What is the Meaning of Life?

[Cognisant]

Or rather assuming there is no inherent meaning (which is still open for debate) what meaning should we attribute to our lives or can something be inferred from the meaninglessness itself?

 

[Grayman]

That depends on the person but I would say that a person who is purposeful has dicovered their meaning. I would wonder whether we all can choose our own meaning and if so what should it be? Should it be what we seem to be built for or capable of?

 

[nexion]

Whatever you want. That is the beauty of nihility, you can take the inherent nothingness and fashion from it whatever you want, become your own god, and the god of your universe.

 

[Cognisant]

That's all well and good when you have the means to fashion yourself a paradise however as we are still subject to the difficulty of living our mundane working class lives I can't help but wonder if living for a more objective meaning might be more fulfilling.

I'd like to be a nazi, the beliefs don't matter to me but the totalitarian fascism is appealing, I'd love to be at a rally with hundreds of people who share the same sense of purpose towards the same goal, I'd really enjoy wearing a uniform, standing under our banner, to be part of something y'know?

Kind of like the ego denial of bushido, but where can one find a worthwhile daimyo in this day and age?

 

[Deleted member 1424]

We are either destined to spread across the universe infecting all things or to die mired in weakness, incompetence, and irrelevance.

Which is worse?

 

[redbaron]

The worst would be to spread across the universe infecting all things with weakness, incompetence and irrelevance.

 

[Words]

Where did this idea of "Meaning is Objective" come from? Does it relate to the origins of the idea or belief in "destiny"?

It reminds me of how people objectify aesthetics and values. This is "ugly." I *know* it is ugly. What a strange sense of certainty to have. Perhaps its humans burrowing their own holes by instinct.

I wrote this before:

"What's the meaning of life?"

Why do people ask this question? I'm guessing they're not asking about things related to the origin of life and origin of evolution, so they must be thinking about their personal lives or human lives in general? So why do people frame it this way? As if there is "THE" meaning of life. This reminds me of characters who "seek their destiny." What is my destiny?

 

[BigApplePi]

I don't know how I will feel next Thursday, but today I mean to go out and buy some koi for my fish pond cheap and have a good time selecting. Then I mean to plant more sunflowers in the field. I want to see what happens in the summer. I kind of doubt they can sprout because I planted yesterday's one inch down. Isn't that too far in clay soil? I hope this answers a little about the meaning of at least some life. I can't be expected to cover the whole thing ... that is unless you can think of something.

 

[Auburn]

The meaning of life cannot be objectively inferred..
But I don't think it stops there.

Because once you ask the question in the right way, then we can actually talk about 'meaning'. And there is some direction that can be inferred.

If we're okay to take the topic into the subjective realm, then we see principles at play. To cut right to the point, I think the 'meaning' of life is for us to evolve endlessly via adaptation to reality for the sake of retaining life.

I think we're "supposed" to strive for that. If there's any right and wrong that I'd infer it's that things which don't build our resilience toward entropy ought to be avoided since they aren't conductive to life. The meaning of life is to keep living, and to do so more effectively each time and in each iteration.

 

[Cognisant]

We are either destined to spread across the universe infecting all things or to die mired in weakness, incompetence, and irrelevance.

Which is worse?

For us or the universe?

I want to replicate endlessly and infect everything, probably because I'm a guy and the Y chromosome evolved from a genetic parasite so that mindset is probably hardwired into me at some level.

 

[Nick]

To keep the universal cog turning.

 

[doncarlzone]

Or rather assuming there is no inherent meaning (which is still open for debate) what meaning should we attribute to our lives or can something be inferred from the meaninglessness itself?

A public service channel in my country recently ran a program series with this title.

It started with the producer of the program discussing this question with a person whom he himself chose, in this case a famous author, and then the author would pick the next person to discuss this question with and so forth. Each discussion had to end with a conclusion and answer to the question.

Although highly fascinating with plenty of supposedly interesting people, from artists and philosophers to scientists - nothing original or substantial really came out of it, not that I expected it anyway. However, it still fascinated me how difficult it was for people to answer this question, not the fact that they couldn't answer it, but the fact that just entertaining it seemed like such a huge challenge to many of them.

I think all people already have answered this question, though most people are just consciously unaware of it. Perhaps a better question to ask, and one which has already been asked on this forum, is: "What makes you get up in the morning?" The first answer you will get to that question will usually be bullshit or very short sighted. The reason for this is either that the person is unaware of the underlying reasons for the their desires, or that the answer sounds too pathetic to openly admit.

The honest answer usually is: "Because I'm working towards a future where I will be loved." This may be romantic love, but often and even more importantly the love you get from people through acknowledgement and approval. This is true from the evil dictator to the hippie, though they choose to go about it in different ways.

So really the question for me is: "How will I go about getting this acknowledgement?"

Even if I rationally decide that working towards acknowledgment is stupid, which in some sense is true, then I would still decide that based on the same underlying reasons. It's only true because nobody, intentionally, acknowledges desperate people.

I'm currently partially aware of my current answer and it is sufficiently pathetic to think about, though less pathetic I like to think than it was a few years ago. However, this is only the answer I am living with at this very moment, it frequently changes. The answer is admittedly not well thought out either as I'm too busy living as if it actually was.

To actively change this is to either deeply engage in the question or perhaps more efficiently by engaging in experiences which will alter your answer or vision. Being as faulty as I am, I usually prefer engaging in the question itself theoretically. I'm working on that.

 

[BigApplePi]

once you ask the question in the right way, then we can actually talk about 'meaning'. And there is some direction that can be inferred.

