The meaning of life is to entertain Mr. God.
A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning (2016)
161–170 of 236 posts
Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning (2016)
#162If physicalism were true, and abiogenesis happened without any intervention of "higher being"(s), and Darwinism were correct; then life wouldn't be meaningless. Neither would its purpose be determined by each individual. Life would have exactly two objective purposes: to survive and to reproduce. It's actually no more of a purpose than a tautology. It just happens that a species that survives and reproduces will cont…
> So, how exactly do we know which is good, which is bad? Is there even an objective good or bad without invoking the idea that some higher beings say so?
I’m not sure how “higher beings say so” gets you to objectivity, especially when the very nature of our understanding of any such being would be anything but objective.
Mostly what you’ve touched on there is that “good” and “bad” are rather inadequate descriptors of any sort of well reasoned and thorough analysis of many subjects. There can be multiple competing objective functions and incentives to analyze in complex systems, and simply labeling such things with any sort of dichotomy is liable to leave you wanting.
This does not mean the answers lack objectivity, or value propositions that can be meaningfully evaluated, it simply means the objective evaluations are considerably more complex and nuanced than many are willing try and assess, and this poled subjectivity serves as a somewhat lazy proxy for performing a better evaluation. Sometimes this is necessary given our limited capacities in day to day life, but it does not inherently speak to limitations of objectivity or evaluation of morality or philosophy.
Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning (2016)
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Life would have exactly two objective purposes: to survive and to reproduce. Why does abiogenesis and Darwinism being correct lead to those two being the objective purposes for humans?
As it says: It's actually no more of a purpose than a tautology. It just happens that a species that survives and reproduces will continue to live. Without a creator, there is no real “purpose” at all. Everything came from nothing, will end as nothing, and is ultimately irrelevant. Everything. As a Christian, I sometimes look over into that chasm and wonder how atheists bear it.
You echo my sentiments.
Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning (2016)
#164I think the purpose of life is clearly demonstrated by what it does all the time: resist and reverse entropy.
Locally perhaps, but when a lake freezes it also reduces its local entropy. Does that also count as purpose?
Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning (2016)
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We are here on Earth to fart around. Except that we're not. We are here on earth to make copies of our DNA. There are some ancillary effects of this (like sex and eating and the internet) but it's not like life doesn't have a purpose at all. It's just not a particularly hifallutin' one.
I think you haven't really thought through your stance. If that is the only purpose, then men should sleep with as many women as possible, even raping them, because that is what matters. I knowingly married a woman who is unable to bear children. We adopted two, and I don't feel in any way that my life is less for not spawning. Here is a hypothetical: in scenario 1, you are an average Joe and have three kids. In scen…
> If that is the only purpose, then men should sleep with as many women as possible, even raping them, because that is what matters.
No, because humans are not born self-sufficient. Humans have to raise their offspring, not merely produce them, in order to be successful.
> I knowingly married a woman who is unable to bear children. We adopted two, and I don't feel in any way that my life is less for not spawning.
Your genes are not just in you, they are also in other humans, so your genes can improve their reproductive fitness by producing people like you who help to raise other people's children (in which those genes also reside).
With that in mind I'll leave your last question as an exercise :-)
Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning (2016)
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
A "real nihilist" might kill themselves (hey, is anyone needs to hear this, don't kill yourself, and definitely don't kill yourself because of a thought experiment [1]), but most of the nihilists I've met have adjusted to their perspective and responded to it in a healthy way. (I'm not gunnuh engage in a Scotsman argument about whether that's disqualifying. But I'll grant there's an obvious survivorship bias there.)…
Well that's why I believe most nihilists aren't actually nihilists. Also, I don't think believing in meaning has anything to do with nihilism. In fact, the sentence kind of implies you are speaking of objective meaning which is what grinds my gears.
You have a popsci understanding of nihilism.
Nihilism in truth has no prescriptive value judgment on one's choice to keep living.
Nihilism as a philosophy puts forth the notion that there is no inherent meaning to life; full stop.
What you derive after this is your prerogative.
Under this framework, living one's life to their fullest is equally as valid as killing oneself; there is no preference for one or the other, and there is no difference, as it doesn't matter.
