Meaning of life

If we dumped out a collection of stuff onto a table, you'd be able to meaningfully sort through it on the basis of what might be useful to you at a present or future date.

We assess the value of things, people (et cetera).

If you were heavily depressed, to the point that you couldn't even look at the stuff I dumped out on to the table, then maybe there has been a significant loss in the capacity to find value in those things.

Depressed and anxious people are likely to say that "life has no meaning." Maybe there are perceived barriers to acquiring a meaningful state of being for many people.

I often think that if I only had tons of money, life would be more enjoyable, since the tedium and unpleasantness of work could be dispensed with in pursuit of other options (meaningful kinds of work).

Meaninglessness only has a semantic meaning within the context of meaning itself...

In other words, meaninglessness is ultimately an apophatic way of understanding meaning. We're slowly moving towards this in the West.

We can get away with saying "the world is meaningless" but not "human life is meaningless". Our celestial ball spins about its radiant star according to all sorts of physical and chemical rules, one of which is NOT "must have meaning". Our lives, on the other hand, are inherently meaningful. and must have meaning, because we are by nature "meaning makers".

We are meaning makers because we speak complex languages and wield complex culture, all of which is about meaning. Our lives can no more be "meaningless" than lifeless planets and stars can be "meaningful".

I hesitate to say that all life is meaningful because much of the glorious life which we inhabit follows physical and chemical rules, like the planet itself. We can make plastic pine trees meaningful to us, but we can't make plastic pine trees meaningful to each other.

The amazing thing about us meaning makers is that we are the long-evolving outcomes of species who were not meaning makers. Meaning makers are a very recent phenomena in the very long history of our world. How long we have been making meaning is how long we have had language and culture, and 'how long' is... 125,000 years? 250,000 years? 500,000 years? 1,000,000 years? Don't know, but at some point...

So, people who say that their lives are meaningless are wrong. They may loathe their lives and wish to put an end to them forthwith, but they can't escape meaning. Meaning just goes with the territory of being human.

Reply to Bitter Crank I disagree. We may have created the concept of meaning, and we may be able to apply that to our individual lives. That doesn't mean that life as a concept has it's own objective meaning or purpose. Life is as far as I can tell completely random. That isn't necessarily a bad or good thing, it just is. The closest thing to an objective truth about the meaning of human life is to survive and procreate, but that is just one aspect of life. Life is too vague a concept to apply meaning to.

Quoting MonfortS26

We may have created the concept of meaning

Explain???

I agree with BC's assessment. But also, meaning must predate language and culture, even if it just comes down to a rudimentary quality of experience adapted by instincts.

Is a carrot meaningful to an elephant?
Does a mouse find any pleasure in a cookie crumb?

Yes.

Quoting Emptyheady

What do people mean when they say: "what is the meaning of life?" or "life has no meaning."

First, that's not the same sense of "meaning" as "What do you mean" when we don't understand what someone is getting at, or "What is the meaning, in mathematics, of 'imaginary number'" where we're looking for the definition of that term. I only mention this because some responses seem to be confusing the different senses of meaning.

In the context of a meaning of life, people have in mind an overarching goal or significance or purpose. It basically assumes that there's an intelligent, goal-oriented "reason that we're here." That there's something (or some multiple set of things) that we're meant to do or focus on in our lives, or at least that there's something (or some multiple set of things) that will make our lives fulfilled or worthwhile if we do them or focus on them.

Quoting Emptyheady

There are some nihilists who claim that life has no (objective) meaning,

Right, and I'm one of them.

Quoting Emptyheady

I think that statements like "life is meaningless" are unintelligible (and nonsensical) without describing the opposite in a coherent way. It is a statement claiming that this world lacks something (i.e. meaning), but they do not describe that something in an understandable coherent way.

Although I described above what "meaning of life" is getting at, in my opinion you're suggesting a principle here that doesn't hold water. One can "intelligibly" deny that there's some x where we only have a vague idea what someone might have in mind by their talk of x. We're simply saying that insofar as we can make any sense of what x might be referring to, there is no such thing. I'd agree that there's not much point to denying an x where we have no idea what someone is referring to, but in most cases, especially where we're talking about an x that many people talk about, we'll have at least some vague idea of the sort of thing they might be getting at.

Reply to Noble Dust If it weren't for us creating language, we wouldn't be able to conceptualize meaning. Meaning is just a word in a language that we created. Therefore we created the concept of meaning.