If we're okay to take the topic into the subjective realm, then we see principles at play. To cut right to the point, I think the 'meaning' of life is for us to evolve endlessly via adaptation to reality for the sake of retaining life.

I think we're "supposed" to strive for that. If there's any right and wrong that I'd infer it's that things which don't build our resilience toward entropy ought to be avoided since they aren't conductive to life. The meaning of life is to keep living, and to do so more effectively each time and in each iteration.

Auburn. I think that well put.

The meaning of life cannot be objectively inferred..

But didn't you just objectify it? Anyone can look at other's lives and check them out with what you said*. Look at my post just before yours. Can't we say that is the meaning of a portion of BAP's life according to your thesis?
_______________-

*This doesn't mean another poster might have another thesis.

 

[Cognisant]

In response to doncarlzone's post.
So you're saying the meaning of life is, at least practically speaking, to complete something like Maslow's hierarchy of needs?

 

[BigApplePi]

It's only true because nobody, intentionally, acknowledges desperate people.

It is the business of professional counselors to acknowledge such people. There are quite a few threads on this Forum where people start the thread asking for help. Usually it arouses interest because people want to try out ways to alleviate the problem which some day they might encounter themselves.

 

[doncarlzone]

It is the business of professional counselors to acknowledge such people. There are quite a few threads on this Forum where people start the thread asking for help. Usually it arouses interest because people want to try out ways to alleviate the problem which some day they might encounter themselves.

Interesting, I think I agree though it was not the definition of desperate I was hinting at.

My thought was that we are all desperate in some sense for love and acknowledgement in various degrees. So what you will tend to find is that the most successful people, which in the eyes of the masses are people who receive a massive amount of acknowledgement, are the most desperate people. They are just good at hiding it. You do not have to look very far to find a "successful" person who never got the approval of his or her father in their childhood. In fact it's almost considered a recipe for "success".

In response to doncarlzone's post.
So you're saying the meaning of life is, at least practically speaking, to complete something like Maslow's hierarchy of needs?

I would have to think more about that. At least the bottom is the foundation upon which we can ask the question. The top has and can be interpreted in many different ways. Obviously the critique is that it is too self-orientated. My argument would be that even underlying selfish desires can lead to altruistic actions and thus should be acknowledged as such.

 

[Variform]

That depends on the person but I would say that a person who is purposeful has dicovered their meaning. I would wonder whether we all can choose our own meaning and if so what should it be? Should it be what we seem to be built for or capable of?

You already did that. So did everyone. This relates to my Theoretical Notion that there is room in reality for different perceptions of reality.

Maybe this is my Original Idea. If in philosophy it has been expressed elsewhere, point me to it please, anyone.

I discovered the meaning of life. It was not on purpose, but part of a process of self-discovery and understanding combined into a working Unifying Theory Of Everything. It has value to me, but not to anyone else, I assume, mind you.

And that is the heart of the matter, it is a personal perspective. And there is room in reality for disagreement or alternative views. And that is something taken for granted by all people, except me.

To me this is an amazing discovery. How is it even possible that people can have different views on reality without reality seizing to exist?

There apparently is a system in place that allows for different views, it is a fundamental aspect of reality.

The meaning of life is very closely related to this notion.

 

[Cognisant]

The perception of reality and reality itself are not one and the same so it's only natural that our subjective perceptions may differ whereas experiments designed to ascertain the objective nature of reality (at least an aspect of it) don't differ in different times or places unless some other factor is involved, such as ambient temperature affecting a chemistry experiment.

I can't prove the absolute objectivity of reality but it fits quite literally all the available evidence and even if reality were subjective you would have to concede then that your own theory justifies my perception of your idiocy although as you ascribe to this subjective reality and I do not it doesn't work both ways, subjectively you're an idiot and objectively I'm not

 

[redbaron]

 

[TimeAsylums]

increase complexity

 

[Cognisant]

Chlorine Pentafluoride, Hydrazine and a metric shitload of Tungsten

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x8liPdLa0yc

 

[Auburn]

@TimeAsylum - Higher complexity is one strategy of survival, and indeed a good one. But not necessarily inherent to life, as we see in the example of amoeba.

Some things do quite well living in stability with the environment, and regaining that stability when it shifts by shifting with it if necessary. Since amoeba are well adapted to most environments, they've no pressing need to change in order to continue living.

Complexity & adaptability develops as secondary strategies in order to retain that balance again. But some creatures have stabilized their form to adapt to most of the environment's changes, and so the meaning of life for them isn't to grow more complex, but to sustain themselves. Often they avoid the tragedy that may come from having poor adaptive strategies by being more prolific procreators. Which is another strategy of its own. =)

@Nick - It would still turn regardless of the presence of life.

@Variform - You seem to often intermingle the rationality of the heart with that of logic. I find it quite erroneous. While the heart's subjectivity needs to be validated in its own domain, the crass intermingling of it with other objective forms of reasoning leads to unwarranted conclusions. For example, why would it even be relevant to reality's survival/existence if the people within it hold varied views of it?

@BAP - Thanks.. I'd hope so. ^^;
I think the most precise truths are those that make sense from multiple angles.

 

[Redfire]

I'd like to be a nazi, the beliefs don't matter to me but the totalitarian fascism is appealing, I'd love to be at a rally with hundreds of people who share the same sense of purpose towards the same goal, I'd really enjoy wearing a uniform, standing under our banner, to be part of something y'know?

