronger forms of continuation. For example, cells joined together to form more capable multi-cell organisms. Sexual reproduction joined genes of individuals of a species together to form a shared and more vigorous gene pool. So the scopes of forms of continuation are also changing along with evolution, from a single molecule that copies itself, to a cell, to an individual, to an internally mating group. The components within a form of continuation work together for its continuation, since no separate part of a form of continuation can achieve the goal alone. If it can, the separate part becomes a form of continuation itself. There are also conflicts and competitions within a form of continuation. Such as competitions between genes and individuals in a sexual-reproduction species. This is also a component of its form of continuation and is good for keeping better genes in the gene pool.
So every life should strive for ever better form of continuation in order to achieve the goal of perdure, forever. That's the only meaning of life, if any.
So what should humans do according to this meaning of life? Somethings are obvious. For example, humans should colonize outer space and to diverge into multiple forms of continuation in order to change the current status of 'all eggs in the same basket'. Another example, an extremely happy, peaceful and delightful paradise world should not be the ultimate goal since it is static, only reflects the adapted psychological needs of past and conflicts with forever searching of better form of continuation. Somethings are not obvious and need deeper research. Such as, should human create artificial super-intelligence? Should human manipulate their genes? What social system should be adopted? These questions should be carefully studied and tested before taking action since, if not done well, it may incur catastrophe like fascist did. When studying and testing them, the meaning of life is the tool of judging good from bad.
Comments (58)
It's not necessarily the beliefs that would allow us to survive beyond the death of the Sun that would allow us to survive on the short term. With a common goal given as the meaning of life, if people disagree on how to reach it they will fight to death. It all seems to be an intractable problem.
For instance we all want to survive (else we would have killed ourselves already), and yet we wage wars, we can't even agree on the fact that we would all be better off if we cared for each other instead of fighting each other. Many people feel better when they prove to themselves they are better or stronger than others, not when they help others. So we're stuck in this pointless competition for survival, and it's not clear our species will even make it past the next 1000 years, except maybe for a tiny minority. I surely don't think we are smart enough as a whole to prevent the collapse of civilization. Some people will spend their lives looking for solutions though, good for them I suppose, it seems useless when most people don't want to listen and don't care about anything but themselves, they are probably the ones who will get to decide the fate of humanity through their sheer number.
In the age of automation and algorithms, can you honestly say perdure has any bearing on the meaning of life? Haven't we long passed a stage of appropriate technology and symbolic logic as it is sincere and ontologically associated with the kind of survival where a higher organism can care fore itself, that is keep itself alive? What lasts won't be what man believes will last, he is far too egocentric and superegocentric. The collective self of man has been thoroughly blurred together with collective other. As long as this is the case, the usual definitions of status quo today simply don't apply to any discussion of the meaning of life. Unless one is okay with living an untrue life according to false ontology, entirely dependent on the human system and with no relation to anything beyond it that will outlast all human "civilization," this isn't really that moot of a topic even.
Actually, few automated beings survive with much hangover of meaning; because they are so dependent on others of their kind, a human is a baby animal, which will die if not coddled by parents. Other people, within the market society, are like the parents of a baby to a supposed mature adult. Then why not ask what the meaning of life is to a baby beyond his ability to be fed by his mother's teat? All the hard work done for symbols and numbers is the equivalent of a baby's crying for milk in terms of self-sufficiency. Unless, of course, the individual's work is taking care of himself without the mother (other people/superego mind control).
Granted, there are some professions which are far more meaningful to perdure than others: say, carpentry and advanced gardening/permaculture; something like a clerk of at a department store is purely infantile in perdure value. Isn't this an honest perspective, or am I being dishonest somehow? Think of the concept of retirement for second. Once marketed man is put out to pasture, he essentially goes into a human landfill of capitalism, the same destination of consumer goods; once the goods and dependent human are consumed, they go into landfills of retirement. He is of no more use to the market society and resembles a neonate, which can even live in an automated home with a robot that feeds him and wipes his ass.
