Is everything futile?
Someone said this to me today that "when you break it all down everything is futile".
Instinctively I said yes but is there not some leeway in terms of perspective?
Is this argument purely about processes we observe and participate in in life or are all processes ends in themselves and are therefore unable to be termed futile as futility is a human construct design to determine the value of any given thing.
Instinctively I said yes but is there not some leeway in terms of perspective?
Is this argument purely about processes we observe and participate in in life or are all processes ends in themselves and are therefore unable to be termed futile as futility is a human construct design to determine the value of any given thing.
Comments (75)
Not if everything actually is futile, because then it would be futile to ask "is it all futile?"
You'd answer yes if you don't find anything useful and you don't believe that anything has a point.
You'd answer no otherwise.
So "No."
Futile relative to what?
Suppose I decide to pursue one of two goals.
To spin gold from straw
Or
To get a glass of water from the tap
Obviously one of these goals is less futile than the other.
The Borg is a just a commune of analytical philosophers. Resistance is futile.
The author of Ecclesiastes thought everything was pretty much futile, and he was being quite serious, as far as I can tell.
So the question is not genuine.
That is like saying:
"You'd answer yes if you think God exists
You'd answer no otherwise.
So "No, god doesn't exist.""
So then futility is just about purposes and uses of things like turning on the tap = hydration = useful for survival.
I guess if someone says "is everything futile?" they are talking about the whole of human life in the universe and whether it amounts to anything? So you ask relative to what? Relative to the situation where human life is meaningful or valuable in a purposive sense.
So if I paraphrase to help you understand what you should of implicitly understood already. Is human life like trying to spin gold from straw? or is it like trying to get a glass of water from a tap?
Yes and I don't think I can refute ecclesiastes in the smallest, but this was a passing comment made in seriousness that led from sarcasm.
Say you put effort in to life and got something out of it, is not what you get out of it futile still? IE all our pleasures etc? How do you define what futility is here as m-theory was saying, what is the actual reference point?
That is not my issue though, just because some people find no teleological purpose that justifies their own existence, this does not mean that it is futile for me to form and realize my own goals for my own existence.
I don't feel any obligation to justify my own existence, or human existence, or the entirety of all existence.
At least not to anyone but myself.
Just because I don't justify these things to you does not mean I lead a futile life, for it is not for you to judge my life's futility or fruitfulness for me.
Perhaps your's is a fate of futility, but I am content that mine is not.
Good point, but I wasn't looking for a belief on whether life has value or not. I was after a philosophical response that may deny the validity of even asking that question in the first place, much like what m-theory said "futile in reference to what".
Philosophy can give us a logical answer that can escape the need for belief. IE Pascals wager: http://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/826/decisions-we-have-to-make/p1
So if I said to you that I don't need to prove to you that I am a pink fairy that looks like a unicorn, what does that give me in assurity that your belief isn't incorrect.
Likewise, if you think your life is not futile because you form and realize your own goals does that make them not futile in an objective sense? All you have is a self-assured belief that your goals give your life value and therefore are not futile.
This isn't about justifying an individual life to others... It is about finding out whether ALL of human life is completely pointless.
If an individual says "my life has value", how are we to know that is true? Just because it is true to him? I am talking about collective value, not the subjective valuation of ones own existence.
Again relative to what?
Am I to imagine some cosmic being that judges the value of all of human life?
Do I take a consensus of the living and ask them to decide if humanity is worthy pursuit?
Quoting intrapersona
Assume it is not true, as long as you are not actively trying to prevent me from being content why should I care what you believe?
I sort of assumed you were. I wasn't willing to stoop to saying you looked like a unicorn.
Quoting jkop
The pink fairy needs to attend to this point. If everything is futile, then discussing futility is... futile.
To the question of? (Whether God exists?)
I'm giving the definition of "futile." What is "God exists" (or "God") the definition of?
Yes but how do you prove that?
You said
"You'd answer yes if you don't find anything useful and you don't believe that anything has a point.
You'd answer no otherwise.
So "No.""
When you say "so no" are you saying from your perspective or absolutely, that is completely unclear... did you fail to see that?
If you say "all men are liars" why should I believe you? there isn't any way out of such statements.
So when someone says to me "everything is futile really isn't it?" I am meant to say "futile to whom?" because no one can speak for anyone else.
Seems valid but when you think of it, we haven't actually proved that it all is actually NOT futile. All we have said is that saying it is all futile is not a valid claim because worth is determined subjectively by each individual. And to say one person's valuation of existent things are worthless in totality wouldn't be justified.
So we are all just sniffing our butts thinking "this smells lovely" and no one can prove otherwise. Because the moment someone tries to tell you that your butt stinks then you get a hoard of replies saying
"stinky relative to what?"