Me too, and I'm half-jewish. We need to start a transhumanist totalitarian party. Our philosophy: people come and go, only technological progress matters.

 

[kris]

Abstract romanticization of biological imperatives/ impulses.
Hats. People are not wearing enough hats.

 

[AngelOne]

I struggled with this question myself a while back when I realized that I was an atheist. One advantage to being religious is that religious gives meaning to life, even if that meaning is only to fulfill one's god's will. If I don't believe in a creation or personal god then I need to figure out my own meaning. I was fixated on the question because I thought that I could only have a good life or a happy life if my life had meaning.

Ultimately I decided that I don't need to know the meaning of life, and I don't even need to know if there is a meaning of life. I'll never be able to prove or disprove any definition I come up with so there's no point in me spending energy on the subject.

These days I try to seek out those things that make me happy and I try to enjoy as much of my life as I can. I'd rather live a happy and content life than a sad or bitter one and I choose accordingly. Obviously not all events in my life have been happy ones but there's more to my life than those events, and I work though those events rather than hang onto them. A few years of therapy have helped with that process.

 

[Variform]

The perception of reality and reality itself are not one and the same so it's only natural that our subjective perceptions may differ whereas experiments designed to ascertain the objective nature of reality (at least an aspect of it) don't differ in different times or places unless some other factor is involved, such as ambient temperature affecting a chemistry experiment.

I can't prove the absolute objectivity of reality but it fits quite literally all the available evidence and even if reality were subjective you would have to concede then that your own theory justifies my perception of your idiocy although as you ascribe to this subjective reality and I do not it doesn't work both ways, subjectively you're an idiot and objectively I'm not

You are getting there. I mean, not about idiocy. But what I was saying. Just think, if there would be an absolute reality, we would know it. It would be like a pillar in our view of reality, wherever we would look we would see 'the face of god'. Or a pillar of light. But in fact, it would not be visual, but it would be a knowing. A deep seated fundamental understanding of what reality was.

So it is more complex than just saying 'we are all subjective beings'. The fact we are is no proof there is no fundamental reality.

There could be but because we are hopelessly subjective, we cannot 'see' it. But that is not the point. That is not how it works.

Because groups of people can come together and belief in the same thing. The existence of god. Love for music. Values in society.

What this means is that reality is solipsist in essence. That is the only explanation that there is room for disagreement. Otherwise if there were a fundamental underlying reality that we just cannot see, that it keeps slipping away from us when we try to perceive it, because of our personal bias and subjectivity, but that if we became objective we would discern it , we would then know it. It would be undeniable when we reach pure objectivity. Science does that, it presents an objective system of discernment. yet still it is but a model.

And so if reality is all about what model you use, then solipsism is the only one that makes sense to me. There is no fundamental reality beneath all our humanness. We are literally adrift in a dream.

 

[Variform]

@Variform - You seem to often intermingle the rationality of the heart with that of logic. I find it quite erroneous. While the heart's subjectivity needs to be validated in its own domain, the crass intermingling of it with other objective forms of reasoning leads to unwarranted conclusions. For example, why would it even be relevant to reality's survival/existence if the people within it hold varied views of it?

Reality would cease to exist.

I am not using a mix of rationality and logic. I only use rationale. Logic and rationality are totally different things. You can of course reason logically. But you can also reason illogically and it will be as valuable.

The point is as you describe, or resist as you describe. There is no such thing as a fundamental reality beneath our subjectivity or 'heart'. Would there be, we would know it, because we can rationalize it. Yet, no one ever found it.

Why?

We never found the basic reality underpinning everything because it isn't there, no matter how you use logic or any form of reasoning, you cannot find it. This is not because we are 'subjective'. This is because it isn't there.

If there were a fundamental truth, how could there be when we disagree on it? If you say it is X and I say it is Y, which is it? It cannot exist. Our opinions would cancel each other out. That si the issue with religion and science. They cancel each other out. In between we know nothing.

This is a fundamental problem.

There cannot be an ultimate truth because if there was, all would see it, know it, experience it. We would sit in meditation...and bang! There it is. It would be something like a presence in our mind, and all would agree on what it was, its 'shape' size and significance. There would be no more war, disagreement. Everyone would call upon 'it' to prove themselves right and all would agree.

And yet, that doesn't happen. If reality was edged in stone somehow, based on some fundamental underpinning that connects ever single possible perception of its true nature, then there would exist no subjectivity. There would be no alternative. No science, not religion, but an all inclusive model. And yet, there is not.

There is not, because there is no such thing. And therefore, there is room in reality for polarity. This is why we can disagree. Because reality is solipsist in essence. And that means all views can simultaneously exist because all conscious beings are solipsists. And that means that no world view collides with another without imploding the reality function. Nothing gets canceled out, because your universe does not border on mine. We live in separate ones. We may share norms, values, outlooks, we can agree on many things, but that is a consensus. That is a shared mean average of what is useful to us as to be able to communicate and share a model.
But there is no fundamental truth or reality, because any such truth would be encompassed and isolated in your universe, from me.

Reality means no more than a non-existing space for solipsist consciousness. It is a sort of head-space if you like. You and I will never agree to this, that proves my point. Even as you read this, your universe will go on, there will be no giant cataclysm of an imploding universe back into a Big Bang state. In scientific depiction.

The meaning of life is to solipsistically experience your own universe in consensus with others.

