The Meaning of Life

[Reluctantly]

Are we fully taking into account self-deception? Must we know? If one believes they are having a great time, then they are having a great time. That gives life its meaning for now. If you think you are going to fall on your face later, that puts a wet blanket on your great time.

I guess that's the catch. Is the moment what we make of it or are we defined by it? Or is it a choice if we make it one? Then how does that relate to meaning? Because if what something becomes can depend on what we make of it, then we know what we are looking for; but if we are defined by the moment, we find what we weren't expecting.

Are they both important in understanding life? Is to understand life, to understand its meaning?

 

[BigApplePi]

Re: Answer 2 Meaning of Life

And death can create the beginning of birth; suicide then may not always be about poor living, but a desire to escape the boundaries of current existence and become something freer. In some ways, if we are reality and we are not happy with it, death is a more indirect way of changing that reality.

For example, when some people get old and their bodies become weak, fragile, and start to crumble, these people might choose to die of their own will rather than wait. Someone I worked with said that his mother stopped eating at one point because she wanted to die; she was not necessarily depressed (though psychiatrists might adamantly argue that suicidal ideation is always a form of mental illness) and just decided it was okay to die. She died within a week. And she made it clear that it was something she was sure she wanted and that nobody should feel that she didn't enjoy life or didn't want to be a part of it or that it was a bad thing because she could no longer enjoy life well enough, if at all. Suicide, for her, was a natural progression for change to reality. And if her death allowed reality to change itself and birth new things that will enjoy life, how can that not be a good thing? And how is that not a possible continuation of her life?

Reluctantly. If I understand you correctly, I agree. The death of one permits survivors to go on living quite possibly more freely. My aged mother ate less and less and finally stopped. Soon she passed away. I didn't think of it as suicide though. I guessed her aged condition had caused her to lose her appetite. And who wants to be forced-fed? A close family member was taking care of her. (I was far distant.) On her death my family member gained a lot of freedom as she no longer had to care take.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

I'm not understanding your position on the scientific method well, in regards to changing/animate objects. But I think I see where you're getting at with the issues of psychiatry.


I was rambling a bit, so I tried to summarize at the end.

Not to mention that the argument for normative behavior and a "balanced" brain has no objective standard from which to judge because behavior and the brain is in constant mental flux.

Giving people drugs that influence the brain will change some of their personality aspects. A lot of people claim antidepressants reduce their ability to think and feel. Some antipsychotics have a record of destroying brain functioning (lithium destroying frontal lobes off the top of my head) and even, in modern times, has led to involuntary muscle twitching of the face that is not correctable Tardive_dyskinesia . The fact of the matter is that these drugs are not "balancing" anything as they claim. And yet, these drugs are still considered science and still used. There are insane side effects to psychiatric drugs and yet we are to believe they "balance" things? Seriously, you're backing psychiatry up as a science?

Now clearly, I find that psychiatry is a pseudoscience and I've look at the evidence for why and even made a philosophical case to explain the blind nature of psychiatry. And I raised the question of repeatability in attempting to distinguish between pseudoscience and science, but moreso to hear anything insightful someone might add or illuminate as an important difference.

Now stop being lazy and actually ask me a specific question about what I've said, or better yet, share some of your own thoughts and stop with the red herring assaults.

My understanding is that a "balanced" chemical-psychological state is the ideal goal of (applied) psychiatry and psychotherapy, in the sense that balanced implies a normal, controlled, sane state of being. But there really is no such thing as "balanced", because as you've pointed out the brain has no objective standard and is in constant flux(in my opinion, personalities are made from this inherent 'imbalance').

Instead of balancing, drugs & treatments are intended to suppress, neutralize or reverse pathological symptoms because these extreme symptoms indicate a "disease" that is either harmful to the individual's well-being or to society's well-being.

I understand some drugs & treatments are potentially destructive in-and-of themselves, or at least have dangerous side-effects. Current methods of treatment aren't perfect but wouldn't you say there is at least some practical worth in them? Could a person not find any benefit whatsoever from prescription drugs?


I also understand that psychiatry and psychology encroach upon a sensitive area of self-consciousness, where telling or making people feel that they are unhealthy or abnormal is harmful itself(notably Introversion was suggested for addition to the DSM), when they perceive themselves to be perfectly fine.

While I agree it's harmful and unethical, do you really not think there is a such thing as extreme symptoms, or a general extreme mental state(disease)? I understand that pathologies are diagnosed if symptoms are acute and/or chronic, especially when it drastically affects most aspects of a person's life. It's not the same as a person casually being seen as weird by a family member or classmate for having a certain haircut or dressing a certain way.

As for one's peers, friends, or family psychologically bullying(used loosely) them, this has nothing to do with psychotherapy or psychiatry. This is more of an issue of society being ignorant and intolerant. However I can't say psychiatry doesn't, at least to some extent, profit from over-diagnosis(though I think this should be backed up with references and not just conjecture). When it comes to diagnoses that are similar to (just for example), homosexual or introverted preferences, there definitely needs to be more scrutiny since a person can be homosexual or introverted and still lead a psychologically, emotionally, and socially healthy life; even then, health and success are relative, and the person does not necessarily pose a threat to society despite unfounded social fears.



To reiterate concisely, I believe psychiatry and psychotherapy have at least some practical worth for helping people with debilitating and/or destructive psycho-chemical mental states. I also believe over-classifying people has some ethical issues, both institutionally and socially, but this is something that can be dealt with through more exposure; wrongful profiteering should be exposed also. I think 'disorders' are somewhat arbitrary and that nothing is truly balanced, but there is a clear difference in extreme psycho-chemical mental states such as clinical bipolar disorder or clinical schizophrenia.

Do you think there is no medicinal benefit at all to psychiatry? Do you think there is no such thing as extreme and harmful personalities?

 

[Sorlaize]

People don't really want objective meaning-- they want subjective meaning ..

I suppose. But I do think I want objective meaning in a sense. I'd like to know how the world interacts and processes things. I think there can be an objectivity to understanding how the world relates to one another without me in it or a part of it. Do you know what I mean?

reporting on the atrocities of "the bad parts of the world"

Interpretations are a part of reality. How can that be an illusion?

In objective reality nothing of human meaning actually exists. A quick check to validate it is that phrase "If a tree falls and no one hears it...?"

answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110508214315AAA2PXC

Sound has two meanings here: the vibration is the sound, and the perception of the vibration is the sound.