The thing with nihilism, in general, is that it is a rejection of this notion of an objective meaning of life. Interpretation creates meaning, everyone has access to it and there are no limitations. The problem is that people want a meaning that unifies and is shared and that is really a cultural thing. They seek all kinds of legitimacy that aren't needed, that's the problem.
life can do anything and can never lose. Life is alone . who is life going to lose to ?
life starts a realm of duality
the purpose of duality is to..... not........ be able to do anything but in the form of an .> illusion
now life can do anything including win lose or draw ?....
darwin has it backwards
humanity devolves into apes , not evolving from them
heres what i mean
white has zero density
black is solid density
the spectrum of light is
white
blue
green
red
yellow
magenta
cyan
black
blue green red make white and yellow magenta cyan
yellow magenta cyan make black and blue green red
black comes from white between
you cant get black without white
white
blue/yellow
green/magenta
red /cyan
black
life knows everything and the purpose of duality is to " not know" everything .
when we play games against each other its actually ONLY life playing games with itself
How are you going to play a game if you can always win ? or have no opponents ? you create duality which in turn gives life millions of winning and losing opponents but its still only one player and the illusion of many..
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*V377-3x7cHjr9HCebFGHJw.png
Duality IS the illusion and it can be found in objective and subjective reality and illusion
peace !!
Quoting leo
That's true. An extreme example of such is the cold war. It had some good effects though. It proved the Soviet Union's way was not the best. Such competition is a mechanism to weed out bad solutions and is a component of current human's form of continuation. In that sense the movement originated from Russia the last century is an important experiment to the evolving of human's form of continuation. This mechanism will continue to work in the form of competition between countries.
Quoting leo
This really is a problem that need to be dealt with. Although the competition mechanism above helps to deal with this problem, education is also very important. After all, memes (not the internet thing) is also a very important component of human's form of continuation.
I'm not satisfied with nihilism. I'm looking for an objective interpretation. I think Darwin has shed light on that.
I'm just curious if you have any insight why (you're not satisfied with nihilism)
A belief that an interpretation can be objective in of itself is a rejection of nihilism. I do not enjoy debates about nihilism, I do not think there is any real counterargument to it and people just throw assertions at me without thinking them through.
Your essay describes your own interpretation, that is all you will ever have access to and you will either learn to be satisfied with it or become a bigot who aims to subjugate other interpretations as lesser or wrong with whatever reasoning or argumentation you have at your disposal.
My argument is like this: Nihilists say why bother to try so hard to continue existing? Indeed there is no why. It's just that if they don't they will be gone and the universe is left to those who do.
I'm a nihilist on many things, including the meaning of life, and I don't say anything at all like "Why bother to try so hard to continue existing." You bother because of reasons that originate in you.
I call that dark nihilism because basically nihilists only say "there is no objective meaning to life" and now you have to determine what that means. Does it mean there's no reason to live? Does it mean you should live how you want to live? What does it mean? Dark Nihilists say, well there's no point to anything then.
For me, nihilism means there is no higher meaning than personal meaning, which means that all that's left for me to do is deal with my own interpretations and using pragmatism as a guide, determine where to go based on what is working and what is not working.
Dark nihilism is a contradiction to me, you've said there's no objective meaning so that means there's no reason to do anything but you've taken the lack of objective meaning as meaning there's no reason to do anything. That must be your own subjective interpretation, if it can make you feel so strongly in that negative way, then why are you against one causing you to feel positively about life?
I know that the disparity between my own interpretations surrounding the lack of meaning in life and other nihilists mean that there's very little connection between me and other nihilists. The choice of what to do with the acknowledgement of nihilism is yours.
Congratulations are in order. You appear to be the first person to have used the word "perdure" in The Philosophy Forum. Also, welcome.
Perdure entered the English language in the late 15th century: from Old French perdurer, from Latin perdurare ‘endure’, from per- ‘through’ + durare ‘to last’. As words go, it's doing well. Here's a Google Ngram of its usage in recent print:
Peak perdurage seems to have occurred around 1979.