Where you and are now is a trainstation. We meet each other here sow e can co-exist on some level of consciousness. We makde rules about the place. Some religious, spiritual, some scientific, we agree on gravity, that we have bodies and minds, that we have society, go about our business. But this is an island, a consensus, a sort of dream where we can connect ourselves into from our own solipsist environment. We meet here on what we agree is a world, in a universe that acts as a nice background. We can evens tudy it together and talk about Big Bang and what not.

But it is all Maya. A shared consensual dream so we may meet. But you live in another reality than I do. At this station, we can disagree, because the consequences aren't felt here, they are channeled into your senses when you read this and channeled into your own universe. All this train station is just a big plaza or a hub and every train is each of us. Or a space station where we all dock, or an airfield and we all have our own terminal. Or a pier.

To me this is the meaning of life. To share an experience in what we call the world or reality, but it is a consensus reality and just a contemporary, changing mental construction whereas the place I am in, is somewhere completely isolated from you. When this body dies, I go back into that universe. There I am god. There I can decide what to do next. Insert into the station again? Meet other solipsist beings?

This reality is no reality at all, it is just that bordercrossing between North and South Korea. There is a phone, there is a strict protocol, all soldiers are positioned, looking at each other so no one can fool the other. There are procedures, a consensus on what to do if North and South Korea need to talk.

I wonder what your solipsism is like, how you are to yourself, in your mind, in your 'reality'. All I can see of it is what your persona shares with me, here, in this special zone for interaction.

All this is reasoning. And it is a reasoning I use, out of my solipsism and therefor alien to you. Because this station is build to allow for this disagreement. It is the very disagreement that can happen here that allows us to have identities, different from another. And see things our way.

That is why 'reality' doesn't collapse. The meaning of life is to differ, so that we can exchange information, share 'life'. We are all a universe looking at another. We are a community of solipsists. This is how we are and where we connect when there is no reality that is fundamental to us all. The meaning of life is to interact, share ideas, maybe incorporate them into our own bubbles of reality and to connect. We think of life as such an enormous expansive situation. But in fact, we are but avatars of entire universes and when we die we will see the totality of ourselves again. This world is just the tiniest fraction of what we are to ourselves.

 

[Cognisant]

There could be but because we are hopelessly subjective, we cannot 'see' it. But that is not the point. That is not how it works.

Yes it is, we live in Plato's cave.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lVDaSgyi3xE

Our subjectivity is like a bunch of blind men trying to identify an elephant by feeling, each man feels a different part of the (assumedly quite distressed) beast and try discern what it is as best they can given their limited perspective, but only by collating their results and testing their hypothesise can they obtain a more accurate perception of the truth.

You cannot see reality objectively, when you see a wooden chair you don't see a dense cloud of atoms because you can't see things that small, you can only see the chair as it appears to be and for all you know it could be made of ceramic painted to look like wood and the fact that you think it's wood does nothing to change the fact that it isn't.

Suppose I pour you a glass of poison and tell you it's water, if you drank it would you survive?

You won't

 

[Variform]

Ah. The Indian elephant story. I cannot believe you didn´t use an in your message. They should be trekking all over it. I ahve to find the story again. It is I guess Plato´s cave in Eastern philosophy.

 

[Prion]

Existence has no meaning. It's just existence. We know nothing else, and there probably isn't anything else, so questioning it is extremely pointless.

However, "life" does have a purpose: To live. Every (most, I suppose) living organism has a will to live. We like experiencing existence, it's fun, and certainly preferable to being dead.

 

[Minicool]

Procreation.
We're born to breed and it'll alway be the case.

 

[paradoxparadigm7]

A few thoughts...

The meaning of life is to reconcile:

Our dominant and inferior functions
The boredom with the unexpected
Merging with the collective while retaining your autonomy
Parts of yourself that you've disowned (integration)
Experience with our abstract selves

There is probably more but I think it has to do with the tensions and forces that seem ever present when we are born into this experience of being. The tensions/forces seem like a river for every individual. Starting at the drip of a stream, taking it's course and shape through obstacles and ending by merging in the sea. Even the word 'being' hints at 'becoming' since being is not stagnant and cannot stay still.

 

[Duxwing]

The question is absurd because it speciously presupposes that "life" and "meaning" are well-defined in their context and that for "life" exists some "meaning".

-Duxwing

 

[walfin]

Amazed that no one has yet said "42".

Is life necessarily not worth it if it is meaningless? *muses*

 

[BigApplePi]

The question is absurd because it speciously presupposes that "life" and "meaning" are well-defined in their context and that for "life" exists some "meaning".

-Duxwing

Here's a try at reducing the absurdity. Let's do it without exercising too much stress on the meaning of meaning. Life (our life) is a time interval for us. Let's take some time segments.

1. The meaning of eating is so we can continue living as well as treat our taste buds.
2. The meaning of homework is a social requirement to get a degree plus whatever value learning the homework has. Since we may find out later this homework has no value while that homework does, we have to have faith.
3. The meaning of sitting and looking at shadows in Plato's Cave is something we speculate about but to pass the time we can assign a make-up meaning even if it may not be true.
4. The meaning of dating is to hope for fun in the present and invest in a future possibility.
5. The meaning of religion is like #3.
6. The meaning of 30 years of marriage or 30 years on the job is what we have gotten out of it. That could have lots of meaning or at some point lose its meaning.
7. Now we come to our whole life. It's meaning we can look back on in the present by fixing the time interval: birth to now. As for the future, that depends on our plans. No plans, no present meaning. Have plans, will with meaning travel. Big plans, lots of meaning; small* plans ... well we haven't bothered to assign meaning.
__________________

*Can't come up with a plan no matter what? Then that is not living and life becomes a hell. Hire a life planner or visit the INTP Forum.

