Existential Meaning

[Cognisant]

Nihilism posits that existence is without inherent meaning, but if there was meaning what would that be like, well the easiest example is the worlds that exist within Disney movies, in these worlds morality is inherent to reality and reality is suitably biased, so inevitably good things happen to good people and visa versa bad things inevitably happen to bad people unless they redeem themselves somehow, so you see with a Disney world morality is objective fact, there really are such things as good and evil.

Our reality is clearly not of the Disney sort, here good people do bad things, bad people do good things, nobody is either truly evil nor good, the world is unfair, and if you disagree with this bear in mind that as a citizen of a first world country you're almost certainly better off than most of the this planet's populace, in other words you're a bad person and largely getting away with it, a happy thought no? Yeah I'm a dick.

Anyway so our existence may have no inherent moral meaning, but does that mean our existence is entirely meaningless, because if it is then it follows that our universe is entirely unbiased, but that's where things get interesting because y'see it appears that the universe is not entirely unbiased, there is a certain Darwinistic determinism at work.

It's not a strict meaning, more of a guideline, basically whatever works does work because it working it the focus of this universe's bias, for example if you drive a car doing regular maintenance on it decreases the probability of you being involved in a fatal crash, but not entirely, so it appears our reality favors something to do with the evident prudence of performing regular maintenance on one's car, it has much less regard for us beyond how well we sustain ourselves functionally.

Seen in this way functional optimization could be seen as the pursuit of something like divinity, or perhaps more accurately objective perfection (a trait commonly attributed to gods) which reminds me of various movies/stories about robots and artificial intelligence, particularly how they invoke the fear of being replaced, by something better.

Spoiler

So yeah, if you want to anthropomorphise the apparent biases of our universe as a deity be sure to remember that if not yet, then soon, this deity loves robots more than you.

This thread is dedicated to anyone who considers science a religion

 

[snafupants]

Nihilism posits that existence is without inherent meaning, but if there was meaning what would that be like, well the easiest example is the worlds that exist within Disney movies, in these worlds morality is inherent to reality and reality is suitably biased, so inevitably good things happen to good people and visa versa bad things inevitably happen to bad people unless they redeem themselves somehow, so you see with a Disney world morality is objective fact, there really are such things as good and evil.

Coupled with the Disney details of talking bureaus and singing frogs, the idyllic ethical framework quaintly enmeshed into the universe, like gravity, sounds like an acid trip. Also, any meat consumed in a Disney movie...yeah, the animal died of natural causes.

Anyway so our existence may have no inherent moral meaning, but does that mean our existence is entirely meaningless, because if it is then it follows that our universe is entirely unbiased, but that's where things get interesting because y'see it appears that the universe is not entirely unbiased, there is a certain Darwinistic determinism at work.

An interesting tack but I wouldn't conflate unfeeling causality with sentient cosmological bias.

Meaning is entirely a feeling - erase the feeling, and the meaning evaporates overnight. Fortunately, the opposite is also the case. Both ideas, however, underscore the indifference of the universe.

 

[Cognisant]

An interesting tack but I wouldn't conflate unfeeling causality with sentient cosmological bias.

Of course not, I'm mocking those that do.
And/or suggesting that the sentience of the universe is an unfeeling robot itself.

:smiley_emoticons_mr

 

[SLushhYYY]

Humans dont appreciate life enough for it to have an inevitable meaning. Sure we care about abortion because killing a conscious being is murder and immoral blah blah blah all while humans around the world are clubbing seals, killing dolphins which are very much conscious beings, destroying forests which is inherently the root of all of life.

If there was a meaning I honestly believe that through evolutionary development we would actually start to treasure the meaning of life, but we truly dont. We only care about ourselves, its just the selfish nature of the human being. We act as if we are the only organic matter that holds divinity which is completely a trait of a species capable of understanding this.

Im speaking for our species as a whole and what drives our societies, which most people arnt actually interested in.

 

[Duxwing]

Coupled with the Disney details of talking bureaus and singing frogs, the idyllic ethical framework quaintly enmeshed into the universe, like gravity, sounds like an acid trip. Also, any meat consumed in a Disney movie...yeah, the animal died of natural causes.


An interesting tack but I wouldn't conflate unfeeling causality with sentient cosmological bias.

Meaning is entirely a feeling - erase the feeling, and the meaning evaporates overnight. Fortunately, the opposite is also the case. Both ideas, however, underscore the indifference of the universe.