"Am I to imagine some cosmic being that judges the stinkiness of my butt?"
"Do I take a consensus of the living and ask them to decide if my butt stinks?"
I think you get my point...
But we don't know for certain that it IS futile yet, so why deny even talking about when it is only a possibility of it being so.
That would be like not flipping a coin to save your life when one side of the coin means certain death. "No coin toss for me please, it has death on one side" even though your are going to die if you don't flip it.
Yes. I failed to see that you were saying that that was unclear to you.
I'm saying from my perspective, and in my view this is necessarily from individuals' perspectives.
I find things useful. I feel there are points to various things.
Sorry, I'm a pink fairy and my butt stinks but I can't tell that it does therefore I live life for the smell of my own bumhole.
And maybe you're 13?
No, if you read the thread it actually all adds up to a very pertinent point displaying the knottedness of where the conversation is at this point.
That is what I did when I encountered the question, but do as you like.
Quoting intrapersona
So let us assume, objectively, that everything is futile.
Why should I care subjectively?
And what does mean if it is an objective fact that I don't care that everything is futile because I am content?
Quoting intrapersona
No one has proven that objectively everything is futile either.
Just because you or friend think this is some pressing dilemma I should be concerned in the offhand chance that it might be true?
You expressed an opinion, "everything is futile" I gave you mine.
You asked a question "have you ever considered the possibility that everything actually is futile" yes I have.
I pointed out that some things are decidedly less futile than other things.
What I intended for you to ask yourself is how futile is it for you to pursue the goal of trying to prove everything is futile?
How important is it for you to realize that goal?
Are there other goals that you have that are equally or more important that are less futile that you can pursue?
I have asked myself these things already.
I'd probably be more likely to buy a bridge from you at this point than to believe that denial.
As long as you acknowledge that you are content with the futility of everything, then it is fine. if you however have fooled yourself into thinking your life has worth or value in some way (butt doesn't stink) then that is a problem and that seems to be what most people are doing, at least unconsciously as a survival instinct incorporated in to rationality as the pursuit of happiness.
Lets say that everything wasn't futile though, would that make their own value systems that they cooked up any more/less valid?
On a further note, there are ways to measure objectivity right? Atom smashers, chemistry experiments, psychological case studies on behaviourism... so why can't we measure futility in the universe? because it seems to be a man-made concept that is derived from THE INABILITY TO PERCEIVE a purpose to the universe or their existence... so if they can't perceive, it does it exist? I don't think so... much in the same way that if you don't see a tree it doesn't exist. Sort of like atheism but for universal purpose, lol. We give life to things by our perception of them. So that is an argument in favor for futility as being objective in some sense, how about in opposition?
Just cause you don't have a sense of humour, you nihilist.
I did exactly that, I gave an example to measure futility, we can compare the futility of different goals to get an objective measure of the objective futility saturation.
Again it becomes very obvious that everything is not futile in equal measures.
If I don't know whether things are futile or not, how can I start pursuing other goals? If everything is futile then no goal is worth pursuing. I will just sit down and either be content or depressed until my time runs out on earth.
Having a sense of humor isn't the same thing as finding everything a 13-year-old does funny.
Ok so I turn on the tape to get water because i need it for survival = not futile.
But why survive?
it seems any practical examples you give to measure futility you end up with "why even exist?"
Do you find anything useful? If so, you don't think that everything is futile.
Are you saying it is equally likely that should not exist?
No, you're right. It's called being a uptight mammering, pox-marked haggard who can't see the value in being playful and whimsical and child-like.
I bet you hate your kids when they try to play with you. Your responses are probably "Don't be so foolish child! you need to read your books and act like a gentlemen, shame on your child!" all the while tooting your lipps and frowning your eyebrows. and they respond "but daaad, i wanna be silly".. then you respond "shut up and be mature, why can't this family be normal?"
Usefulness could be part of the self-formed delusion I was talking about:
"As long as you acknowledge that you are content with the futility of everything, then it is fine. if you however have fooled yourself into thinking your life has worth or value in some way (butt doesn't stink) then that is a problem and that seems to be what most people are doing, at least unconsciously as a survival instinct incorporated in to rationality as the pursuit of happiness."
Finding everything a 13-year-old does funny is called being an uptight, mammering, pox-marked haggard who can't see the value in being playful and whimsical and child-like? If you say so.
I am not sure. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, nevertheless where is it to be found that life isn't futile? so...
Can you be wrong about feeling that something is useful?
Yes, and those sort of characters usually only respond with only "if you say so" because deep down you know that you have lost that ability to be playful. You are just a stuffy old man who grumbles and gripes and has no imagination... isn't that so? response: "if you say so" *rolleyes*
I already gave examples of when some things are not as futile as other things.
Everything is not equally futile.