It's all ultimately illusion in terms of existence and raw reality. It's so important to distinguish though because it tells us that everything that we know *has to be* subjective. Yeah, interpretations of reality are relevant and useful .. depending on how they were recorded/formed; what actual observations were made and all that. Einstein apparently said "man can't see truth." So.. we model the reality that we see (that we aren't even sure we see but kind of trust the listening apparatus anyway, even though memories are affected by emotion so much and we can be suggestively helped into giving certain answers) .. and report what our minds can. But that whole process of needing to know what something is, then associating it with what's there, on sight, to create the memory.. then recalling it later.. it's all such a complex process deeply concerned with personal bias and what we thought that event/thing meant to us at the time. The nature of storing memories is that it had an emotional impact, so it was relevant. When you're talking about trusting a human source of information you're dealing with that structure, OVER A PERIOD OF TIME. Some peoples' minds are really messy and badly treated. You also have all these human/political agendas like for example how it's very good for the state/government to have the public afraid of aliens.. mentioned here I think.


...and basically (sorry to write so much but) this all provides a foundation for the complexity of society / human interaction, which is what we HAVE TO quantify or evaluate to even think about finding a true meaning of life. The meaning of existence is everything. It's all things and how they interact. We build our lives as a part of this world, so tradition and individualistic desire and materialistic desire for example, don't necessarily have *any* part in what the meaning of life truly is.

So.. there is no objective meaning. Objective means truly without observers. We can only want what we know exists; we can only want what we've "seen" but even then, we are only able to reconstruct experiences to a certain pattern-- not exactly.

It's interesting that you say that. An observer doesn't have to want, they can just observe. I guess you could say they "see". But it could be argued that by seeing, reference points or anchors of thought can be created. To be objective, one would have to include them all or they are missing something. And what one then goes after or wants may be a subjective desire, but is armed with an objective understanding. Do you know what I mean?

Maybe if vampires are real and live 100s of years they begin to think a little more objectively. But not us. We are far too indoctrinated for our ages. To exist, see, is to not know what you are.. but to have it defined "for you". You can't decide anything beforehand. Because you have to learn what society is first, which itself is a process that makes you unfairly biased in certain ways along that path. And the world gets more complex every day. We grow up too slow, and technology and war weapons progress too fast. Many people aren't tolerant. MLK Jr. said the US budget being consistently high is a sign of spiritual crisis. We have a complete lack of critical and non-human-immersed thought throughout the world. So there's no modelling or listing .. of truly rational, humanist principles.

Yeah.. you are armed with objective understandings which then transforms you. And what you may have started out with no longer applies. But, because you're human which is in itself a huge active bias, you move onto something else, maybe a new type of learning. Your brain develops physically all this time, like you were pre-programmed for certain wider behaviours at certain times.

But you can still be objective (in theory), by applying a certain standard of rational rules for living. However in practice,

a) who would be first to do that. we are wired for sex, eating etc. so we don't value mistreating ourselves, and can't place that over the former. E.g. think of how relieved you are when you eat something after being hungry. It's like all the world isn't going up in flames anymore.

b) (the snowballing/continuous indirect version) society's indoctrination, producing anxiety, and general loneliness etc. poses as a threat to trying to be truly objective.

..so maybe it's that we can't be truly objective, and this poses all the problem of being just not that good enough to change the world, so the world will objectively crash and burn hard, feeding back into an unfortunate subjective-meaning state for the individual; you; me; the people who see it on that day: individuals who will objectively cease to exist and therefore all of this means... nothing, in particular.



And if it means nothing objectively then why bother with anything? No seriously.






BOOM. see? Subjective. You only care because you are you; because you are your own version of "what the world really means" and you find it hard to care beyond that. And that's all anyone truly has.. themselves. (today at least)">@Reluctantly[mention] I know what you mean. I feel like I'm arguing for the technicality of the phrase and nothing else. Yes, people get a sense of objective meaning and apply it to try to change things based on that model which is (roughly enough) consistent with the bare reality -- but that ultimately is caused by the individual, who is molded by these stressors/influences .. the objective-framework-of-meaning is created because of its stress on the individual. So, you don't have truly objective meaning. None of us can truly step outside of ourselves and put things into their real/empiric order.. neither can we truly invest in things that function well without the best of our help. We don't apply ourselves in a rational manner even, in the context of the whole of humanity: it is, rather, indoctrinated. Going back to the previous point.

Not only that; it gets worse. The model of objective meaning which *must* be created/built subjectively in our minds, is never the true depiction. So we are constantly missing vital portions.. it's based on a worldly awareness attacked and perverted to the needs of the current national status quo by society's media. So we are, at best, walking around blindly trying to fix the world. Nobody gathers and compares and cross-references information on this stuff to find the objective truth. Many people think objectively helping the world means donating to charity or reporting on the atrocities of "the bad parts of the world"

Interpretations are a part of reality. How can that be an illusion?

In objective reality nothing of human meaning actually exists. A quick check to validate it is that phrase "If a tree falls and no one hears it...?"

answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110508214315AAA2PXC

Sound has two meanings here: the vibration is the sound, and the perception of the vibration is the sound.

It's all ultimately illusion in terms of existence and raw reality. It's so important to distinguish though because it tells us that everything that we know *has to be* subjective. Yeah, interpretations of reality are relevant and useful .. depending on how they were recorded/formed; what actual observations were made and all that. Einstein apparently said "man can't see truth." So.. we model the reality that we see (that we aren't even sure we see but kind of trust the listening apparatus anyway, even though memories are affected by emotion so much and we can be suggestively helped into giving certain answers) .. and report what our minds can. But that whole process of needing to know what something is, then associating it with what's there, on sight, to create the memory.. then recalling it later.. it's all such a complex process deeply concerned with personal bias and what we thought that event/thing meant to us at the time. The nature of storing memories is that it had an emotional impact, so it was relevant. When you're talking about trusting a human source of information you're dealing with that structure, OVER A PERIOD OF TIME. Some peoples' minds are really messy and badly treated. You also have all these human/political agendas like for example how it's very good for the state/government to have the public afraid of aliens.. mentioned here I think.


...and basically (sorry to write so much but) this all provides a foundation for the complexity of society / human interaction, which is what we HAVE TO quantify or evaluate to even think about finding a true meaning of life. The meaning of existence is everything. It's all things and how they interact. We build our lives as a part of this world, so tradition and individualistic desire and materialistic desire for example, don't necessarily have *any* part in what the meaning of life truly is.

So.. there is no objective meaning. Objective means truly without observers. We can only want what we know exists; we can only want what we've "seen" but even then, we are only able to reconstruct experiences to a certain pattern-- not exactly.

It's interesting that you say that. An observer doesn't have to want, they can just observe. I guess you could say they "see". But it could be argued that by seeing, reference points or anchors of thought can be created. To be objective, one would have to include them all or they are missing something. And what one then goes after or wants may be a subjective desire, but is armed with an objective understanding. Do you know what I mean?