 

[Variform]

The question is absurd because it speciously presupposes that "life" and "meaning" are well-defined in their context and that for "life" exists some "meaning".

-Duxwing

I feel sorry for you, in that you have been victimized by a very fundamental, therefore extremely hard to discern, paradigm of our society. Which is scientific thinking.

I am sorry you are so abused and you aren't aware of it.

Since Descartes and others of his type, we have learned to look at nature as dead, lifeless, without meaning. We humans are alive, but that live came to Earth is a chance occurrence, a cosmic accident. It is all just a matter of the right conditions and then somehow chemicals started mixing.And they kept doing that until eventually we come to a naked apae we call humans. And yes, they developed self-consciousness, but hey!

That too is a fluke. It doesn't even mean anything. It is all just 'emergent properties'! All our consciousness is is really brain activity, that if you just stack enough nerve cells atop each other and mix the right chemicals together, create some synapses, you get memory and all thes eother brain functions.

And that is all we are, biological robots, pre-programmed with instincts and consciousness, but it all means very little.

As soon as a child is born, it is lead to believe that. As soon as it enters school it gets deeply indoctrinated by this notion. Science is hammered into the brain when the brain is still forming. Learn math. Learn language. Learn science! Yes, here is one hour to play, but after that, it is back to exact topics. Biology, math, geography, chemistry. We tell kids they need all that because they have to be prepared for the labor market.

Why do we do this? Because we need workers. And workers are people who take dead matter, matter without life and meaning, that has only primary attributes, as Descartes taught us, and the secondary attributes are stripped from it and work this dead matter without inherent meaning and life or consciousness and create a product out of it.

I feel sorry for people that don't get this. I really do. What it must be like to be so deeply indoctrinated by science that you have come to think of yourself as a worthless piece of matter, without meaning, without spirit, that even that what is 'I think, therefore I am, can be disregarded as nothing special.

That you would take scientific reasoning as THE standard to measure All Things against and in so doing, devalue yourself to be no different than the matter we strip from the ground, like coal and ores. No more, that you are so deeply indoctrinated that you will actually defend the very concept that strips all the universe of meaning and intent and denounces you as nothing but an evolutionary oddity, a chance occurrence without meaning or significance.

And we wonder why we cannot seem to act on climate change issues. It is no wonder, we are powerless! We are nothing, we have no inherent meaning, life is a fluke, on this small insignificant little world, in some spiral arm of the milky way, in some backwater really. Had the wrong chemicals mixed, we wouldn't have been here!

So why worry about our climate, or even work to finally overcome poverty and people dying of malnutrition? These people are worthless anyway, right?

No, let's all go the scientific way. Because science proves to use how matter works, what the laws of nature are and in doing so, helps technologists invent new toys to play with. And why should we not play? We have no meaning othewise, so let's just make toys and play and hedonistically survive our ordeal on Earth. We are all gonna die and in 100 years no one will even remember us. So it is all useless.

And other species? Well, they don't have self-awareness anyway, and they are all flukes too. Science teaches us we can destroy the world and life and as it finds out how we kill the world, it is itself the primary cause of people thinking the way they do.



I feel really sorry for you.
And I feel sorry for all people who have their heads up the ass end of science and not even beginning to realize that science is a lie and a mistake when it is not paired with spirituality.

Even a stone has consciousness. And a tree. Every grain of sand has consciousness. But thanks to these cynical self-righteous incredible morons that raped the world by insisting that only things like mass, spin, resonance, motion, magnetism and so on and so forth have meaning, we are what we are today. We can now disrespect life itself as a fluke of nature, evolution is a random process and might as well never have happened.

Meaning, color, joy, scent, all these secondary properties have been stripped from the world, as if they don't matter, that they are nothing but aesthetics and circumstantial and basically meaningless aspects of the world, just flights of fancy.

Welcome to the human race! Self-conscious apes, flukes of evolution, without inherent meaning, part of a biosphere that itself is a random fluke that might never have existed and that would not have been a shame anyway. Living in a world that is dead, lifeless, even organisms asre just stacks of cells and can be explained and relativate away into matter.

We can now even grow organs in tubes, we can cause pregnancy with a needle, it is all just dealing with lifeless matter.

See? life isn't special at all. We just learn the tricks and there you are. Stacks of atoms, molecules, proteins and the whole works. But don't even fool yourself that live is without meaning! God forbid, no, how dare you even mention god. God is not in matter anymore. Matter is not imbued with anything.

But let's vehemently defend science and scientific thinking and empiricism and all these hot words that get people wet in their pans. Let's all worship science as a dead lifeless god. And then we will consume the Earth to bits because it is lifeless and meaningless anyway. And all reasons we ought not to do that are economical: what if it causes great migrations of people into our territory? What if our soil erodes so we can't get enough food? What if it causes an unstable global economy?

Fuck it, I wanna consume my plastics and metals! I wanna live on dead matter!

"All I am saying is that minerals are a rudimentary form of consciousness, whereas the other people are saying that consciousness is a complicated form of minerals."
-- Alan Watts, Myth of Myself / The Tao of Philosophy

 

[BigApplePi]

Certainly Variform. You are right. We as humans can use science to look at the details and concentrate on them or we can use our humanity to look at the BIG picture and see what is important = has meaning. We can't do both at the same time, can we? We can only alternate.

Perhaps the problem is when we look at the big picture we so often get it wrong we need science to straighten us out. Then when we get this science working we get so enthralled with its power, we forget what initiated this science inquiry in the first place and forget the big picture.