Quoting Emptyheady

What do people mean when they say: "what is the meaning of life?" or "life has no meaning."

I think they're showing they've reached a level of abstract understanding where the mind is so prominently present that "mere" physical stimuli alone do not suffice in keeping occupied enough to refrain from using the mind to wonder if it's somehow disconnected from everything, or if it's possible to disconnect from a body which cannot be fully governed by the conscious mind.

I see the ability to pose such questions and being able to be really bothered / rejoiced by (a lack of) answers as a form of mental maturity, which I find quite meaningful seeing it hints at a progressive development.

Quoting Emptyheady

What do people mean when they say: "what is the meaning of life?" or "life has no meaning."

They first seem to assume that life should have one primary or all-encompassing meaning, and since there can be no such monstrosity some get stuck asking what that meaning is without ever finding an answer. Others therefore conclude, but incorrectly, that life has no meaning (a conclusion that arises from an incorrect assumption).

I'd say life consists of uncountable meanings, or varieties of meanings: some are found, others created.

Quoting Emptyheady

What do people mean when they say: "what is the meaning of life?" or "life has no meaning."

There are some nihilists who claim that life has no (objective) meaning, but what does a world look like where life does have (objective) meaning? They describe the absence of something that is not clear to me.

I think that statements like "life is meaningless" are unintelligible (and nonsensical) without describing the opposite in a coherent way. It is a statement claiming that this world lacks something (i.e. meaning), but they do not describe that something in an understandable coherent way.

I am not merely looking for a semantic discussion, but also metaphysical and perhaps even psychological aspects of this discussion.

If I said life has no objective meaning , the point I am expressing is that there is no overarching thing which is relying on us to fulfill some plan, which that thing would be advantaged by. The universe is neutral to us and our endeavors.

We humans are the source of what we deem has meaning ( subjective), because we are not neutral regarding our own existence , we can have the role of that overarching thing. Non-neutrality is the source of meaning.

Sometimes depressed people may say they feel like life has no meaning , and I imagine their sentiment is that they feel no connection to a social group , religion , or plan , from which they can derive a satisfaction that they have a value, and it rubs against their insecurities.
They have not fully taken on the role of attributing the meaning in their lives to themselves, or, having done so , feel that they have failed.
So they are sad because they feel like they need value , attributed by someone or something else, and they haven't found it.
IMO

So I have read all the comments so far, but my question is not really answered.

Quoting Terrapin Station

In the context of a meaning of life, people have in mind an overarching goal or significance or purpose. It basically assumes that there's an intelligent, goal-oriented "reason that we're here."

Is this source of meaning objective (i.e. mind independent)? I think not, by the way you describe it, because purpose entails an intelligence with intentions.

I think that subjective meaning is intelligible, but objective meaning is not.

I agree with Camus' Absurdism, but I think that it is not only humanly impossible to find inherent meaning of life, but also logically (and metaphysically) impossible (i.e. incoherent) -- at the very best it is nonsensical/unintelligible.

I am curious to the psychology behind this. Some people mentioned depression, which I consider a mental disorder/illness and therefore adds no philosophical defence to the debate. It does give some interesting insights to what people might mean with those statements, but I think we ought to be careful not to conflate it with happiness.

Spirituality is closely related to the notion of meaning of life, which I addressed in this post. Women are more spiritual, but I would not conclude from that that women's lives are therefore more meaningful than men's lives.

The keywords here seems to be: "a sense of purpose."

I am temped to apply the Error Theorist's approach and consider the sense of purpose an error but nevertheless a useful fiction.

Quoting Emptyheady

Is this source of meaning objective (i.e. mind independent)? I think not,

I think not, too. But a lot of people think so. Hence folks on my side saying that there is no such (objective) thing.

For contrast, If the universe did exercise will, then I figure we would see inexplicable suspensions of the physical laws. Ex: The universe wants men in space, we might see a suspension of gravity and we'd all float off.
Since the laws appear to be constant , one can assume the universe is not exercising any will. One might still figure the universe to 'want' some thing to happen, but If we have free will and dont know what that thing is, we couldn't fulfill it, even if we wanted to.

Quoting MonfortS26

If it weren't for us creating language, we wouldn't be able to conceptualize meaning. Meaning is just a word in a language that we created. Therefore we created the concept of meaning.