There. It may not have done much for you, but I feel much better.
Darwin investigated the mechanisms of nature. That fact that life in the universe changes over time need not lead us to the conclusion that the universe is meaningless. It might be meaningless, but at least one species spends a lot of time generating meaning.
Quoting Chris Liu
And, actually, we have. Our planet is in outer space, out on the edge of our galaxy, and we have colonized this planet. There are inordinate difficulties in colonizing distant planets; like, they're not at all suitable for us or they are just too far away.
Thanks a lot. Now I have better understanding of nihilism.
I thought nihilism has fundamental contradiction with pragmatism and secular humanism. It seems not from your words, right?
Thank you very much. I do searched a lot before I chose the word perdure.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Right. Maybe I should change it into "Darwin's discovery of evolution showed us a seemed meaningless universe."
Quoting Bitter Crank
It IS difficult. But humans' technologies are developing fast. Elon Musk has actually started to do it. Humans have years to go to make it practical.
How about NASA, ESA, the Russian space agency, Chinese space Agency, etc?
Musk? Elon Musk and 50¢ won't get you a cup of coffee.
This looks to be an example of the Naturalistic Fallacy - deriving an ought from an is without due diligence.
This is actually flawed at the base level. Each living being dies, and that's a fundamental discontinuity in life. Evolution, which is a changing of the existing forms of life, as time passes, is dependent on this fundamental discontinuity. So your assumption of continuity is discordant with this fundamental principle.
No, I disagree that nihilism is in contradiction with pragmatism or secular humanism, though dark nihilism is. Nihilism mostly has implications for things besides objective meaning such as objective morality, religions such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and more, the validity of obligation and responsibility and other such things, which some might argue hold greater authority than a nihilist can accept due to the rejection of objective meaning.
Of course, nihilists can interpret all kinds of things from nihilism and even what I've listed, you might find nihilists who don't agree.
Meaning of life = high dopamine levels.
Or just do what makes you happy. If doing what you are doing makes others unhappy, they will make you unhappy so you will stop. So it should all just work out automatically.
The meaning of life is at the epicenter of our lives. It has been the topic of much discussion ,will be the topic of much discussion, and It is a question that must be answered in order to obtain satisfaction in life. A question that has been asked for centuries by humanity.
Humanity, we see it in movies all the time, an alien race from outer space tries to attack us, tries to destroy us, but humans are special. Humans have something about them that allows us to overcome anything. I want you to ask yourselves, what makes us special, what makes us different from any other living thing? Ladies and gentlemen, it is the ability to form communities, and it is through looking out for others that those communities can continue to function. When I was a kid, I’d fall and my parents would be there to pick me back up, when I broke my arm on my birthday, I felt alone. I felt alone until I heard a knock at my door and my friends came bursting through that door with chicken nuggets and butterfingers. I felt amazing, I felt love, and I saw what humanity is capable of. The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau was famous for his belief that humanity is inherently good. To be honest, It took awhile for me to believe that. There’s so much evil in the world, so much hate, so much selfishness, how could the world ever be inherently good? As I grew up, and life threw more and more trials at me, more and more people came to help me get through them. The harder the trial, the more support I got, and I started to realize that I wasn’t facing life alone, I never was.
History is important to look at when trying to unravel the meaning of life. As long as the modern man has existed, communities have existed as well and that is because without communities, humanity would crumble. Starting with hunter gatherer civilizations people found their place in their tribes, whether it was hunting, creating shelter, or medicine. Ever since then we have seen an endless amount of different communities, from Native American Tribes, Scottish Clans, and even the Boy Scouts. in the history of humanity, we see not only the death, destruction, and wars, but we also see groups of people. Communities can only exist through one thing, and that’s caring for others.