The inclination to associate nihilism to destructive tendencies is overblown by popsci and is valid only to the extent it is easy to argue nihilism allows for it, but it neglects to mention nihilism is completely compatible with other/optimistic ideals as well... as it doesn't matter.
Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning (2016)
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Life would have exactly two objective purposes: to survive and to reproduce. Why does abiogenesis and Darwinism being correct lead to those two being the objective purposes for humans?
As it says: It's actually no more of a purpose than a tautology. It just happens that a species that survives and reproduces will continue to live. Without a creator, there is no real “purpose” at all. Everything came from nothing, will end as nothing, and is ultimately irrelevant. Everything. As a Christian, I sometimes look over into that chasm and wonder how atheists bear it.
The one argument about religion I find especially hard to understand is that of needing some higher entity to give your existence meaning.
It sort of comes off to me as a lighter way of asking how you can be a moral person without the threat of eternal suffering in the afterlife (not to suggest that you actually mean that).
I consider myself agnostic, practically an atheist, I just don't really like associating myself with the "hurr durr sky daddy" types, I think religion and the idea of a creator are valuable to help people cope with situations which are totally out of their control, but I can't really relate to needing a creator to give me purpose. I give myself purpose by doing and supporting the things that I feel are right/important.
I don't think existence needs any overarching purpose offered by a creator, it's fine that everything is ultimately meaningless. If anything I find it relieving since it also means that our failures also only have as much meaning as we ascribe to them.
Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning (2016)
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
As it says: It's actually no more of a purpose than a tautology. It just happens that a species that survives and reproduces will continue to live. Without a creator, there is no real “purpose” at all. Everything came from nothing, will end as nothing, and is ultimately irrelevant. Everything. As a Christian, I sometimes look over into that chasm and wonder how atheists bear it.
What actually changes if there is a creator though? Isn't it exactly the same, it "just happens" that a creator created a species and that species survives and reproduces. As you yourself say, it's merely a tautology to define purpose into existence, but the same is true even if a creator is involved, it's still just something that "happens". Something was created by a creator. Now what? Where did purpose come from?
The purpose comes from why the creator created it. Whether the created likes and accepts its purpose is a different question.
George MacDonald was quoted as saying something to the effect of: "did it ever occur to you that God created you for one purpose: simply to love you". All the stuff that we do would then flow from experiencing that reality. This would suggest a view of us as God's children (indeed, in Gen 1, the point is arguably that in the end, God reproduces after his kind [as much as is possible]). I don't have kids, so I don't no, but it seems like that is ideally why people have children--to love them.
The Westminster Catechism is related: "What is the chief end [purpose] of Man? The chief end of Man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever." It is less satisfying, since it seems to sound like it requires toil on our part, although I doubt the authors saw it that way.
Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning (2016)
#169If physicalism were true, and abiogenesis happened without any intervention of "higher being"(s), and Darwinism were correct; then life wouldn't be meaningless. Neither would its purpose be determined by each individual. Life would have exactly two objective purposes: to survive and to reproduce. It's actually no more of a purpose than a tautology. It just happens that a species that survives and reproduces will cont…
> Is there even an objective good or bad without invoking the idea that some higher beings say so?
Physics has no concept of good or bad, so if you mean universally objective then I would argue not. However an analogous question might be, is there an objective comfortable or uncomfortable air temperature, and I think we could all agree that 25C is comfortable wheres 40C is not, so objectivity in that case is species-dependent. Therefore as you alluded to earlier in your post, what's 'objectively' good or bad is based on a consensus of what's good or bad for members of our species. It's actually relatively easy to have a good moral compass without a higher being looking over one's shoulder, although the idea of the higher being seems to induce some people to favour 'objectively' good over personally good when there is a choice to be made.
Re: A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning (2016)
#170If physicalism were true, and abiogenesis happened without any intervention of "higher being"(s), and Darwinism were correct; then life wouldn't be meaningless. Neither would its purpose be determined by each individual. Life would have exactly two objective purposes: to survive and to reproduce. It's actually no more of a purpose than a tautology. It just happens that a species that survives and reproduces will cont…
This assumes that humans are great for the planet and life on it, which they are not.