Maybe if vampires are real and live 100s of years they begin to think a little more objectively. But not us. We are far too indoctrinated for our ages. To exist, see, is to not know what you are.. but to have it defined "for you". You can't decide anything beforehand. Because you have to learn what society is first, which itself is a process that makes you unfairly biased in certain ways along that path. And the world gets more complex every day. We grow up too slow, and technology and war weapons progress too fast. Many people aren't tolerant. MLK Jr. said the US budget being consistently high is a sign of spiritual crisis. We have a complete lack of critical and non-human-immersed thought throughout the world. So there's no modelling or listing .. of truly rational, humanist principles.

Yeah.. you are armed with objective understandings which then transforms you. And what you may have started out with no longer applies. But, because you're human which is in itself a huge active bias, you move onto something else, maybe a new type of learning. Your brain develops physically all this time, like you were pre-programmed for certain wider behaviours at certain times.

But you can still be objective (in theory), by applying a certain standard of rational rules for living. However in practice,

a) who would be first to do that. we are wired for sex, eating etc. so we don't value mistreating ourselves, and can't place that over the former. E.g. think of how relieved you are when you eat something after being hungry. It's like all the world isn't going up in flames anymore.

b) (the snowballing/continuous indirect version) society's indoctrination, producing anxiety, and general loneliness etc. poses as a threat to trying to be truly objective.

..so maybe it's that we can't be truly objective, and this poses all the problem of being just not that good enough to change the world, so the world will objectively crash and burn hard, feeding back into an unfortunate subjective-meaning state for the individual; you; me; the people who see it on that day: individuals who will objectively cease to exist and therefore all of this means... nothing, in particular.



And if it means nothing objectively then why bother with anything? No seriously.






BOOM. see? Subjective. You only care because you are you; because you are your own version of "what the world really means" and you find it hard to care beyond that. And that's all anyone truly has.. themselves. (today at least)

 

[Reluctantly]

I understand some drugs & treatments are potentially destructive in-and-of themselves, or at least have dangerous side-effects. Current methods of treatment aren't perfect but wouldn't you say there is at least some practical worth in them? Could a person not find any benefit whatsoever from prescription drugs?

I could see how a medication could be used as a crutch. In that sense, it could be helpful. But in another sense, it's not that simple because these medications can be so dangerous. It helps in one way, but hurts in others. For example, I was reading about how antidepressants that raise dopamine levels keep them abnormally high, resulting in reduced sexual functioning and a higher degree of complacency. An orgasm releases dopamine, but since these levels are already higher than they would be, sexual functioning gets reduced and a well-being affect is induced. The problem I have with this sort of thing is that it's not really solving a chemical imbalance, it's inducing a sense of well-being. If the idea is to act as a way to help motivate people to live, then fine, but this idea of balancing people seems sketchy when it's directly manipulating the brain and people are fed this idea of balancing, despite correlations to the contrary.

I also understand that psychiatry and psychology encroach upon a sensitive area of self-consciousness, where telling or making people feel that they are unhealthy or abnormal is harmful itself(notably Introversion was suggested for addition to the DSM), when they perceive themselves to be perfectly fine.

While I agree it's harmful and unethical, do you really not think there is a such thing as extreme symptoms, or a general extreme mental state(disease)? I understand that pathologies are diagnosed if symptoms are acute and/or chronic, especially when it drastically affects most aspects of a person's life. It's not the same as a person casually being seen as weird by a family member or classmate for having a certain haircut or dressing a certain way.

The thing is, I've been severely depressed. I've been in a mental institution and seen the severely depressed. It's like being sick; you oversleep or undersleep and don't exercise or eat well and it just makes someone feel lethargic and sick and unmotivated to do anything, but die. Usually, it results from intense anxiety about something, but medications don't fix any of that or deal with it on a conscious level. What does seem to work is to accept a bit of suffering and do things anyway that will help get through it. Sometimes it just means having the willpower to find a way to be okay with some pain, no matter what it is, in order to deal with it; other times, it means facing tormentors and being okay with the dissonance; other times it means being okay with life being a struggle; for some people it's about accepting loneliness. Most of the time though, people who are severely depressed seem to have really good reasons to be. The medications don't seem to deal with this at all; they may help lessen the symptoms, but it doesn't seem to deal with causes. I just don't see how useful it is in this case. It's as if people are trying to solve an existential crisis with medications, instead of human compassion, love, or self-respect. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. The DSM people want to add grieving as a mental illness, for example - http://www.geripal.org/2012/12/dsm-5-grieving-over-loss-of-bereavement.html. And I just don't even know what to say when someone calls a complex emotional relationship with existence and the world an "illness". Who was it that decided existential problems were "mental illnesses" anyway? It's so hard to respect a field of study that dehumanizes people and treats them as objects and mentally defunct when its area of study is in the realm of human understanding.

But I spent time homeless before because I wanted to deal with my problems and I didn't want medications and I didn't want anyone telling me that was the solution. And I didn't want stupid therapists pretending that going into a room and talking to someone about problems is going to help deal with them; as they say, talk is cheap, actions speak greater than words, and psychotherapists are all talk. But the ironic thing is I was homeless because my home life was crazy and I wanted to deal with that and get away from it; but if you would have asked a psychiatrist they would probably say I was homeless because I was mentally ill. However, the time I spent by myself was needed to deal with my problems and medications don't solve the affects of trauma or spiritual problems. One of them actually made me feel so unemotional at one point, my anger was very raw and psychopathic and it scared people. Later when the Columbine Shooting happened, I remember I read an article where someone was trying to say how psychiatric medications can induce a psychosis like that; and I thought it was a little depressing because I thought I knew what they were talking about. I think lithium was one of the medications they were on and that stuff is bad.

As for one's peers, friends, or family psychologically bullying(used loosely) them, this has nothing to do with psychotherapy or psychiatry. This is more of an issue of society being ignorant and intolerant. However I can't say psychiatry doesn't, at least to some extent, profit from over-diagnosis(though I think this should be backed up with references and not just conjecture). When it comes to diagnoses that are similar to (just for example), homosexual or introverted preferences, there definitely needs to be more scrutiny since a person can be homosexual or introverted and still lead a psychologically, emotionally, and socially healthy life; even then, health and success are relative, and the person does not necessarily pose a threat to society despite unfounded social fears.



To reiterate concisely, I believe psychiatry and psychotherapy have at least some practical worth for helping people with debilitating and/or destructive psycho-chemical mental states. I also believe over-classifying people has some ethical issues, both institutionally and socially, but this is something that can be dealt with through more exposure; wrongful profiteering should be exposed also. I think 'disorders' are somewhat arbitrary and that nothing is truly balanced, but there is a clear difference in extreme psycho-chemical mental states such as clinical bipolar disorder or clinical schizophrenia.