We are different in so many ways, we have different tastes, different jobs, different races and different backgrounds, but as different as we are, we are just as united. We are all human, we all have potential, we all are capable of good. And we all have the same meaning of life.I think that the biggest misconception about the meaning of life is that is the meaning of YOUR life, that its special to you. it’s not the meaning of your life. Every single person is born with the responsibility to help others, just not in the same ways. Some people are born in a way that they may not be able to carry you across a finish line when you break your leg, but if you try hard enough they will bring you joy and if there’s somebody that you can’t see any good in, then you’re not looking hard enough.
One of my greatest fears is that someday, something bad will happen, and I won’t be able to do anything about it. I will have to watch while someone gets hurt while I sit helplessly thinking about what I could have done. That’s something that every single one of us will have to deal with at some point but that is why humans exist in groups, because while we may not be able to do something by ourselves, I truly believe that together, not as conservative and liberal, not as black and white, but as humans, there isn’t a single thing that we cannot achieve. Right now, we are not as united as we could be, but I know that someday, if we continue to work towards helping those around you, we will start to change, we will grow closer, and we will be able to do amazing things.
Some of the most important questions that we have in life are how questions. “How does this change anything?” unless you take the steps to improve, and make a commitment to change, then nothing will change at all. “How can I change?” take a step back and make a plan. Take a moment and look at who you have become. Notice the parts in you that you don’t want to see in others and make a plan with an end goal. “How can I change my surroundings?” Be a good example, as Mahatma Gandhi said, “Be the change that you want to see in the world.” If you can’t change yourself, how can you expect others to change?
Ladies and gentleman, There are monsters in the world, and these monsters are mortal men, men are born but monsters are created, created by hatred, created by disgust and unacceptance, if we want to get rid of these monsters, we must help those around us, help them to smile, and help them to live, this is the meaning of life, and this is how humanity will survive, this is how humanity will thrive, not through war and hate but through love and kindness. You cannot stand in a dark room and expect light to come out of nowhere. You must be the one to flip the switch and bring light in, and if there’s no electricity then light a candle. Help others, this is the meaning of life.
Humankind, understood as the set of all humans who lived and will live, has no meaning. The essence of it - if there is such a thing - would be the set of biological mechanisms which have lived. Again, they have no meaning, except as being an object of the biological science.
That being said, we can interpret non-meaningful things as having meaning. It is the power of imagination. We can say that clouds have shapes of animals. In the same vein, we can consider human life (or life in general) as a narrative, and then attribute meaning to its elements within the broader narrative.
What is the story of life? It came about, it will end.
Therefore, we must search for the meaning of life in its finitude: we die, the Sun will swallow the Earth, the Big Crunch will end it all.
When we search for the meaning of life, we impose something which comes from consciousness (meaning) unto something which is temporary existence. We humans, the universe knowing itself, believe in something greater than ourselves: meaning to our brief existence.
Personally, as an atheist, I find that this line of reasoning reeks of spiritualism. And therefore I content myself in attributing no meaning to life, although as an anthropological insight, it seems to me that those who see meaning in life are affirming some sort of spiritual reality.
Quoting Bitter Crank
:grin:
Quoting julian kroin
To me, asking the meaning of the universe is more arrogant, since we know little about the fate of the universe and nothing about what's before or after (if any) the universe or what's outside the universe.
Quoting whollyrolling
Simplistic, feral, vacuous? That's a more apt description of your post than of the human race. I've always found it interesting, how difficult it can be to really crushingly respond to someone without fault. It's rare to see. Your post has poor grammar throughout, you misuse words, you posit a lot of falsehood. The whole post is nothing but self-indulgent rambling.
I don't disagree that life has no objective meaning but have a little class, OP has been respectful and willing to engage in meaningful conversation.
Okay then, refer to things humans are doing to enhance the planet and enrich their own lives as well as those of other species, and explain what was achieved by causing at least several thousand species' extinction. My post very well might have poor grammar and sentence structure because I was ranting and didn't claim I was writing an essay. I posted no falsehood, and I invite you to prove it.