I think the notion that we "created language" is a serious flaw here, and the implications for "meaning" one way or another are pretty significant. The level of development of consciousness needed to "create" such a complex, dynamic thing as language from the ground up would be a level that would already include language itself. In other words, the notion that we created language is a brash projection of our current level of consciousness unto the past. Owen Barfield describes in Poetic Diction and other books of his how most words have metaphorical origins:

"One of the first things that a student of etymology...discovers for himself is that every modern language, with its thousands of abstract terms and its nuances of meaning and association, is apparently nothing, from beginning to end, but an unconscionable tissue of dead, or petrified, metaphors. If we trace the meanings of a great many words - or those of the elements of which they are composed - about as far back as etymology can take us, we are at once made to realize that an overwhelming proportion, if not all, of them referred in earlier days to one of these two things - a solid, sensible object, or some animal (probably human) activity. Examples abound on every page of the dictionary. Thus , an apparently objective scientific term like elasticity, on the one hand, and the metaphysical abstract on the other, are both traceable to verbs meaning 'draw' or 'drag'... epithet, theme, thesis, anathema, hypothesis, etc., go back to a Greek verb, 'to put'..." - Poetic Diction, p. 63-64

So, language evolves along with consciousness, by way of metaphor. The meanings of actual words evolve in relation to this process. Language, meaning, and consciousness are all inseparably linked.

Quoting Emptyheady

There are some nihilists who claim that life has no (objective) meaning,

I don't take 'objective' to be synonymous with 'inherent'. The world has no objective meaning because their is no coherent conception of objective meaning. The closest one could get would be intersubjective meaning. The world has inherent meaning because meanings are intersubjective; it is an intersubjective world.

Reply to Noble Dust I think we're just arguing semantics here. I'm not saying that we created English straight from scratch. A chair maker doesn't will the chair into existence. They build it piece by piece. If it weren't for our consciousness would our language exist? If it weren't for our species, would the concept of meaning exist?

Quoting Noble Dust

I think the notion that we "created language" is a serious flaw here,

At first I was wondering, "Well, where the heck do you think that language came from if not humans?" But then I realized that you were simply taking issue with the idea of creation as an intentional act. "Creation" isn't always meant that way, though. People often use it the sense of, "Man I shouldn't have eaten those beans--it created so much gas in my body!": Folks aren't saying that the beans interacting with their body intentionally created gas. Just that that was the source of the gas.

Quoting John

The world has inherent meaning because meanings are intersubjective; it is an intersubjective world.

How would intersubjectivity--assuming that it refers to anything more significant than "people can interact with and agree with each other," which I don't agree with, but I'll go with the idea for the sake of argument--enable something like meaning in this sense to be inherent?

Debating this concept in order to grasp an understanding of one's self isn't really productive, in a sense, because we only ever understand someone one else's point of view from our own personal perspective. Unless, of course, we have previously experienced their point of view, first hand, which would mean we were only talking to ourselves for the answer.

Reply to Terrapin Station

It's pretty obvious. In the process of growing up, of becoming enculturated, you introject the shared meanings of your culture. If you want to deny that this happens, then you are simply ignoring all the evidence.

You say you don't agree that "people can interact with and agree with one another". Well, how could we be having this conversation if we didn't agree about what the phrase " People can interact and agree with one another" means? How could we disagree about whether that really happens unless we agree upon what it would mean for it to happen, and thus agree upon what the sentence you have have used proposes does happen?

Quoting Emptyheady

There are some nihilists who claim that life has no (objective) meaning, but what does a world look like where life does have (objective) meaning? They describe the absence of something that is not clear to me.

I think when people ask what the meaning of life is, they are asking what general purpose or goal does life fulfill that makes it "important", and that aligns well with our own evolutionary narcissism.

But there is no ultimate cosmic purpose for life that isn't simultaneously nauseating (a la Nietzsche). God is not our friend.

So we have two different perspectives at work here: we need meaning, and we need this meaning to make sense and reassure us. If we have no meaning, then there's nothing to reassure us. And if we have meaning but it's a gross and horrifying meaning, this also doesn't reassure us. So it all comes down to finding some way of reassuring ourselves of our place in the world.

And the fact is that, although morality likely evolved out of social conventions thousands of years ago, the compassion-based morality that we are all so familiar with is in direct conflict with the whims of the cosmos at large. Human projects are almost always about finding a way to oppose the oppressive drive of entropy in some way or another. We live in an indifferent world, and can know this by an honest empirical evaluation of the relationship between organisms and their environment, which is characterized by agent-less violence and destruction.