What we need is a method for how to use science to look at the big picture. But IS there a big picture we can hold on to or does the process fracture the picture? Why would this happen? Could it be the really big picture is so BIG it's too hard for humans, their conceit with science aside, to realize they cannot handle it?

 

[Coolydudey]

Brian.

Ummm, well if you're going to bother devoiding life of inherent meaning then it probably follows you're a nihilist of sorts, in which case you can't really ask "what meaning should I give life?"; it's just "what meaning might I as well give life?". Meh, it's all a bit shit really, who cares. Ascribe to it what meaning you please is my opinion.

 

[BrainVessel]

As much as I dislike the idea, the meaning of life is other people.
After all, without them life would be meaningless.
Or perhaps there would be a entirely different phenomenon of living completely alone and being entirely self-sustaining? But things die eventually and unless our physical forms were asexual there would be no life after the one living person. And the one person being asexual and producing more people would completely disregard the basis of my anti-inference.

 

[Variform]

Certainly Variform. You are right. We as humans can use science to look at the details and concentrate on them or we can use our humanity to look at the BIG picture and see what is important = has meaning. We can't do both at the same time, can we? We can only alternate.

I don't think so. I think a more holistic view is possible. But we are too indoctrinated to consider it: science must re-merge with spirituality. Over 2000 years ago there was no science like we now practice and worship it. All the great thinkers were poets too. They wrote political plays and tragedies. They studied everything.

We need that back.

Perhaps the problem is when we look at the big picture we so often get it wrong we need science to straighten us out. Then when we get this science working we get so enthralled with its power, we forget what initiated this science inquiry in the first place and forget the big picture.

Science alone straightens out nothing. It is not designed for that. Science is the business of taking things apart to their smallest denominators. Where science tries to go big, like in cosmology, it gets hopelessly lost. How come I, as a layman in cosmology and physics, can invent a perfectly inherent reasonable model of reality, where a cosmologist disregards vast swaths of human existence and still has no answer for why anything exists?

You cannot look at the cosmos without dealing with epistemological and ontological issues. Science alone cannot fathom reality.

What we need is a method for how to use science to look at the big picture. But IS there a big picture we can hold on to or does the process fracture the picture? Why would this happen? Could it be the really big picture is so BIG it's too hard for humans, their conceit with science aside, to realize they cannot handle it?

We don't need science to look at a big picture. We need to merge science with spirituality. We need to put back spirit into matter. We have to unlearn this false dichotomy.

 

[Variform]

As much as I dislike the idea, the meaning of life is other people.
After all, without them life would be meaningless.
Or perhaps there would be a entirely different phenomenon of living completely alone and being entirely self-sustaining? But things die eventually and unless our physical forms were asexual there would be no life after the one living person. And the one person being asexual and producing more people would completely disregard the basis of my anti-inference.

There is a way in which you are right. And that statement is more profound that you'll ever know.

I believe there is only one thing that is real, awareness energy. Everything is made of it. It is sentient. It is omnipotent and omniscient. It came into existence because of a primordial force I call Potential. Which, if you consider it, is a very elusive and tricky concept.

Awareness saw all possibilities. Including this cosmos. It saw all that could be in Potential. And it decided that all things that could be must be.

I heard this call very aptly 'undergoing the formality of occurring.

The meaning of life is NOT such a hard concept. Look at us congregate here. You are right.

What is individuality? Anyone ever asked themselves that? Each of us is unique and has different experiences in life. We are all undergoing the formality of occurring, because Awareness decided to create a platform for it and we call this 'reality' and in this reality is a section we know as 'the cosmos'.

Each of us has a different life and none other than us can live that life. And when we lived it, it will have undergone the formality of occurring. We are all that Awareness. All that is, is Awareness.

I can even describe to you how the cosmos started. But that is not important here.

All these people on Earth, living, dying, being happy or sad, all these experiences are meaning less if they simply exists as Potential. We must be because if we are not, there is no reality, there is no sense in not having a reality, where we undergo the formality of occurring.

It would make absolutely no sense to be Awareness and perceive all the infinite possibilities that it can create. And yet not let them happen. Awareness wants to be expressed.

Individuality is this: Awareness energy created a platform we call it reality. It sparked a Big Bang, a huge zipfile of pure intent, made of its own Awareness energy. It unzipped into the universe as we see it. It unpacked the laws of physics, created space-time. It divided itself into matter in many forms that came to be as the universe grew colder and bigger. And all these particles speak of one thing: individuality.

Awareness energy is one, undivided. The universe is all particles in all shapes and sizes we know of, they are all listed on wikipedia.

And then there came a sun and an Earth and life started there, as finally all the unzipping was sufficient to have molecules that could combine to create life. And then there were bacteria, that have a small conscience. And their experiences are that whatw e call undergoing the formality of occurring.

And then more complex life started and it complexified, constantly. Right from Big Bang and on-going it complexifies. And then there came a naked ape and they reached thus far the highest form of consciousness. And they were many and they were all individuals. And each of them lives a life no other can, because they inhabit a destiny, the destiny of being that single one person that already existed in the mind of Awareness, as a Potential.

We are expressed Potential, and we share this world and look at each other and love each other and celebrate, as we should, being here, for this brief moment in space and time. And we are what needs to happen because if we do not happen, nothing makes sense.