Do you think there is no medicinal benefit at all to psychiatry? Do you think there is no such thing as extreme and harmful personalities?

The thing is, someone can accuse someone of being an extreme or harmful personality, but when they do they forgo any responsibility for helping create these personalities. I guess I believe people who act out to their detriment are being defensive because why would a person do that otherwise if they felt they had a choice? I can't think of anything worse then telling such a person they are the offender and need to control themselves for other people. I also don't really like the idea of telling someone they have a personality disorder because then they are seen as the disorder and not for the unique causes that influenced their behavior. If each person with bipolar has different causes and behaviors, then using the label to suggest a treatment for all bipolar people is silly; it gets even worse if the label is used to suggest that all such people have an illness that has no causes other than genetics or a bad brain and needs medication to solve it. When people start propagating these ideas, I can't help but imagine a duck with a monacle, a top hat, and a pipe quacking incessantly.

The only benefit I could honestly see to psychiatry is in dealing with schizophrenia because some people seem to be controlled by it. If such a schizophrenic person finds it easier to live on medications that have side-effects and may be damaging their brains in some way, I suppose that's better than the alternative. But I don't think that means all schizophrenics should be on medications and it doesn't seem right to pretend that if someone is schizophrenic they need to be on medication.

I don't really know much about bipolar except that people get diagnosed with it if they are manic. Hell, I was diagnosed with it, but my behavior had causes. I guess if there are truly some people who are bipolar without causes (as in genetic or something like some schizophrenia) then yeah it could help such people as well. I have no idea if such people really exist or if they have other problems/causes that create this and don't quite understand it. For example, multiple personality disorder is dissociative in nature and is thought to be caused by trauma (of course), but even if that trauma gets dealt with, the multiple personalities still exist. If one was ignorant enough, someone might say such people were born that way and need medication. It's hard to say.

But I was really just mentioning this to get people to see how science can't always provide concrete answers. It probably doesn't matter so much what I think about psychiatry or psychology to most people.

In objective reality nothing of human meaning actually exists. A quick check to validate it is that phrase "If a tree falls and no one hears it...?"

answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110508214315AAA2PXC

It's all ultimately illusion in terms of existence and raw reality. It's so important to distinguish though because it tells us that everything that we know *has to be* subjective. Yeah, interpretations of reality are relevant and useful .. depending on how they were recorded/formed; what actual observations were made and all that. Einstein apparently said "man can't see truth." So.. we model the reality that we see (that we aren't even sure we see but kind of trust the listening apparatus anyway, even though memories are affected by emotion so much and we can be suggestively helped into giving certain answers) .. and report what our minds can. But that whole process of needing to know what something is, then associating it with what's there, on sight, to create the memory.. then recalling it later.. it's all such a complex process deeply concerned with personal bias and what we thought that event/thing meant to us at the time. The nature of storing memories is that it had an emotional impact, so it was relevant. When you're talking about trusting a human source of information you're dealing with that structure, OVER A PERIOD OF TIME. Some peoples' minds are really messy and badly treated. You also have all these human/political agendas like for example how it's very good for the state/government to have the public afraid of aliens..

The irony however is that in order for objective reality to be known, it has to be observed. The problem is that because objective reality then isn't subjective, it doesn't have a way to know itself because it doesn't observe itself. Or is it? What do we do? We observe it. And we are a part of that objective reality; it's in our being and we are tied to it. The objective needs the subjective. There is no contention between them - they are one and the same.

And if it means nothing objectively then why bother with anything? No seriously.






BOOM. see? Subjective. You only care because you are you; because you are your own version of "what the world really means" and you find it hard to care beyond that. And that's all anyone truly has.. themselves. (today at least)

Because reality is nothing without subjectivity. It has no way to know itself. It is then unconscious.

 

[Sorlaize]

I just don't see how useful it is in this case. It's as if people are trying to solve an existential crisis with medications, instead of human compassion, love, or self-respect. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. The DSM people want to add grieving as a mental illness, for example - http://www.geripal.org/2012/12/dsm-5...reavement.html. And I just don't even know what to say when someone calls a complex emotional relationship with existence and the world an "illness". Who was it that decided existential problems were "mental illnesses" anyway? It's so hard to respect a field of study that dehumanizes people and treats them as objects and mentally defunct when its area of study is in the realm of human understanding.

Couldn't agree more. This[being advised to medicate by doctor and therapist for my existential crisis] was exactly my situation about 6-8 months ago, I was really depressed over this stuff. But I have really explored and gotten to the bottom of it myself (without medication, although, YMMV). And I didn't even know what would happen, I was never trying to have a great deal of sanity anyway; I was exploring for the sake of it.. this needs to be an actual recognized issue of human existence. It's a lot more prevalent than the extreme cases where people are conscious of it too, I'll bet. People medicate through shopping.

In objective reality nothing of human meaning actually exists. A quick check to validate it is that phrase "If a tree falls and no one hears it...?"

answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110508214315AAA2PXC

It's all ultimately illusion in terms of existence and raw reality. It's so important ..

The irony however is that in order for objective reality to be known, it has to be observed. The problem is that because objective reality then isn't subjective, it doesn't have a way to know itself because it doesn't observe itself. Or is it? What do we do? We observe it. And we are a part of that objective reality; it's in our being and we are tied to it. The objective needs the subjective. There is no contention between them - they are one and the same.

Because reality is nothing without subjectivity. It has no way to know itself. It is then unconscious.

That only seems to apply for humans. Who says objective reality isn't fine all by itself? :P

I want to go back on what I said. Subjective experience exists all right. It's the frame of reference that determines how we'd describe it, though (which is the tricky thing.. it doesn't seem to make sense for any human being to start referencing the objective). That's true of -every- piece of knowledge. Einstein said "man can't see truth" and this is why. Everything in the universe actually has no rigid edges where we can build a concept for it. When we look at objects or when we splice cells or whatever, we are putting a knife to a very specific place in reality and taking a small sliver of information. Reality has no actual boundaries, and this leads us back to subjective experience: it is the -built definition- of what exactly we are taking to be of significance in objective reality. You need to define something subjective if you are going to talk about actions having meaning, or impact. Stories can't have drama or struggle or beauty without characters. Otherwise it's (as in real life) a case of, oh the planet might freeze over or get assaulted with meteors, and everything's fine because nobody died. Subjective experience is how we are bending that story into something scary and whatever. It's incredibly poetic for such a stark reality. Human civilization is poetic.. for human civilization. We are the monsters, the planet-environmental terrorists.. according to ourselves.


I feel like I failed to express anything actually useful there but oh well.

