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Why life is absurd

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com

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Re: Why life is absurd

#121

Post by vlucas »

aikah wrote: post #106
vlucas wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are tons of things that are falsifiable about the Bible and Christianity in particular. The Bible - unlike most other religious texts - gives many historic accounts of events, cities, places, timelines, people, kingdoms, lineages, etc. that are all quite easily verifiable. http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2013/07/christianity-t...

You misunderstand the concept of Falsifiability. It.It isn't about whether something is verifiable or not. But what it would take for a fact to be dismissed or not. It's not about whether a fact is true or not. For instance, the "fact" that Mohammed talked to angel Gabriel,which would imply angels therefore god exists according to Mohammed isn't falsifiable. You can't test that, or experience that. It isn't about the…

This is not unique to religion. We can't test or falsify the multiverse theory, time paradoxes, any naturalistic explanation of the origin of life, or any number of other scientific theories either.

Re: Why life is absurd

#122

Post by nly »

ctdonath wrote: post #68

Humans have had about 10,000 years of interesting & productive history. At best, a human lifespan is about 100 years. That's one hundred 100-year lives back-to-back. That's...not much at all.

An average generation was probably about 40 years for most of that. So I'd say about 200-300 generations. It's not much, but I still kind of feel that as a species we haven't done very much at all in that time. Personally I prefer to think we're in our teenage years as a species.

Re: Why life is absurd

#123

Post by locopati »

keane wrote: post #83
aikah wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> morals cannot be anything more than arbitrarily-made-up rules. One could argue morals should be based on the survival of mankind. Because that's the only positive goal of it, to survive as long as possible,though, ultimately mankind will come to an end,that's inevitable. On the other hand, as long as there is energy,artificial intelligence could outlast us.It would be mankind's testament and ultimate legacy. I alwa…

No, AnimalMuppet is correct. We are unable to value the survival of mankind as objectively good, as we have no empirical evidence to do so (more accurately: we cannot infer an Ought from an Is). See this for more on why: http://liamk.org/is-love-real/ Our options are Nihilism/Zen/Absurdity or Theism. And if the former is true, it doesn't matter if we hold the latter. As CS Lewis put it, if the Theists are wrong after…

Zen is not nihilism (unless you're bandying about the word in a way that has nothing to do with the actual practice of Zen)

Re: Why life is absurd

#124

Post by aikah »

vlucas wrote: post #121
aikah wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You misunderstand the concept of Falsifiability. It.It isn't about whether something is verifiable or not. But what it would take for a fact to be dismissed or not. It's not about whether a fact is true or not. For instance, the "fact" that Mohammed talked to angel Gabriel,which would imply angels therefore god exists according to Mohammed isn't falsifiable. You can't test that, or experience that. It isn't about the…

This is not unique to religion. We can't test or falsify the multiverse theory, time paradoxes, any naturalistic explanation of the origin of life, or any number of other scientific theories either.

Sure,that's why they are not scientific facts. But merely philosophy IE pure reasoning which doesn't produce any useful result.

Re: Why life is absurd

#125

Post by aikah »

andrewflnr wrote: post #82
aikah wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> morals cannot be anything more than arbitrarily-made-up rules. One could argue morals should be based on the survival of mankind. Because that's the only positive goal of it, to survive as long as possible,though, ultimately mankind will come to an end,that's inevitable. On the other hand, as long as there is energy,artificial intelligence could outlast us.It would be mankind's testament and ultimate legacy. I alwa…

Survival of humanity is an arbitrary, made-up goal, from a materialist perspective, anyway.

Why is it arbitrary? every species on that planet is "programmed" to reproduce and thrive, and we are no different.

Re: Why life is absurd

#126

Post by eli_gottlieb »

sireat wrote: post #118
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If (universe==indifferent) meaning=null; Why?

Because that implies man is free to make up their own meaning. No natural law, no nothing -> pure chaos Put it another way, indifferent universe strongly points to us being a complete accident, our qualia so cherished by us just an absurd joke. So meaning being null means there is no ultimate answer not even 42.

I still don't see why meaning is null in the case that the universe isn't a conscious agent. Meanings are aspects of us, not of the Universal Consciousness or whatever.

Re: Why life is absurd

#127

Post by eli_gottlieb »

pron wrote: post #115
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The universe is indifferent to us being around or extinct. So what? I fail to understand how this supposedly renders our lives more or less meaningful.

It makes the meaning of "meaning" self-referential. Usually, when we say that something has meaning, we mean it is significant to something external to it. If the most external thing at all does not consider our existence significant, then "meaning" becomes entirely subjective: something is defined to have meaning if we convince ourselves it does. Some may think that's not much. Others think that if that's as far as…

Nothing can be infinitely recursive, every chain of reference must bottom out somewhere. So why not in us?

Re: Why life is absurd

#128

Post by andrewflnr »

aikah wrote: post #125
andrewflnr wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Survival of humanity is an arbitrary, made-up goal, from a materialist perspective, anyway.

Why is it arbitrary? every species on that planet is "programmed" to reproduce and thrive, and we are no different.

Yes, absolutely, people are programmed to survive just like every other life form out there, so why favor humans? Just because we're the smartest? If I destroy humanity to ensure my survival, in what sense is that bad, since after all I'm just following my programming to survive.

When we talk about morality, we're looking for something that should happen, deeper than what does happen or what anything wants to happen.

Re: Why life is absurd

#129

Post by pron »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #127
pron wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes the meaning of "meaning" self-referential. Usually, when we say that something has meaning, we mean it is significant to something external to it. If the most external thing at all does not consider our existence significant, then "meaning" becomes entirely subjective: something is defined to have meaning if we convince ourselves it does. Some may think that's not much. Others think that if that's as far as…

Nothing can be infinitely recursive, every chain of reference must bottom out somewhere. So why not in us?

I am not sure I understand what it is you're saying, but sure, for many people something is meaningful if it is significant to other people, or even themselves. Others find that less satisfying, requiring a more absolute meaning.

Re: Why life is absurd

#130

Post by keane »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #111
keane wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would give you Nihilism. Theism disagrees.

>This would give you Nihilism. The Is-Ought Problem and the Open Question Argument are not so conclusive as to justify nihilism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_naturalism

If the world is material (natural) only, then the maxim of Hitchens and Sagan applies: "That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence". You assert humans have value. There is no empirical evidence of this claim. This leaves you with Moral Nonrealism.

Only if the world is posited to be something beyond material (supernatural), can we suggest values are Real and hold to Moral Realism. Anytime we suggest that humans have value or that moral statements correspond to real truths, we have abandoned empiricism and have entered the realm of faith.

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