The Meaning of Life
- Thread starter La Sagna
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[MENTION=9401]LucyJr[/MENTION]
I had to throw away meaning in order to live. I learned to value absurdity and chaos - breaking the system is what allowed me to be free.
It was true that I more energetically sought meaning for a while, but I'm the type of person who never stops. It seems some people who must have meaning just stop looking after a while and accept where they landed as their version meaning, but I could not do this, I simply found infinite regression. I would always reach a point where I'd ask "well what is the meaning of this now?"
I had to take on a more Zen aesthetic. There are more visceral and transcendent things that go beyond meaning or purpose. Some times things that are 'empty' are the most beautiful and worthwhile.
Like why did I build this huge space pagoda, block by block over several days? I don't know, doesn't mean anything and it doesn't have to as far as I'm concerned, and it's still not finished, but I have something to work on. Why? Why do people climb mountains?
And to give an idea of it, each block would be 1 meter, and the pagoda is nearly 300 meters high. If it were real, it would be a 90 story building. The island is three football fields across.
Yes, but in your search for "beyond meaning" you don't do this meaningless. Something drives you to search for truth, to search for meaning. "Beyond meaning" and valuing absurdity and chaos is still meaning. The question is, is the right one?
You also presuppose at least one objective value in your search for outside of meaning, which is freedom. Another value would be the right to seek for that value, to fight for it. If freedom is an objective value, then its objectivity implies at least one meaningful value.
Freedom cannot create values, because freedom presupposes objective values. If freedom is really good, it must be freedom from something really bad, thus assuming some objective good and bad. And some objectives good and bad implies that some things are meaningful, while others not.
This is not to criticise your view, this is just my opinion on nihilism with regard to meaning. It's just that in my search for meaning I would come to the conclusion that in denying objective meaning would be meaningful at least in this very sense, implying that I can't deny objective meaning.
The very question of this thread "What is the meaning of life?" or "There is any meaning?" is meaning, because it's a question which bring along significance. Our very interest to pose this very question on meaning, it's a question full of meaning, full of significance.
You can't ask for significance or point the problem of significance in the humanity's life if you don't have a sense of objective significance, of absolute significance. If you don't have this sense, if you don't intuitively know there is such a thing as absolute or objective meaning, the you could not see and think at such a thing as a question "Is there any meaning?".
In other word, this is one of the questions that answers itself.
You can't ask for significance or point the problem of significance in the humanity's life if you don't have a sense of objective significance, of absolute significance. If you don't have this sense, if you don't intuitively know there is such a thing as absolute or objective meaning, the you could not see and think at such a thing as a question "Is there any meaning?".
In other word, this is one of the questions that answers itself.
The meaning of life is to create meaning. All action, thought and belief are the function of decisions that are ordered out of consequences and previously observed and identified patterns of action and thought potentials. We rarely stray beyond the guiding principles of what we believe about our abilities and individual and collective existence... and that in itself is a huge pool of possibilities. The things we focus on are the things we become and how we in turn live, interpret and shape our lives.
That being said, there are multiple meanings, including no meaning at all.
That being said, there are multiple meanings, including no meaning at all.
Nope. You supposed that but I'm not trapped in such supposition.
Yes I have some drive to search for truth insofar that I have a drive to live in the world and deal with it. In reality I'd prefer not to. I feel the best when I'm not consciously evaluating what's best to me. There's no searching and no meaning, and there is no "right one." If I have to worry about the right choice then nothing at all has changed and it's the same vicious cycle.
No because it's a subjective freedom. It changes nothing about me or the world so therefore there's nothing objective to it. It's also not very meaningful either because there's nothing in my life or the world that defines it - I've simply decided that it is so regardless of what happens.
It only supposes that I've decided I am free because I have that power regardless of good or bad. I don't even truly have to distinguish this so much because ultimately I can coin flip good/bad if I feel like it. I can take the same situations and modify my own views on them, which makes me a force. I can decide what is good, bad, indifferent, and also decide how I value my decision making process itself, and further evaluate the meta sense of how my own philosophy relates to my own self.