I might be able to write about my existential journey/conclusions, I do have a lot to say, and I don't think there's anything much to read about it. Not in plain modern English.


possibly interesting video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbiq2-ukfhM


It's annoying because I always get thrown about by my subconscious to all the different issues and topics. Like with what I'm writing about. Existence has to cover everything. It's a topic interested in all things. Individual meaning. So; what's happening globally right down to what TV means to people. All areas of psychology and shit. My writing gets messy.

So anyway, (because still ontopic) I can talk about what the challenges are for human civilization and its survival. We actually have a simple problem that the nations/elites can't seem to agree on what the best course of action is for the world, and yet here we sit with 7billion or was it 8billion minds able to solve problems. We just need to manage things better, and get some clarity as to who really wants to kill who with nuclear bombs. Nobody. ..and, this relates back to subjective experience because these problems all stem fundamentally from how we exist as individuals causing us not to be able to communicate well/fast.. we're playing Chinese whispers when we talk and act. That creates a social paradigm that's problematic because getting things done requires getting peoples' permission, (even in modern times) without being able to fully explain your agenda. The result is a great confusion of ads and political ideologies, never quite specifically relevant enough for each viewer who has their own life and addictions of experience and needs..

..and that takes us back to the meaning of life: what to do in a world where all of your actions have double meanings of economic impact and personal gain? Is there even any meaning in the choice because of its very nature that disables us from truly making a difference in our world? What is real change and how is it possible? (because, again, it MEANS something that 90% of the world might be in "3rd world" conditions come 80 years' time if the major living trends continue). All very important shit.


And so, the chief problem is that of our separation from each other and lack of ability to communicate our thoughts as they truly are .. if only we had something that could coexist in our universe with bigger brains to store information and help make better, more impartial decisions.. hmm.. like maybe, computers?


But because of the money system being as it is, and the dying structure of empires being like they are.. everyone involved in military computer science projects acts as though it's the most important thing to build weapons with computers. It would seem more clear & broad thinking is needed! ..that's where spirituality is supposed to come in. Regardless of the consequential, arbitrary thematic associations we make with computers and machines and guns-- they're not just sexy and reminiscent of human power.

I guess that's the catch. Is the moment what we make of it or are we defined by it? Or is it a choice if we make it one?

Every second we're standing between the choices to make, like they're doors. Seeing the bigger picture allows us to choose where to go. You're "in control" if you use a human sized frame of reference. On a universal level though, free will is actually an illusion.. not that anyone cares. But it does have a little relevance: you can see the limits of what you're able to do. You can visualize the choices you're making by acting, like a cone in 3d. You move "forward" to some space within the cone, but again in each millisecond this cone of all possible opportunity presents itself again and you move forward by doing one particular action. Out of a many possible actions. Including thinking about that very concept.

Then how does that relate to meaning? Because if what something becomes can depend on what we make of it, then we know what we are looking for; but if we are defined by the moment, we find what we weren't expecting.

Do you mean.. like, if "your self disappears and a new one is created in place in the next moment"..? In that case, it's only a logical fallacy .. human meaning exists above those mechanics just as it always has. It's the same as when people say the universe might be a giant computer. It changes nothing about human history and its human meaning, which has always existed on top of reality just fine. You can take on new information that seems to make the old stuff alien or unbelonging.. but society and human emotion always pull you back into the human world. Like in The Matrix. You can't escape the human nature of our existence. In fact your brain is the guardian on the steps down to discovering this stuff. It pushes you back into this safe human-mind comfort where you must take things as they "were supposed to be taken" in primitive human terms. "House means safe." "quiet dark evening means time for bed." "I'm not hurtling through empty space on a big ball with gravitational pull."

Are they both important in understanding life? Is to understand life, to understand its meaning?

Existence in the moment, and human existence itself, are only small slices of life or facets of life to consider. As I explained, subjective experience is in its very nature a twisting of the objective facts. To exist is to create a bias in the world. A lie. When you take an opinion it is never the truth, because the truth doesn't complicate itself. Existence does. Existence is completely at war with the quiet, aloof, reserved nature of objective reality. One of George Carlin's TV shows is titled "You [people] are all diseased."

Why is it important to understand life? It's not. Life is about what's intelligent. What's intelligent is about what seems to work.. and that's it. There's no scoring rubric for life, you simply are and then you aren't. Nobody can make the claim life needs to be understood, but sure we might say would be better to. Even better if other people did the legwork for you, and produced free books and videos on how to live. But that only further complicates the question.. it changes to social paradigm; the game! It actually devalues the work put in by the people that consider themselves to have done well by today's system. But, if they knew the truth of the world they'd think differently...


..this is all further complicated by the nature that our world and world social system is one of a many possible outcomes. For example, if people lived entirely separate from economic/financial markets and their impacts, and people could safely discuss political and economic theories with food always in their mouths, then wouldn't that be great? And so wouldn't that be something to try to change (wherever we feel we can, in any part of the system)? Doesn't people dying everyday warrant some thought for change? Shouldn't we raise awareness when the system distracts people continually?


There's no inherent meaning to life. We must create it, and infact that's what the brain does by driving you to think and act in (initially) primitive ways, to self-preserve its own existence. The entire evolution of our species has been about nothing in particular, because it's a function of reality that "just happened" to work out creating models of individual meaning for each of us.


..I should really work the awesome spiritual angle more. I must sound depressing. Sorry.

 

[Duxwing]

Couldn't agree more. This[being advised to medicate by doctor and therapist for my existential crisis] was exactly my situation about 6-8 months ago, I was really depressed over this stuff. But I have really explored and gotten to the bottom of it myself (without medication, although, YMMV). And I didn't even know what would happen, I was never trying to have a great deal of sanity anyway; I was exploring for the sake of it.. this needs to be an actual recognized issue of human existence. It's a lot more prevalent than the extreme cases where people are conscious of it too, I'll bet. People medicate through shopping.






That only seems to apply for humans. Who says objective reality isn't fine all by itself? :P

I want to go back on what I said. Subjective experience exists all right. It's the frame of reference that determines how we'd describe it, though (which is the tricky thing.. it doesn't seem to make sense for any human being to start referencing the objective). That's true of -every- piece of knowledge. Einstein said "man can't see truth" and this is why. Everything in the universe actually has no rigid edges where we can build a concept for it. When we look at objects or when we splice cells or whatever, we are putting a knife to a very specific place in reality and taking a small sliver of information. Reality has no actual boundaries, and this leads us back to subjective experience: it is the -built definition- of what exactly we are taking to be of significance in objective reality. You need to define something subjective if you are going to talk about actions having meaning, or impact. Stories can't have drama or struggle or beauty without characters. Otherwise it's (as in real life) a case of, oh the planet might freeze over or get assaulted with meteors, and everything's fine because nobody died. Subjective experience is how we are bending that story into something scary and whatever. It's incredibly poetic for such a stark reality. Human civilization is poetic.. for human civilization. We are the monsters, the planet-environmental terrorists.. according to ourselves.