Correct me if i'm quoting you wrong but i do not believe evolution excludes god or gods. At the minimum i think religion and devotion to something greater than ourselves is a product of evolution. Thats my opinion. Bees and Ants serve their queens and they have really small brains.
Ranting or not ranting, OP actually has better grammar than you so it makes you look stupid to insult him for his. I don't actually disagree that OP has made dubious and unsubstantiated claims but take a look in the mirror. Even if we granted a disregard for other species or the planet, that isn't even close to what you initially said and how you interpret the past is just a result of your own choices. Your perspective of humans as seeing them as no different than the mindless, unthinking organisms they evolved from is also just one option and not a particularly pragmatic or interesting one.
You're arguing morality is entirely nurtured? Do you think it's just something we made up and has no biological or evolutionary basis? That in of itself is a controversial claim and if it isn't just nurtured, people don't just "choose" to follow it, they can really only try to choose not to and I don't think they'd see that much success. Are you also arguing against free will? More controversial claims and in my estimation, this one is even more ludicrous than the first but some very intelligent people don't agree with me so let's say that has yet to be demonstrated to be a falsehood for argument's sake.
You agree there's no objective meaning and so you agree you've only interpreted the meaning of the human race as being to spread bacteria across space. That's potentially valid but there's no reason for me to care about such a shallow way of thinking. The falsehoods you posited were that your interpretations of humans are facts and that's something you're still doing. I don't actually care to debate the basis of morality, free will or the subjective meaning of human existence. I only commented on your post because someone actually praised it and I thought OP deserved for someone to show how juvenile you were actually being and are.
Where in the rule book does it state that all posts must be interesting? You're wrong about grammar, but you don't see that because you lack understanding, and that's okay.
"Morality" is a subjective extrapolation of base survival instinct, and it has been crafted throughout history in such a way as to categorize humans separately from other animals because humans don't understand the purpose of consciousness and because consciousness fears mindlessness as much as it fears death. I didn't claim that humans were no different from mindless organisms. I made a distinction between humans and the organisms they host.
I don't believe that we made up morality. I believe that morality is an automatic process within us that has many biological and evolutionary bases. I am arguing against free will, yes. The existence of free will has not been proven or disproven, but because we are conscious, we have a psychological inclination toward accepting the existence of free will--it confirms our biases. Considering that thoughts happen at a physical level independently from consciousness before they become comprehensible to the mind, it shouldn't be controversial to say that they are automatic processes. What makes this controversial is a strong desire for it to be untrue. It is evidence against free will.
"Meaning" is the wrong word--purpose, which suggests merely utility, is more accurate. Again, that one has "no reason to care about shallow thinking" doesn't make a thing true or untrue, but it's more likely to skew one's thinking toward a desired result than toward a true result. You continually mentioned in your post that I'm positing falsehoods, but you haven't substantiated this claim.
None of what I said is "juvenile"--to claim that someone's stance or phrasing is "juvenile" in this case only serves to dismiss you from further addressing a topic which you've already expressed an unwillingness to discuss. No one "praised" my comments.
You're not juvenile because of your beliefs, you are juvenile because instead of just ignoring a thread that you didn't like, you replied with an edgy rant.
Quoting whollyrolling
So you're not positing falsehoods but you feel it's fair to say the primary objective for humans in "crafting their morality" is to provide evidence for categorical separation from animals because (all humans) don't understand the purpose of consciousness? First of all, that's an interpretation and it's clearly not the stated aim of the people living in any period of history. Secondly, it's an incredibly baseless interpretation, now you might not mind that but think back to your criticism of OP, it doesn't make sense.
As for free will, I don't like discussing it with people who think it doesn't exist. It's a silly view.
Actually discussing anything with people who confuse interpretations with facts is unappealing. Preaching for self-awareness from someone who denies free will might be pointless but you are literally talking here of an interpretation of the meaning or purpose, your choice, being for the human race to spread bacteria across space as something that can be true/false.