Some people are like that. Personally I don't care that I'm entirely subjective because it lets me make it be what I will. I find this valuable yes, but that's because I've decided that it is.
I don't need to search when I can basically invent.
I appreciate your honesty. If evolution is true, that's the only logical conclusion.
"'Whither is God?' he cried, 'I shall tell you. We have killed him–you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night and more night coming on all the while? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? . . . God is dead. . . . And we have killed him. How shall we, the murderers of all murderers, comfort ourselves?" - the Madman
“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
― Albert Camus
The meaning of life is...just to be.
― Albert Camus
The meaning of life is...just to be.
[h=2]We Are the Music-Makers[/h] We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.
We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.
We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy
A musing on the futility of the pursuit of power and fame:
Ozymandius
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandius, King of Kings,
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Ozymandius
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandius, King of Kings,
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
I've known a few artists who committed suicide because of this. They spent their whole lives delving in their arts to create some meaning in their lives, or simply for the love of it, but at some point it seemed even that couldn't hold up, it all broke down, and so they took their own lives. But when I look at that quote, I don't think they placed "the value of life" so high that it didn't permit them to live it emptily. I think Vaclav Havel is wrong in this regard. When people commit suicide, I think they have not fully grasped just how precious a life is.
I think the value of a life can be measured by the satisfaction you will have or not have when you lie in your deathbed and look back at how you have lived.
Yeah, he did stir up some dust in his century. But then again, I have an INTP friend who is very comfortable about living life without a philosophy, without meaning. On his Facebook profile, it even says something like "I don't live according to some philosophy. Life is so much easier once you realize that." And I think he's more right than Vaclav Havel.
And it's really funny once you relate it to other things: You have this world of people committing suicide, people starting wars because of territorial claims, revolutions, party manifestoes, staffs of bureaucrats going to work everyday to define policies. And then there comes my INTP friend and says: "Hey, why philosophy?". LOL.
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Feelings are passed on as well there have been many experiments on this. What do you think you were learning those 9 months with half a brain?
I would have to say though the only thing that comes biologically similar to a soul is the appendix.
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I think some would rather die than be dictated to as well. Some people reject the machinations of the Purpose and Well Being Committee. Ohoho! What kind of sad person denies their purpose in life??
I was holding back the big gun, but I think the time is right to shoot it.
[video=youtube;WWIjvPuY2jo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWIjvPuY2jo[/video]
A truly good man is not aware of his goodness,
And is therefore good.
A foolish man tries to be good,
And is therefore not good.
A truly good man does nothing,
Yet nothing is left undone.
A foolish man is always doing,
Yet much remains to be done
When a truly kind man does something, he leaves nothing undone.
When a just man does something, he leaves a great deal to be done.
When a disciplinarian does something and no one responds,
He rolls up his sleeves in an attempt to enforce order
Therefore when Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is kindness.
When kindness is lost, there is justice.
When justice is lost, there is ritual.
Now ritual is the husk of faith and loyalty, the beginning of confusion.
Knowledge of the future is only a flowery trapping of the Tao.
It is the beginning of folly.
Therefore the truly great man dwells on what is real
and not what is on the surface,
On the fruit and not the flower,
Therefore accept the one and reject the other.