Yes, I build a new farm shed and spend hours thinking that the materials are useful. Once finished I realize I am bankrupt and someone set fire to the shed. More than that, I found out that it was DESTINY that that was going to happen.
Me? But I don't find everything a 13-year-old does funny.
Yes but if you follow all those examples to the end of their purposes (i.e. but what is the purpose of? and what is the purpose of that etc on and on) then you end up with futility (aka we don't know why we are here etc.)
Yes because you have become jaded with age. That is the downside to certain forms of maturity... I bet a 13 yr old laughs A HELL of a lot more than you do.
You can have a different opinion at a later time. That doesn't mean that your earlier opinion was wrong.
How can the default (existing) be more futile than not existing?
Non-existence can't have value placed on to it, as it is not a thing. It just is.
I thought not existing would be the default.
tis if it's fate. and tis if it wasn't... as time is a sequence, your efforts are measured in terms of what you receive because of them. If you receive nothing, your efforts were in vein.
??? You'd have to explain better why in your view fate would have anything to do with whether you can be right or wrong in an opinion of whether something is useful to you at a particular time.
I can place value on non-existence, it is more futile than existence.
I say this because I definitely cannot imagine any pursuit with a more futile goal than non-existence.
Also, for me, the default is existence, I can not remember any time that I did not exist, I can imagine such times, but I have never experienced non-existence...as far as I can tell.
I already did, you missed it because you think that what is true at one period is true is true exclusively of that period even despite later evidence that negates it. "I build a new farm shed and spend hours thinking that the materials are useful. Once finished I realize I am bankrupt and someone set fire to the shed. More than that, I found out that it was DESTINY that that was going to happen."
Right. So we disagree on what makes "useful" obtain, so to speak.
First, do you believe that it can be true or false that something is useful?
We probably don't disagree, we both know what practicality is when we see it.
Whether or not something is useful is dependant upon the use of the thing to the person or people judging what its use is. Now seeing as our lives are just an absurd blip in a something we know nothing of, we can not say what use our lives have other than to say that they have use in and of themselves to us who live the life... which is sort of self-justifying incorrectly. Sort of like saying "I exist therefor I exist", or more to the point: "My life has value, because I said and think it does". This is equivalent to us just sniffing our own arseholes and saying that it smells lovely. Is it a delusion that we think our arseholes (our lives) don't stink (have value)? What you end up with therefore, is people saying that the reason for their existence is to smell their own butts (live their life for the sake of self-perceived value). What is wrong with that? Well what is wrong with someone who believes in unicorn just because it is a self-perceived and self-validated truth. Just because YOU believe it doesn't make it any more justified, in fact it makes it LESS justified. What forms the basis of good decisions? Integrating observable phenomena with logical thinking and correlating that with repeatability in the world and in others. From what I can see, saying your life has use only to you is not integrating observable phenomena from the world or correlating it with repeatability. It is just saying "I fucking win because I say so, so shutup".
Not everything is futile so long as it's described within a context that makes action worthwhile.
But if we're talking about the state of the world, where it's going, where we are going as a species, what we're doing and why we're doing it in the first place, all within a broad, existential cosmic context, then I would say it's pretty obvious that we spend a great deal of effort fighting the unstoppable force of entropy. That surely is futility.
Actually, given what you wrote there, we very much disagree.
With the unicorn example, what's at issue is whether a particular sort of creature exists, where we're talking about something external to one's mind.
When we're talking about usefulness or value or assessments of whether something smells good or bad, etc., we're talking about something that isn't at all external to one's mind. We're talking about something that solely occurs as an individual's present/conscious mental phenomenon at a particular time.
One possible meaning is 'absurd', in which case the statement is just a less elegant restatement of Camus' famous observation of life's absurdity which, seemingly paradoxically, can be a magnificently life-affirming statement.
Another meaning is something like Keynes's observation that 'In the long run we are all dead'. When Keynes says it, he's making an important point about economics, that while we do need to focus on long term as well as short term goals, there is a diminishing utility as that long term gets further away. But some nihilists adopt this to mean that there's no point in doing anything here and now - which begs the question 'what do you mean by no point?'. To me there's plenty of point. If I can create pleasure or remove harm from somebody else or for myself, that is all the point I need.
Until you set out to do something, yes, everything is futile.
But as soon as you decide to do something...
So I could say back to them "Life is not futile, but it is absurd". Because life is useful to me if I am to enjoy living. Is that circular though?
Quoting andrewk
Yes, I have made a thread on this "why do you need to live for ever in order for life to be meaningful". When I hear 'In the long run we are all dead' it sounds so intuitively true that because we die, nothing matters. But then when you ask "why do you need to live for ever in order for life to be meaningful" it suddenly becomes clear how absurd it is to think like that. Nevertheless, I STILL THINK LIKE THAT! lol, I just can't get away from it. Maybe it has something to do with copying the same reasoning of smaller process that occur in shorter periods of time like say a person who is bugging you. You can say to yourself "oh well, they will only be around for a few more minutes, therefore it is not that bad".