Well, since the universe does not possess a consciousness, the question of its interest or indifference in our affairs is vacuous. Ergo, attempting to find 'meaning' in it is futile, regardless of how the attempt is made. God is dead. Logic requires assumptions. Intuition is unprovable.

Nevertheless, such knowledge should only harm those who have invested their hearts into finding meaning through discovery. Despite such a cause appearing noble and grand to the fledgling intellectual as he cuddles under his mother's wing, it is based on vacuous statements; hence the feeling of tragic abandonment he feels once his mother is gone. The world is strange and windy, the branch high and the ground hard.

Yet he can soar if he learns to release these emotions, these shackles upon his soul. He must accept, all the way to the bottom of his heart, that there is no wrong, hurt, guilt or shame inherent in doing what he loves, that there will be no-one to hurt him, to beat him, to peck at his eyes with their beak when he does wrong. That life is not only a game, but fun.

-Duxwing

 

[Vrecknidj]

Here's one response I've heard to this sort of thread:

We can make dichotomous keys of all sorts of things. For example, we can say that a sentence either does or does not have a truth value, and that if it does, that truth value is either true or false. We can say that a sentence either does or does not capture the meaning of its creator, we can say that the one who utters and the one who listens to a sentence might believe that the sentence means something other that what the other believes the sentence means, etc.

But, in all this talk we find that sentences (or other utterences -- verbal or otherwise) may or may not contain meaning. But, "life" or "the universe" or something like that, isn't the kind of thing that has meaning, at least, not in the way that a sentence has meaning.

 

[C pT Fox]

I agree on one hand, but on the other hand I do not. If you look at society as a construct of the universe then you could say being moral does have benefits in terms of which individuals will cooperate with you. Also, depending on the individual, being amoral does come with added guilt that can serve to apply stress to the individual's psyche.

As a robot, one is not bound by this restriction, so they're obviously the superior creature, destined to take over the world in 2057; of course... logic has been known to have pitfalls as well.

p.s.

Science being a religion is mostly a semantically debate; as far as I know, there are not extensive studies determining whether or not doing science is the best way to figure things out, but is held as the collective belief of many individuals. The work that science produces isn't necessarily religious in nature, but science is surely a set of beliefs that are taught and ?discussed¿. *It is a system used as a way to observe the universe, but so is Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, etc. It's simply superior in every way.

 

[Matt3737]

Hmm...fictional universes used as metaphorical contrasts to bolster a teleological proposition of our own existence?

What the? I don't even...

What about Harry Potter? Lord of the Rings? Star Wars? Why Disney?

 

[Agent Intellect]

Depends what you mean by meaning (see what I did there?).

A sentence can be full of words, each of which has a meaning, but the sentence itself is meaningless or even false.

Things-in-themselves make up a universe that is directionless and not here for any particular end, but are they still meaningless? They still define themselves by their own existence. They still have properties that are used for other things - stars fuse hydrogen and create larger elements. This is not directed, but does it still not have some meaning in that there is a use for these things?

 

[Nezaros]

I maintain that there is no inherent meaning or logic to the universe whatsoever. There is matter, and matter interacts with other matter, and that is what happens. There is no sentient entity to judge our actions because our actions are meaningless, and no matter how many wars are fought or charitable actions performed, the basic particles of the universe will simply continue on their merry way, uncaring, until the day that particular bonds evaporate and the universe is scattered into a formless cloud. Such may be a source of existential dread, but so long as you can acknowledge that human experience is still valid (if only to oneself) and enjoyment of life is the only thing anywhere near resemblant of meaning, it's easy to dismiss these fears and continue on in the only way one should: practically.

 

[Duxwing]

I maintain that there is no inherent meaning or logic to the universe whatsoever. There is matter, and matter interacts with other matter, and that is what happens. There is no sentient entity to judge our actions because our actions are meaningless, and no matter how many wars are fought or charitable actions performed, the basic particles of the universe will simply continue on their merry way, uncaring, until the day that particular bonds evaporate and the universe is scattered into a formless cloud. Such may be a source of existential dread, but so long as you can acknowledge that human experience is still valid (if only to oneself) and enjoyment of life is the only thing anywhere near resemblant of meaning, it's easy to dismiss these fears and continue on in the only way one should: practically.

I look at life like a story. We enjoy stories even though they end because of what's in the middle: excitement, adventure, friendship, and love. And at the end of a good story, like the end of my life, should it good, I won't be sad; I'll be happy that all those loose ends have been tied up.



-Duxwing