I feel like I failed to express anything actually useful there but oh well.

I might be able to write about my existential journey/conclusions, I do have a lot to say, and I don't think there's anything much to read about it. Not in plain modern English.


possibly interesting video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbiq2-ukfhM


It's annoying because I always get thrown about by my subconscious to all the different issues and topics. Like with what I'm writing about. Existence has to cover everything. It's a topic interested in all things. Individual meaning. So; what's happening globally right down to what TV means to people. All areas of psychology and shit. My writing gets messy.

So anyway, (because still ontopic) I can talk about what the challenges are for human civilization and its survival. We actually have a simple problem that the nations/elites can't seem to agree on what the best course of action is for the world, and yet here we sit with 7billion or was it 8billion minds able to solve problems. We just need to manage things better, and get some clarity as to who really wants to kill who with nuclear bombs. Nobody. ..and, this relates back to subjective experience because these problems all stem fundamentally from how we exist as individuals causing us not to be able to communicate well/fast.. we're playing Chinese whispers when we talk and act. That creates a social paradigm that's problematic because getting things done requires getting peoples' permission, (even in modern times) without being able to fully explain your agenda. The result is a great confusion of ads and political ideologies, never quite specifically relevant enough for each viewer who has their own life and addictions of experience and needs..

..and that takes us back to the meaning of life: what to do in a world where all of your actions have double meanings of economic impact and personal gain? Is there even any meaning in the choice because of its very nature that disables us from truly making a difference in our world? What is real change and how is it possible? (because, again, it MEANS something that 90% of the world might be in "3rd world" conditions come 80 years' time if the major living trends continue). All very important shit.


And so, the chief problem is that of our separation from each other and lack of ability to communicate our thoughts as they truly are .. if only we had something that could coexist in our universe with bigger brains to store information and help make better, more impartial decisions.. hmm.. like maybe, computers?


But because of the money system being as it is, and the dying structure of empires being like they are.. everyone involved in military computer science projects acts as though it's the most important thing to build weapons with computers. It would seem more clear & broad thinking is needed! ..that's where spirituality is supposed to come in. Regardless of the consequential, arbitrary thematic associations we make with computers and machines and guns-- they're not just sexy and reminiscent of human power.





Every second we're standing between the choices to make, like they're doors. Seeing the bigger picture allows us to choose where to go. You're "in control" if you use a human sized frame of reference. On a universal level though, free will is actually an illusion.. not that anyone cares. But it does have a little relevance: you can see the limits of what you're able to do. You can visualize the choices you're making by acting, like a cone in 3d. You move "forward" to some space within the cone, but again in each millisecond this cone of all possible opportunity presents itself again and you move forward by doing one particular action. Out of a many possible actions. Including thinking about that very concept.


Do you mean.. like, if "your self disappears and a new one is created in place in the next moment"..? In that case, it's only a logical fallacy .. human meaning exists above those mechanics just as it always has. It's the same as when people say the universe might be a giant computer. It changes nothing about human history and its human meaning, which has always existed on top of reality just fine. You can take on new information that seems to make the old stuff alien or unbelonging.. but society and human emotion always pull you back into the human world. Like in The Matrix. You can't escape the human nature of our existence. In fact your brain is the guardian on the steps down to discovering this stuff. It pushes you back into this safe human-mind comfort where you must take things as they "were supposed to be taken" in primitive human terms. "House means safe." "quiet dark evening means time for bed." "I'm not hurtling through empty space on a big ball with gravitational pull."




Existence in the moment, and human existence itself, are only small slices of life or facets of life to consider. As I explained, subjective experience is in its very nature a twisting of the objective facts. To exist is to create a bias in the world. A lie. When you take an opinion it is never the truth, because the truth doesn't complicate itself. Existence does. Existence is completely at war with the quiet, aloof, reserved nature of objective reality. One of George Carlin's TV shows is titled "You [people] are all diseased."

Why is it important to understand life? It's not. Life is about what's intelligent. What's intelligent is about what seems to work.. and that's it. There's no scoring rubric for life, you simply are and then you aren't. Nobody can make the claim life needs to be understood, but sure we might say would be better to. Even better if other people did the legwork for you, and produced free books and videos on how to live. But that only further complicates the question.. it changes to social paradigm; the game! It actually devalues the work put in by the people that consider themselves to have done well by today's system. But, if they knew the truth of the world they'd think differently...


..this is all further complicated by the nature that our world and world social system is one of a many possible outcomes. For example, if people lived entirely separate from economic/financial markets and their impacts, and people could safely discuss political and economic theories with food always in their mouths, then wouldn't that be great? And so wouldn't that be something to try to change (wherever we feel we can, in any part of the system)? Doesn't people dying everyday warrant some thought for change? Shouldn't we raise awareness when the system distracts people continually?


There's no inherent meaning to life. We must create it, and infact that's what the brain does by driving you to think and act in (initially) primitive ways, to self-preserve its own existence. The entire evolution of our species has been about nothing in particular, because it's a function of reality that "just happened" to work out creating models of individual meaning for each of us.


..I should really work the awesome spiritual angle more. I must sound depressing. Sorry.

I can agree with all of this. I'll further add that meaning itself is a human need. Rocks don't have existential crises in searching for truth. No, only humans do: we need meaning to justify our lives in the face of the despair brought about by self-awareness.

-Duxwing

 

[Sorlaize]

I suppose. But I do think I want objective meaning in a sense. I'd like to know how the world interacts and processes things. I think there can be an objectivity to understanding how the world relates to one another without me in it or a part of it. Do you know what I mean?

[..]

It's interesting that you say that. An observer doesn't have to want, they can just observe. I guess you could say they "see". But it could be argued that by seeing, reference points or anchors of thought can be created. To be objective, one would have to include them all or they are missing something. And what one then goes after or wants may be a subjective desire, but is armed with an objective understanding. Do you know what I mean?

To try to answer this again: yeah, there is really, substantially a way to build an objective meaning in your head. And that's great-- for you. But when we actually talk objectively it's so very very far away; so very very different. The two are literally worlds apart.. objective meaning for the individual SEEMS such a huge thing. And it will seem like that influences your choices meaningfully. And indeed, that's all a human can ever be expected to try to do.

But then also objectively, on the objective scale not the individual-human scale, we have zoomed out to see that all this is insignificant.