Cool post. Is not that something that you set out to do ultimately futile though? Seeing as it was futile before as a default state, then you begin your endeavour to obtain a goal within that state of futility.
So if there was no mind to think of unicorns, how would they think about them? AFAIK unicorns are imaginary and imagination is a product of the mind. The analogy is no different as it's purpose was to point out the ridiculousness of believable ideas that can be justified by the self alone.
Anyway, you really didn't respond to any of the issues I raised about self-justification and circularity which I was hoping you would.
That is a pretty simple statement, so vague it has many interpretations.
I see this trend in many others areas of philosophy. A categorical distinction between words that describe simple, practical, dependant and finite processes (such as Fighting a one-man revolution, Trying to bring back the dead, Proving God's existence on pure reason, which you so elegantly laid out for us) and there is the other class which is defined in terms of absolute, universal, "cosmic".
It seems you can have non-futile actions if a futile universe. What sense does it even make to call a universe futile though? If it has no purpose, then it is futile. I doubt we can find out the answer to that so the best we can do is imagine both states where it is futile and where it isn't and decide what the differences are.
Only if you are purposely being obtuse. Let's get realistic here, the base concept is not that hard to grasp.
You really have a bad habit of saying simple things while thinking that they are easily understood. This is a forum and sentences can have multiple meanings, that is why we go in to detail and flesh out what it is we are trying to say.
When you make broad statements like "Let's get realistic here, the base concept is not that hard to grasp." You have entirely left out what concept however base it is that is not that hard to grasp.
In fact that statement really doesn't say anything about anything apart from "this is easy".
The next statement "Philosophy has become the act of taking the simple and making it sound far more complicated than it is." is a quote i have heard many times and doesn't really contribute anything to what has been said.
If you want to make good conversations then you have to address SPECIFICALLY what someone has said and not just make brief statements that could exist on there own without any context to this thread.
Or I can just move on and find someone that doesn't need everything explained to them.
Quoting m-theory
An act is futile iff it will not produce a useful result; if it is without purpose. But purposes are not things we find floating around the place; they are things we decide to do. Something can only be futile in relation to a given purpose.
So "ultimately futile" is a senseless expression, in that it is an attempt to make use of the notion of futility without a purpose.
Is everything futile? Yes, if you set no goals.
I wouldn't say the universe itself is futile. Maybe it could be argued that it has a knack at creating futility. Or in a more absurdist light, the universe is programmed to maximize irony. Ha!
Actions, processes, goals, those sorts of things are futile, again in terms of a limiting context.
Some things are only mental phenoma though. Those things include values, assessments (of things like usefulness), etc.
Re "self-justification and circularity," when we're talking about something like values and assessments of usefulness, we're not talking about truth claims. We're talking about how someone feels about something.
I think many of us are raised in the context of religion. If not in the context of religion proper (God created the world and will eventually judge), then in terms of moral, intellectual, and technological Progress. As for so many others, God went and died on me as I read some books and did some passionate thinking. Perhaps one still believes in progress, but there's no apparent stopping point for this progress, so there's a new open-endedness. Then of course there one's own abandonment of personal immortality. This is probably the real source of the interest in futility.
I'd say that the fantasy is to escape death culturally if not biologically. If only we can write the great American novel or a work of philosophy that men will not willingly drop down the memory hole, THEN our essence, particular and yet somehow universalized in language while retaining that particularity, will survive at least as long as humanity does. Pretty grandiose, yes? And maybe this motive in individuals has served us well as a species. The problem of course is that we now see ourselves as relative microbes in a vast darkness that will eventually obliterate us. We have to learn to affirm total death, an erasure of the most hard-won and precious truths and works that personality as mask is made of. So I read "everything as futile" in terms of "immortality is impossible." It's the death of God reverberating.
But then our itch for ultimate meaning is, in my view, really much smaller than our itch for present tense satisfaction and our concern with the nearer future. Our concern "fades out" as we look further into the future. This squares with the increasing uncertainty of the future as we move away from the present. If we stress the function of consciousness as a path-finder or decision maker, it more or less wastes its computational resources worrying about not-yet-likely possibilities in the context the likely possibilities of the near future. Humans are not disembodied intelligence, though philosophers impressively push decontextualized thinking to extremes. We might even look to see whether apparently non-local concerns don't function symbolically as signs of virtue or authority among local concerns. For example, perhaps an individual embraces the pain of ultimate futility for the pleasure of escaping all authority and responsibility in the long run --in other words for the thrill of the "unbearable lightness of being."