The search for meaning, then, is a consequence of living in an inadequate and insufficient environment.

Must be time to dump some irresponsibly absurd video clip on this enlightening discussion.

Quoting darthbarracuda

So we have two different perspectives at work here: we need meaning, and we need this meaning to make sense and reassure us. If we have no meaning, then there's nothing to reassure us. And if we have meaning but it's a gross and horrifying meaning, this also doesn't reassure us. So it all comes down to finding some way of reassuring ourselves of our place in the world.

The interesting question is: "why do we need the reassurance of our place in the world?" We may have to enter the field of psychology here.

I haven't heard anyone mentioning the relevance of death. The fact that we are mortal beings plays a role in the search of meaning. Some speak about how they would like to be remembered or what legacy they would like to leave behind after their death.

Now, I am personally quite apathetic to death. The fact that I am mortal and that some day I will die bother me as much as the fact that a film ends. It does not ruin the experience of watching the film, to the contrary, imagine if the film never ended, that would bother me much more. Another appropriate analogy is a party.

I hear some religious people claim that the absence of afterlife makes life on earth as mortal beings meaningless. Quite a strange thought that I can not really follow.

Reply to John

(1) It seems like you're shifting to "meaning" in the semantic sense rather than "meaning" in the "purpose"/"meaning of life" sense.

(2) I don't see how being enculturated etc. would amount to meaning being inherent. Maybe we're using different definitions of "inherent"?

(3) I suppose I wasn't clear enough in my earlier comment. I wasn't saying that I don't agree that people can interact with and agree with one another. I was saying that I don't agree that intersubjectivity amounts to anything more than that. (With the upshot that I don't agree that intersubjectivity enables meaning to be inherent in either sense of "meaning.")

Quoting Terrapin Station

(1) It seems like you're shifting to "meaning" in the semantic sense rather than "meaning" in the "purpose"/"meaning of life" sense.

(2) I don't see how being enculturated etc. would amount to meaning being inherent. Maybe we're using different definitions of "inherent"?

(3) I suppose I wasn't clear enough in my earlier comment. I wasn't saying that I don't agree that people can interact with and agree with one another. I was saying that I don't agree that intersubjectivity amounts to anything more than that. (With the upshot that I don't agree that intersubjectivity enables meaning to be inherent in either sense of "meaning.")

(1) Semantic meaning is inherent to any "meaning of life", at least insofar as we can speak about it.

(2) we are enculturated into worlds, into life, into life worlds. So, a chair has an inherent meaning within the life world we share. The meaning of a chair is intrinsic to that life world, and it would not be what it is outside of that life world, it would not be a chair outside that life world or one like it, and nor would the life world be what it is without chairs.

(3) It seems I misunderstood what you were claiming. But in any case, I still disagree with you: it is only intersubjecivity that enables meanings to be inherent within intersubjective worlds, and in fact that enables the very intersubjective worlds themselves to exist. in other words you can't have a world without intersubjectivity, and worlds are inherently meaningful.

Reply to John

Here are some conventional definitions of "inherent":

* "existing in something as a permanent, essential, inseparable attribute."

* "involved in the constitution or essential character of something."

* "We use the adjective inherent to describe attributes that are part of the essential nature of something. It's different from you being tall, rather than being a description, it has to be a quality and this quality is unchangeable."

Is this the way you are using "inherent"?

I feel we are all here, dabbling or paddling in philosophy, in search of meanings, however the term is defined. It's an enjoyable pursuit, it tests the mental faculties, and brings me into contact with other interested people.

It feels to me that the human is a meaning-seeking animal. That'll do me.

Quoting mcdoodle

I feel we are all here, dabbling or paddling in philosophy, in search of meanings

I'm here for purposes of enjoyment/entertainment, to "stay in practice" (re both thinking and writing in a philosophical context), and with some hope of casual, friendly interaction. I wouldn't say that I'm "searching" for anything in a more significant sense.

Reply to Terrapin Station

Yes.

Reply to John

How are you figuring that meaning (in either sense) is permanent/unchanging? Doesn't at least some meaning shift over time?

Reply to Terrapin Station

I haven't said that particular meanings are permanent, just that meaning itself is permanently present.