Your "objective model" of the world could only ever be very simplified and very small. It can't cover everything by the nature of storing it in a little human box, so it's incorrect, and basically our everyday actions and everything we are has no [infidecimal or very nearly none] objective meaning. It's a paradox because the individual doesn't have much true objective value and yet it's the causation of that which gives rise to the objective meaning in the broad planetary scale which then, effectively, is seen to give rise to individual meaning for every human being .. : individuals power the world with meaning. Although they themselves are almost completely meaningless and can/will certainly die and become devoid of meaning altogether. They are temporary blinks of light across time.

 

[Nezaros]

If we live in an objective universe, where the only thing each person can truly rely on is their own subjective experience, then the meaning of life is to improve that experience as much as is possible. In other words, happiness. Secondarily, to gain as much knowledge of the objective universe as possible. Dependent on the individual, of course.

 

[Sorlaize]

I can agree with all of this. I'll further add that meaning itself is a human need. Rocks don't have existential crises in searching for truth. No, only humans do: we need meaning to justify our lives in the face of the despair brought about by self-awareness.

Might also be important to note that anything that "exists" does face an existential crisis. By the very definition. Robots and computer AI networks that can think. Any biological or other existence we create.

But for example, robots that are automated for manufacturing-- no existential problems there. Because the nature of their existence is to work 24h/day. Even if the robots are intelligent robots that make human-intelligence-based choices, their existence criteria is closed off. A closed loop, where no stray thoughts are allowed. Although there is no end to that existence. If you say there's an end and another's beginning when they're "reconfigured" and the robot appears to have taken on a new "character", then maybe, that would apply to humans somewhat too and our past selves are dead each day; each moment.. with the line being movable to anywhere we want. And that opens up a new can of philosophical worms. Because humans are no longer considered Real Things but merely passing states of reality, like robots suspended in one line of machine programming code to process. It's a sign of our intellectual awakening moving beyond the golden age of human civilization as we know it.

We wouldn't have to despair if there was an inherent completeness to life. Like; grinding for a goal for a known, short and finite time, that would keep you satisfied forever. (But instead, the life that we know beckons us with experiences and challenges which are designed never to end. The human mind/body is designed never to end, but to consequentially/arbitrarily burn out because of environmental stress. Which has nothing to do with human meaning)

Again, like with applying the meaning of life to robots-- immortality changes the game completely. It changes what it would mean to live each day; it changes the flavor of life. Life might feel more dull if you aren't mortal anymore..

So.. it's possible to argue in favor of pretty much anything, in the way of what and who should live, and why. The world's your oyster. (or not)

But the best arguments will win favor, and those wouldn't be ones for totalitarianism, terminators and tyranny in general. We should stop being afraid of rational intelligent debate. Because ultimately, empirically, the best arguments will be humanist. There is just no sense in killing half the world. You'd literally destroy countless things.. you'd go to think "oh yeah I really liked visiting there" and then feel very down. And yeah basically there exists today so much of this irreparable human cost/strife/destruction, (emotionally and so on), and it's not needed. The world needs actual solutions that challenge the global status quo and radically re-assess human civilization fundamentally. Objectively. Everything else is circlejerk, self-congratulatory, or otherwise self-preserving and not good enough to save the world. Objectively moronic. Inferior. Worthless. The world needs intelligent people who can't be bought off, simply put.

 

[Sorlaize]

If we live in an objective universe, where the only thing each person can truly rely on is their own subjective experience, then the meaning of life is to improve that experience as much as is possible. In other words, happiness. Secondarily, to gain as much knowledge of the objective universe as possible. Dependent on the individual, of course.

Well what if 90% of people gaining happiness drives other people into suicide and depression. That alters the meaning of doing so in the first place. So you see, this is a question that can never be truly answered.

However we can of course get a rough idea or theory of how it applies to the individual alone. "How to succeed in life" etc.

But the social paradigm can still change at any moment. It's all open to interpretation.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

But I was really just mentioning this to get people to see how science can't always provide concrete answers. It probably doesn't matter so much what I think about psychiatry or psychology to most people.

I don't consider science perfect, though technology is always improving, and understanding is constantly being developed.As much as the many faults that have been produced by scientists, so have there been many benefits. It depends on the context and perspective.

Spoiler

It's as if people are trying to solve an existential crisis with medications, instead of human compassion, love, or self-respect. It makes no sense to me whatsoever.

The only benefit I could honestly see to psychiatry is in dealing with schizophrenia because some people seem to be controlled by it. If such a schizophrenic person finds it easier to live on medications that have side-effects and may be damaging their brains in some way, I suppose that's better than the alternative. But I don't think that means all schizophrenics should be on medications and it doesn't seem right to pretend that if someone is schizophrenic they need to be on medication.

I have no doubt that some of these dispositions are sometimes / can be caused socially; it's a fine line though. For the lighter cases, yeah, that would probably be just what someone needs, some sense of humanity from others. But if chemicals make up the brain, then it would take more than what most humans can offer in terms of emotional / spiritual support(even more, who would be willing to provide that?) for the more severe cases.

I could see how a medication could be used as a crutch. In that sense, it could be helpful. But in another sense, it's not that simple because these medications can be so dangerous. It helps in one way, but hurts in others.

The problem I have with this sort of thing is that it's not really solving a chemical imbalance, it's inducing a sense of well-being. If the idea is to act as a way to help motivate people to live, then fine, but this idea of balancing people seems sketchy when it's directly manipulating the brain and people are fed this idea of balancing, despite correlations to the contrary.

Yeah current medicine isn't perfect, you can just watch any commercial for otc drugs to know that with all the listed possible side-effects.

It's up to individual people with 'disorders' to decide if the negatives of drugs are worth it, if they still retain their consciousness and judgment to act for themselves.

I can't think of anything worse then telling such a person they are the offender and need to control themselves for other people.

It's the same with the law though, it's to sustain a functioning society. A person responsible for others such as a bus driver, train conductor, teacher, doctor etc they all should be able to meet standards of health in order to be allowed to maintain their social positions.

If you lived in the woods alone, then it would matter to no one but yourself what your mental condition is. That's not the case in cities.

I also don't really like the idea of telling someone they have a personality disorder because then they are seen as the disorder and not for the unique causes that influenced their behavior. If each person with bipolar has different causes and behaviors, then using the label to suggest a treatment for all bipolar people is silly; it gets even worse if the label is used to suggest that all such people have an illness that has no causes other than genetics or a bad brain and needs medication to solve it. When people start propagating these ideas, I can't help but imagine a duck with a monacle, a top hat, and a pipe quacking incessantly.

I'm pretty sure they have methods of specialization, at least I've seen mention of disorder subtypes. I do see how any possible psychosocial origins to the disorder could be overlooked, but this is where psychology and psychotherapy come in.

edit: damn your avatar, legs are what I'm especially attracted to. screwing with my straightness

 

[Philovitist]

My kind of thread.