We are a self fulfilling destiny. I exists here because I embody the precise pre-visioned person that I could be, with all the choices that I make, with all the pain and suffering I endure, with all the love I feel, with all that is done onto me and which I do onto others, all that, in its infinite preciseness and scope, that I am. I am what it is to be.

Around me each individual lives the single most perfect life they can. In this we cannot hurt and be grieved, in this we feel no pain, because even our deepest suffering is meant to be what it is. And it is not bestowed upon us by a god or a deity, we chose this ourselves. For we are all that single One Awareness, yet divided, so that we can experience individuality and make real what was once just a Potential.

This gives meaning to all our lives, to be in the world and formalize existence, to be and do what we can or must. To be just a thought in the mind of Awareness energy is ultimately unsatisfactory. We would be there, contemplating all Potential lives, and not just lives. Planets, alien species, other dimensions, anything that you can imagine is what Awareness can imagine. It is infinite. But it means nothing if it never occurs.

So here we are. A species divided into individuals, yet we are all One Being. And in this individual state we can, by the 7 billion, experience life on a planet in a universe,in a cosmos, which might be part of an even larger structure, what science thinks in M-Theory and so on and so forth. I am sure there are other cosmosses. I can image there are, so there must be. For I am Awareness energy, the most fundamental expression possible and I come out of Potential, after all, I am, therefore I must have become. There was a Potential for me to exists, and now I am here. Undergoing the formality of occurring.

This is the ultimate meaning of life, this empowers even the most suffering child in the world, the happiest person, everyone in between. We are all worthy to be here, even stripped down of all dignity, power, glory or goodness. No one can ever take away from anyone their occurrence, because even when killed, we lived and died exactly as we had to. So truly we are our own destiny and our own reason.

And this frees us more than anything you will ever hope to understand.

 

[BigApplePi]

Man & Science

I think a more holistic view is possible. But we are too indoctrinated to consider it: science must re-merge with spirituality. Over 2000 years ago there was no science like we now practice and worship it. All the great thinkers were poets too. They wrote political plays and tragedies. They studied everything.

We need that back.

I'm thinking division of labor. We used to be whole but without modern science, we had limited understanding of how this whole was made up. As culture evolved we gained in detailed understanding (modern science) but lost the whole resulting in separate understandings where one part of us doesn't visit the other parts.

Science alone straightens out nothing. It is not designed for that. Science is the business of taking things apart to their smallest denominators. Where science tries to go big, like in cosmology, it gets hopelessly lost. How come I, as a layman in cosmology and physics, can invent a perfectly inherent reasonable model of reality, where a cosmologist disregards vast swaths of human existence and still has no answer for why anything exists?

Cosmology views large structures. Man* is the one viewing. Without man there is no cosmology. Cosmology forgets man.

You cannot look at the cosmos without dealing with epistemological and ontological issues. Science alone cannot fathom reality.

That is because science is not human. Science is an abstraction of reality.

We don't need science to look at a big picture. We need to merge science with spirituality. We need to put back spirit into matter. We have to unlearn this false dichotomy.

I wouldn't discount science looking at the big picture if science were to remember our forgotten spirit. This has me drawing attention to not using the word "spirit" without attentiveness to its meaning.

Spirit = the point-of-view of man as an organism, not a thing**, which is able to relate to everything from the most minute sensuality to the greatest in the cosmos.
__________________

*By "man" I mean personkind. This is not meant to be sexist.

**A "thing", such as a man made machine, has a finite breakdown. Organisms remain alive down through the finest level of consciousness and below. The unit of life is the cell but it is below our level of consciousness.

 

[Duxwing]

I feel sorry for you, in that you have been victimized by a very fundamental, therefore extremely hard to discern, paradigm of our society. Which is scientific thinking.

If it's so hard to discern, then how can you discern it?

-Duxwing

 

[matrices]

Just think, if there would be an absolute reality, we would know it.

[citation needed]

As soon as a child is born, it is lead to believe that. As soon as it enters school it gets deeply indoctrinated by this notion. ... Why do we do this? Because we need workers.

Ditto. Also, this. If this is centrally planned indoctrination, then it is astonishingly unsuccessful.

See? life isn't special at all.

Non sequitur (though by this point it's almost a waste of energy to point it out). I would recommend actually reading the major nihilist/existentialist/absurdist works -- Camus in particular. Even if life doesn't have an objective, external meaning, it is still a singular experience and should be experienced with passion and enthusiasm.

Over 2000 years ago there was no science like we now practice and worship it. All the great thinkers were poets too. They wrote political plays and tragedies. They studied everything.

But this does not imply an embrace of spirituality. Many modern scientists have been well-rounded and enjoyed the arts -- Heisenberg was a fan of Goethe, Bohr liked Cubist paintings, Oppenheimer read the Bhagavad Gita. Also, materialist philosophy is not new. It has existed at least since the late Vedic age -- see here.

 

[Variform]

Re: Man & Science

I'm thinking division of labor. We used to be whole but without modern science, we had limited understanding of how this whole was made up.

No sir. We knew much better what the whole was made up of. It's in the ancient Hindu teachings and they go back untold years. The problem is the indoctrination again.
We are born out of a world that now holds science to be the standard against all things must be measured. Science is dangerous, as it sucks up every other model into itself, into its own reality and then scrutinizes it against bits own methodology and basic assumptions. And so every other model will fall short.

Anyone scientifically minded here will attack me on this and hopelessly fail, because what I say is true. And they know it, but won't admit to it because science has become a belief, not a system.

I will tell you what I have come to realize in the past year. That nobody ever answered the following question:

How long would it take for Man to come to a deep understanding of the nature of reality?