Reply to John

So you're just saying that it's a permanent, essential, inseparable attribute of the world that there are meanings . . . as long as people exist? (Which doesn't seem so permanent)

Maybe you're just saying that it's a permanent, essential, inseparable attribute of the "sentent world" or something like that? (Although still "permanent" seems weird to me if we're qualifying it as something that's not permanent in the broader picture)

Reply to Terrapin Station

I'm saying that without people there is no world. But this is not to say there would be nothing at all. It isn't intelligible in any but a purely formal logical sense to say that the things of our experience, namely the world with its entities and relations, exist absent our experience,

So, I am saying that it doesn't make any real sense to make an ontological claim that the things we experience exist in the fullest sense; i.e. as we experience them materially to be, independent of our experience.

Of course in the everyday way of talking it is logical to say that they exist independently of any and all individual experiences; their existence is a collective inter-subjective representation which is independent of any and all individual experiences. How that is possible is not susceptible of analysis, because our language and discursive thought is out of its depth when it tries to penetrate beyond the empirical.

Reply to John

Every sentence of that last comment, pretty much every phrase, seems completely ridiculous to me. I could try to sort it out so that your view that meanings are inherent via intersubjectivity makes some sense to me under the umbrella of your views, but that would likely take way more work than you'd have any patience for, given that I find pretty much all of the above ridiculous.

Reply to Terrapin Station

That's OK, I also find most of what you say ridiculous; so there probably isn't any point in conversing, it's not likely that any point of commonality will ever be reached. It'd just be a case of perennially talking past one another, and time's too precious to waste on that!

Life is 70% ridiculous and 25% horrific and 5% everything else.

So any discussion about the meaning of the meaning of life is by default ridiculous.

Reply to John

We agree on that at least. ;-)

Asking what the meaning of life is asks what its ultimate purpose is, and the answer will be difficult to accept if one denies the existence of any higher power that created a purpose for our existence. If you are of the mindset that nothing we do matters outside of our own fixed bubble of interpretation, but that some just more vigorously push the rock up the hill than others just to watch it roll back down, then, sure, life has no meaning. We're just a random energy form resulting from billions of years of random collisions that now consumes and then exudes for no particular reason. If one day these random collisions result in our complete demise, what could be said of the past billions of years other than it was a cool yet protracted array of cosmic nonsense?

Trying to explain purpose to the godless seems a wasted exercise. None of this is to say that I know the meaning of it all, but if you limit yourself to causative explanations for everything, you necessarily foreclose the possibility of purpose.

Reply to Hanover

Yes, without God there can be no overarching purpose, and even then...there is a distinction between what is understood in the light of deity to be overarching human purpose, and what we might imagine to be the overarching cosmic purpose. The two may only come together if God is understood not to be impossibly remote.

Quoting Hanover

if you limit yourself to causative explanations for everything, you necessarily foreclose the possibility of purpose.

hear ye, hear ye

I've always thought that that was an odd question to ask someone other than one's self. What the meaning and or purpose of your life is has little to do with another's response to the question. My guess is that that's why it's hard to ever believe someone else's answer. I know what my meaning and purpose is and it definitely isn't pointless.

Life is definitely without objective meaning, but it is because of this that life can have any meaning we assign to it.

Some seem to get depressed by the lack of a clearly shaped purpose in life, but it has only ever made me feel free to shape my life in the direction I want. A life with objective meaning would be a prison to many people; it is only in a life without meaning that we are truly free.

Al right, I am sick of this secular nihilism.

Here is some purpose to life for everybody to follow, an objective biological telos regarding human flourishing, namely to procreate with a stable long term traditional family.

More than one wife is traditional in some parts of the world. What cultural script should we follow?

Reply to Nils Loc If more than one wife is optimal to human flourishing, then so be it.

Quoting Emptyheady

Al right, I am sick of this secular nihilism.

Here is some purpose to life for everybody to follow, an objective biological telos regarding human flourishing, namely to procreate with a stable long term traditional family.

I refuse to restrict my life to your standards. I mean if having a "traditional" family is your thing go for it, but doesn't mean my life is defined by your telos.

Quoting Jeremiah

Life is definitely without objective meaning

Quite an objective statement!

Quoting Noble Dust

Quite an objective statement!

And?

Reply to Noble Dust Quoting Noble Dust

Quite an objective statement!

Reply to Jeremiah Quoting Jeremiah

And?

>:O

Reply to Jeremiah

And seems self-refuting.

Quoting Noble Dust

And seems self-refuting.

Then think about it some more.