I don't want to go back and forth on this, I don't need any justification to stop talking to you, there's no face to save here and even if there was, I wouldn't be worried. You want to debate free will and morality then go make a thread, such threads are always popular.
You're misconstruing my post again, and yours is so poorly written that I'm unclear what you're attempting to communicate. This thread is about the "meaning of life", which appears in its title. Free will is directly related to intrinsic meaning. As you wisely stated though, we don't have exactly the same view, so there's nothing to be gained from this conversation.
Spare me.
Quoting Chris Liu
Quoting Chris Liu
Broadly speaking, as pointed out, what you are trying to do is to deduce the meaning of life from a description of its natural history and dynamics - an ought from an is. Hume argued persuasively that the is-ought gap is unbridgeable (this is sometimes referred to as Hume's law), and his argument has impressed many since, but not everyone. Some, like the pop-philosopher Sam Harris, simply don't know better, but as naturalistic philosophy has become more popular in the latter half of the 20th century there have been conscious attempts at eroding the walls between nature and those domains that have traditionally been thought to be separate: epistemology and axiology (value and ethics) - and, for that matter, eroding the walls between epistemology and axiology as well.
If you want to learn more about this, look into naturalized epistemology and ethics.
Thanks for pointing this out.
Based on my knowledge of Hume's is-ought problem and the Naturalistic Fallacy, I think what I'm trying to do here is to respond the is-ought problem by deriving an ought from the fact that the universe tends to keep those who try the best to continue than those who don't.
Here is how:
There are those who don't try the best. It's OK to them and the universe. However, only those who do will be left in the universe in the long run. In other words, it's an objective moral goal of the lives in the universe ("ought") enforced by natural selection, which is a fact ("is"). Thus, from this point, the "ought" realm is bridged to the "is" realm.
Don't know if anyone has proposed a similar thing.
But what if the answer to your question is that there is no meaning or purpose in life, other than that which you bring with you, or otherwise acquire. It's all up to you? There is no guide to everyday behaviour that you can lean on.... :chin:
--Rick Ross
You say "in other words," but what you write then in no way follows from what came before. First, you make this bizarre attribution of moral agency to the universe without explaining how the universe could be a moral agent. Second, you do nothing to meet Hume's challenge - you just double down on your assertion that an ought follows from an is. And finally, you still have to make the leap from the alleged moral goal of the universe (?!) to that of an individual person living in that universe.
Sorry about the term "objective moral goal of the universe". Maybe changing it into "objective moral goal of the lives in the universe" could make it clearer?
To me we shouldn't be pinned on a word rather get the idea of a sentence, if you are one of those who are looking for needles in haystack then, hey.....what can we do about that....
To me there is much more meaning to life just to breath. Breathing and similarly others are just conditions. Living and being alive and life itself is knowledge, the more you have the better person you are and the less you have the more troubles you will face. Educating oneself is a good way to earn appreciation not only for yourself but for those who are interacting with you. We can all start discussions on things that we think are correct or have an idea about it, but topics like "Meaning of Life" will have 7 billions meaning or equal to the world population whatever that is now. If you ask a new born baby, he/she will have also a definition to the meaning of life if they could speak. But if you are answering the meaning of life with just its conditions then to me you are making the question more problematic.
"Continuation" in the essay does not mean continuation of an individual. It means the continuation of "forms of continuation" (e.g. a sexually reproducing species) as a whole.
The word "continuation" may be confusing. I just can not find a better word.
Thank you. I think I'll continue attacking on the problem of objective moral goal. Though I may fail, I'll try my best, since I feel that I thought something and if the objective moral goal exists it could prevent us from lost in the world that is changing faster and faster.
That's true.
It can all be summed up into one word: death.
I think, concerning the meaning of life, becoming is more fundamental than being.
Evolution does not excludes god or gods. It excludes gods from the account of life's meaning.
That's true. If that is the case, it would be more difficult for more people to reach agreement on some topics to unite these people and generate more power and we probably would resort to inherited psychological mechanisms which was developed for the primitive times.