What is it I want? To survive. The only meaning to life I have observed is to survive. The continued survival of ones species, it is instinctual. Turn your attention to nature. What is it you see?

False. You don't simply want to survive — you want to live a happy life. Survival's just the prerequisite. With the possibility of happiness, surviving is meaningless; there's no reason to put the effort into doing it.

Stop resorting to the naturalistic fallacy. Evolution is not moral philosophy. It explains why I am here; it does not constitute any prescription about how I should lead my life.

Seriously.

Hardly. All it takes is for someone to employ The Scientific Method to support a pseudoscience as a science to qualify. Psychiatry just happens to be one of the pseudosciences that attracts such people.

Or do you actually believe psychiatry is a science? If so, explain why.

Are you serious? What do you know about psychiatry? Have you even looked through a psychiatry research journal before?What do you think it is?

The problems of psychiatry are really hard and not at all solved, but that doesn't make it pseudoscience. We know SOOO much more about mental illness now than we did when the field just began. We have actually effective treatments for mental illnesses. We have actually soundly-based theories of how some mental illnesses happen.

Come on.

There cannot be meaning to objectivism as that would defeat the definition. Objectivism is independent of the mind and meaning is a product of the mind.

You mean "the objective". Objectivism is an idea, mental.

That link does not make the case for Psychology as a science, nor does it say anything about psychiatry as applied psychology. In fact, it explains why it is thought to be a pseudoscience.

What you quoted does not mention the word "pseudoscience" even once, Mr. Confirmation Bias.

I can only imagine you posted that without even reading it yourself and lazily said whatever you wanted to. I can no longer trust that you will discuss with me fairly or that you are even really listening to me at all. And you never answered the question I asked you. I will not talk with you anymore.

So immature.

Specifically, one could argue that all sciences start out as pseudosciences until such repeatability deems it worthy as concrete knowledge and a true science.

Define pseudoscience for me.

The objective meaning to life is to go on living. This is true for all living creatures*. I mean to test this, try to detract any living creature from their life. They will resist. Run your test and report back here how close you get to 100 percent.

Part of the life of these creatures is to reproduce, but in humans this is a little indirect. Humans have conscious minds and they like to imagine they will continue this "living." So they run their minds to imagining all sorts of living.

I mean to test this, try to suppress imagination of any one of these humans. Check out if they resist. Run your test and report back here how close you get to 100 percent.

After that, feel free to live your life well. Consider that an option.

People kill themselves for meaningful reasons all the time. Tibetan monks immolate themselves. Soldiers jump on bombs. I read dumb threads.

You're confusing correlation with causation. Indeed, there is a correlation between being an organism and avoiding death. But that does not mean that avoiding death is the meaning of life. There are tons of things ALL organisms do — they defecate, they respirate, they process things.

That doesn't mean the meaning of life is pooping. We poop because it feels good to poop. Maximizing the good and minimizing the bad is the meaning of life. If life didn't feature good things, there'd be no meaning in surviving. Life would be pointless.

Not to mention that the argument for normative behavior and a "balanced" brain has no objective standard from which to judge because behavior and the brain is in constant mental flux.

Oh, and I bet you think all of Medicine is a pseudoscience, too, because health has no objective standard from which to judge

Hey, read this:

Applied science takes objective facts and uses them for human purposes. These human purposes are subjectively derived, and aren't part of what makes applied science scientific; they just determine what applied scientists study and do.

Understand?

1) the universe is void of all meaning, because meaning must be created "on top of" it, because meaning cannot exist without an owner which also must be created "on top of" it

Owners and the meanings of their existences both exist within the universes they arise from the dynamics of particles within.

2) anything which exists creates meaning, which is a psychological component used by the individual to navigate the world and experience (much less so by insects, but never devoid of meaning entirely)

No. Life meaning is not a type of belief. The idea centers around the idea that the actions we take may or may not be pointless. It's this "point" of living, not our belief or use of it, that is what we're talking about.



INTPs make huge posts...

I've decided that this thread is too contorted for me to produce my theory of human value on this page. Another time.

Life's meaning comes from the fact that things can suck.

 

[redbaron]

I don't even...logical fallacies and paradoxes of thought don't need to apply to anyone in particular to be real. It's about pointing out misleading beliefs due to faulty reasoning, not about context.

You claimed that scientific inquiry into any 'pseudo-science' would be capable of convincing people of it being science. I'm positing that you're wrong and no, psychology and psychiatry are not pseudo-sciences. Unless you can demonstrate why they are (which you won't be able to), no one with any more intelligence than the dog poo I stepped in yesterday is going to take you seriously.

You've also claimed that your, 'phenomenon' can 'affect anyone' - yet you haven't given an example of one single person. This is the equivalent of me positing that, 'standard strains of influenza can cause people's heads to explode and shoot out candy. It doesn't happen to anyone in particular, it can happen to anyone.'

Obviously unless I can give an example of someone's head exploding like a piñata, I won't be taken seriously and the idea will be considered ludicrous.

You also blame the scientific method for the acts of people. Please elaborate on how a method for gathering data is responsible for the contemptuous actions of individuals.

 

[mattstone]

Life has no objective meaning. Hmmm. Is that claim objective or subjective?

 

[Philovitist]

Life has no objective meaning. Hmmm. Is that claim objective or subjective?

Propositions are objective. They have semantic meaning that, like light, can be processed by a computer.

 

[snafupants]

Life has no objective meaning. Hmmm. Is that claim objective or subjective?

@mattstone

Subjective (and incorrect) presupposing there's objective meaning. Even if such a statement is correct (i.e., there truly is no objective meaning), the source of the apparent objectivity is subjectivity, which brings the objectivity into question. Then again, if there truly isn't, or doesn't appear to be, any ontological eidolon on the horizon, you would be somewhat justified in making a negative/positive claim, but the claim itself would be tainted by a subjective prism and doubt. The best one can say, as a diminutive facsimile of the whole, is that something feels true to me.

 

[Grayman]

Often, people will suggest on here, using one form of argument or another, that life has no objective meaning. But I wonder, if they don’t know what that objective meaning is from the start, they wouldn’t know what they are looking for and then how can they know it doesn’t exist just because they never found it?

Let provide you with a possible answer...

The answer is too simple and so it often overlooked. The meaning of life is to live. I know this because the moment life ceases to want to live it ceases to live. If you did not want to live eventually you would die. For you the meaning of life is to live. Instinctively, your very being fears death because your very being wants to live. It is in the core of every being. It is the core of our every action and reaction of every creature. It is the directive of evolution because if evolution created an organism that did not want to live the organism would cease to live.