My own ego is not actually gone anymore...but momentarily I defeated it, right before I was about to die....lol. And I know it wasn’t just my ego saying “Look how strong you are, you defeated me!” as part of me stroking my own ego....lol. No, like I said...no great revelation....but I did find a peacefulness right before what would have been the end, I stopped crying, I stopped worrying, I stopped hurting....but more than anything, the darkness that surrounded me during that period of time in my life - vanished just for those few remaining minutes. I can still feel darkness passing by me once in a while....and I say it like that because it’s sort of a fleeting feeling that comes to me once in a while....the feeling passes by me like a dream you remember for just a moment, but the more you actually try and remember the details the more the dream seems to disappear from your mind. And speaking of dreams, I have dreamed of this darkness only 2-3 times. Even when I have apocalyptic dreams (at least once a month), I still do not have this feeling...it goes beyond death, and normal fear....it is a paralyzing dread....it hard for me to even describe to someone in words as it is a feeling. Anyhow, that is what was gripping me at the time...no one could help me...no Doctors, or pills, or my loved one’s words of support. I almost feel like I was targeted sometimes. *shrug*
I have pretty much given up trying to find an order to things myself....I haven’t given up trying to find answers....but I know those answers will not be numbered and written down in any book (the bible included). After I got out of the hospital it became okay to NOT have a purpose other than to continue to exist...and although there are things in my life 17 years later (jesus I feel old now) that I would consider “reasons”, I feel like the pit of who I am, and who I have become, are not tied to those “reasons” like the would have been before. Not to say that certain things wouldn’t devastate me if I were to lose them - in particular the people in my life whom I love...but I don’t feel like the darkness I described above could return from that loss.@LucyJr
I had to throw away meaning in order to live. I learned to value absurdity and chaos - breaking the system is what allowed me to be free.
It was true that I more energetically sought meaning for a while, but I'm the type of person who never stops. It seems some people who must have meaning just stop looking after a while and accept where they landed as their version meaning, but I could not do this, I simply found infinite regression. I would always reach a point where I'd ask "well what is the meaning of this now?"
I had to take on a more Zen aesthetic. There are more visceral and transcendent things that go beyond meaning or purpose. Some times things that are 'empty' are the most beautiful and worthwhile.
Like why did I build this huge space pagoda, block by block over several days? I don't know, doesn't mean anything and it doesn't have to as far as I'm concerned, and it's still not finished, but I have something to work on. Why? Why do people climb mountains?
And to give an idea of it, each block would be 1 meter, and the pagoda is nearly 300 meters high. If it were real, it would be a 90 story building. The island is three football fields across.
Nice pagoda btw!!!
Yes! I have heard that quote many times!
Fantastic thought...although, yes, we do have a certain level of control over our own experiences, I believe it is out of our own hands more than our own egos wish to admit.
As far as us being the universe experiencing itself through us....I believe that to a certain extent...I doubt mostly because it is in my nature to be a highly questioning person...but the idea makes sense.
I’ve posted this picture elsewhere before, but it coincides with what you wrote-
I think you are half correct....I think a good portion of suicides probably as you say “do not grasp how precious life is”, but I think the other portion of that group grasp how insignificant and unimportant we are and that realization (along with already being depressed) destroys what was keeping them from suicide in the first place.
We are not important in the grand scheme of things....if there is a grand scheme...we are a momentary flash in the pan. We have people starting wars, revolutions, party manifestoes, bureaucrats, etc., etc....not because of philosophy, but because of their own egos. And your friend who says he doesn’t live by any set philosophy has made THAT his own philosophy...it doesn’t have to be written down by someone else, be preached and famous for it to be a personal philosophy....the fact that he must profess on his Facebook page that he has it all magically figured out tells me two things - He doesn’t...and....he doesn’t care that he doesn’t because his ego thinks he does.
Yeah.
My main objection to meaning is that the concept of life is universal, so there truly is no "to each their own" when one tries to define it. When one tries to define it, they are in a sense telling me and everyone else what we should be doing.
Is it a particle or is it a wave? It can be either one! So trying to ultimately define it is to me like trying to say that it's only a particle and the wave is some strange aberrant.
"Meaning and purpose" has been a big cause of suffering for me because I tend to be very duty filled, and if a meaning or purpose is prescribed and I'm not fulfilling it, I have major cognitive dissonance which leads me to wonder what the damn point is. It makes me unable to decide if I'm a pointless rebel or a worthless sack of crap for not living up to the expectations set forth by the universe or whatever (hypothetically speaking)
It's just not cool.