Since modern western society clings to science to make a judgment on that, most will answer 'we still don't know'. But that is only because they cannot accept that old cultural traditions and philosophies are worthy to consider.

These Buddhists and Hindu's e.g., they came to udnerstand it very long ago.

I think the answer to the question is: Once you develop self-consciousness it doesn't really take all that long to figure it out.

There is this strange ideas that we don't know who and what we are and what this cosmos is. That may be so, but not for a Buddhist e.g. These people know. Westerners just dismiss that because science says it cannot possibly be true because it is a subjective experience and by default, such things are questionable.

I think the nature of reality si already known. I have come to it on my own, with borrowing all sort of junk from all sort of ideas.

As culture evolved we gained in detailed understanding (modern science) but lost the whole resulting in separate understandings where one part of us doesn't visit the other parts.


Cosmology views large structures. Man* is the one viewing. Without man there is no cosmology. Cosmology forgets man.


That is because science is not human. Science is an abstraction of reality.

It is a model , no more, no less. A description of reality, unfortunately, most science lovers refuse to see it that way.

I had a debate on the irc channel the other day. And the guy started cussing and yelling and calling me idiot and what not, and then excused himself as an Australian, who are apparently extremely crude as a people.

The whole science thing is so deeply rooted in people they get upset when you question some of their dogma. In this case, The Big Bang theory for which they have no proof, which is what science is all about and cannot explain what causes such an event.

It is hypocrisy. They want you to use the scientific method then when you apply it to the BBT they get mad because that they cannot explain and is their Achilles heal in cosmology. They can explain everything from the BB onward but not the thing itself, so they basically ask you to grant them one free miracle.

I wouldn't discount science looking at the big picture if science were to remember our forgotten spirit. This has me drawing attention to not using the word "spirit" without attentiveness to its meaning.

Spirit = the point-of-view of man as an organism, not a thing**, which is able to relate to everything from the most minute sensuality to the greatest in the cosmos.
__________________

To me spirituality is that what deals with the subjective experience of Self in relation to reality and the quest for understanding it.

 

[Variform]

If it's so hard to discern, then how can you discern it?

-Duxwing

I am an INTP and all my life I have been drawn to reflect upon reality and consciousness. I have spent decades contemplating, investigating simply because I have no work so I have time for this. And the reason to do it was to understand myself, why I am so fucked up, why I feel different from anybody else. And that started in grade school, so a lifetime of alienation will force a person to step outside of cultural thinking and indoctrinations.

It is easy to be indoctrinated when you are part and a supporter of these axioms. But if you are cast out and feel shunned, you are along the sideline.

This comes at a cost of a lifetime of pain and agony. The prize is being able to see patterns and paradigms.

I am not unlike a Indian Yogi, these people have ample time. If I worked, I would come home tired, my mind filled with doctrine.

 

[Variform]

[citation needed]



Ditto. Also, this. If this is centrally planned indoctrination, then it is astonishingly unsuccessful.



Non sequitur (though by this point it's almost a waste of energy to point it out). I would recommend actually reading the major nihilist/existentialist/absurdist works -- Camus in particular. Even if life doesn't have an objective, external meaning, it is still a singular experience and should be experienced with passion and enthusiasm.



But this does not imply an embrace of spirituality. Many modern scientists have been well-rounded and enjoyed the arts -- Heisenberg was a fan of Goethe, Bohr liked Cubist paintings, Oppenheimer read the Bhagavad Gita. Also, materialist philosophy is not new. It has existed at least since the late Vedic age -- see here.

You don't seem to understand what I wrote. So there is no point in replying beyond these words.

 

[matrices]

How have I misunderstood?

It is a model , no more, no less. A description of reality, unfortunately, most science lovers refuse to see it that way.

I would argue that most science lovers see it as a model, but one with no real competition.

They want you to use the scientific method then when you apply it to the BBT they get mad because that they cannot explain and is their Achilles heal in cosmology. They can explain everything from the BB onward but not the thing itself, so they basically ask you to grant them one free miracle.

The Big Bang has been addressed scientifically. No final theory has emerged, but that doesn't mean that scientists are asking for a miracle. Questions in cosmology can remain unresolved without resorting to the spiritual. You, on the other hand, don't seem to have directly addressed the Big Bang at all.

 

[Cavallier]

Setting aside any discussion of god or a self aware governing power in the universe (because that's not what this thread is about) I see one all pervasive truth and that is that life, death, and the universe is one big self sustaining cycle. There are little bits if matter that pop in and out but for the most part everything that dies and breaks down gets turned into something else and the cycle motors on.

So I wonder, what if we are just some sort of giant "What if?" experiment. There is no point and that is the point. To see what happens. That very human need to do something just to see what happens is powerful. I wonder if our psychology is just thrumming along to the beat of the experiment?

Edit: That's just a stray thought and now that I've made a post I think it's kind of silly.

 

[Architect]

Evolution.

That is, the process of self correction that prefers, and so creates, order out of disorder. This has been the name of the game in the universe since it's inception. At first we were simply a Baryonic cloud which later formed into Galaxies (more order), some of which evolved life (even more order) and some which produced intelligence - an order and complexity creating machine which takes over and accelerates the evolution process.

Everything else is a handmaiden to this fundamental process (or characteristic) of our Universe. Therefore, any meaning in the universe is beholden to that, i.e. it must be something that creates greater order and complexity.

What's the meaning of life? Create Art
What's the meaning of life? Write Software
What's the maning of life? Have sex
...

Take your pick.