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The Meaning of Life

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Re: The Meaning of Life

#11

Post by attemptone »

hawkharris wrote: post #7

I went to a debate about the existence of God a few months ago. Dan Barker, an atheist who has contributed to the Daily Show, had the winning quote: "There is no meaning of life -- and that's a great thing: it means that there's meaning in life." The quote is poignant regardless of your religious affiliation. Barker was saying that the meaning of life is intensely personal. Each of us invents it through our own exper…

Your comment and that talk reminded me of a philsophy lecture I had about Nietzsche and the reason behind the "Übermensch".

Nietzsche feared that the progression of atheism would lead to broadly accepted Nihilism. Which would have the implication of anarchy and moralless behaviour. So he imagined the "Übermensch", a person who choses his own meaning and own morals, free from any moral commitment society has placed upon him.

Re: The Meaning of Life

#12

Post by ChristianMarks »

Then again there are Nietzsche's three terrible truths:

1. Existential: death and suffering are inevitable.*

2. Moral: life is amoral.

3. Epistemic: most of what we think we know about the world is illusory.

*I include being downvoted on HN, especially under the new voting regime, under the category of suffering.

Edit: a reference, with additional clarification and justification for those who dispute the abbreviated claims.

Leiter, Brian, The Truth is Terrible (February 22, 2014). Daniel Came (ed.), Nietzsche on Morality and the Affirmation of Life (Oxford University Press, Forthcoming). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2099162 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2099162

Re: The Meaning of Life

#13

Post by javert »

Here is the meaning of life.

There is only one inherent value to consciousness, and it is pleasure.

What is the evidence for this claim? It is directly perecptible. To see the proof of this, all you have to do is look.

Everything else you value should be for the sake of this ultimate value. (Because there is no other ultimate value for them to be for the sake of.)

Now, this isn't an endorsement of hedonism, which I take to mean "doing whatever feels good." Rather, you should pursue pleasure systematically.

First, it must be sustainable over the long term (your lifespan). Second, it must account for the various kinds of emotions (e.g. serenity, self-esteem, etc.). Third, it must account for the fact that these emotions are effects that have specific causes.

Re: The Meaning of Life

#14

Post by javert »

ChristianMarks wrote: post #12

Then again there are Nietzsche's three terrible truths: 1. Existential: death and suffering are inevitable.* 2. Moral: life is amoral. 3. Epistemic: most of what we think we know about the world is illusory. *I include being downvoted on HN, especially under the new voting regime, under the category of suffering. Edit: a reference, with additional clarification and justification for those who dispute the abbreviated…

Well, 2 and 3 are not true and 1 is leaving out a big part of the picture, which is that life and pleasure are quite attainable.

Re: The Meaning of Life

#15

Post by Codhisattva »

"Let instinct trump logic" - bad advice. Instinct is simply pattern matching current conditions against memory. Without experience, instinct is a poor criteria and logic should be employed. Read Kahneman for the supporting research into that.

Re: The Meaning of Life

#16

Post by DanielBMarkham »

tl;dr: We choose to give life meaning. It is our choice of assignment of meaning (or not), that is the only thing to be discussed here. (Yay existentialism!)

When you think about the incredible number of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars, having untold habitable planets, existing for tens of billions of years? Then we think about our one planet Earth, and how each of us lives only 50-100 years and then we're gone?

We have the question backwards. In the grand scheme of things, we're much less than a speck on a mote somewhere, a fruit fly. We're completely inconsequential. It's not for us to ask what life is about. We have the question backwards. Instead life -- that thing that has existed for eons before we were ever a possibility and that will exist eons after our memory is gone -- is asking us "What is the meaning of you?"

Life sets us up with initial conditions and gives us various challenges as we go through our minuscule little part of it. It is during these experiences that Life is asking us what our meaning is. Our choices provide the reply.

Being alive is answering the question: what is my meaning? We could no more judge the meaning of life itself than we could begin to count the habitable planets in the sky. To phrase the question in this way is just to provide busywork instead of dealing with the reality in front of us.

Re: The Meaning of Life

#17

Post by namenotrequired »

javert wrote: post #14
ChristianMarks wrote: post #12

Then again there are Nietzsche's three terrible truths: 1. Existential: death and suffering are inevitable.* 2. Moral: life is amoral. 3. Epistemic: most of what we think we know about the world is illusory. *I include being downvoted on HN, especially under the new voting regime, under the category of suffering. Edit: a reference, with additional clarification and justification for those who dispute the abbreviated…

Well, 2 and 3 are not true and 1 is leaving out a big part of the picture, which is that life and pleasure are quite attainable.

I don't think they're just "not true", but they are very generalised and ambiguous, and a lot can be said both for and against them.

Edit for clarity

Re: The Meaning of Life

#18

Post by jqm »

I see little point in trying to ascertain the "meaning" of life. From what I see, life itself gives birth to the concept of meaning not the other way around.

But I guess it would be hard to get speaking engagements saying "you are born, then you die, and what you do in between is a waste of time"....

Even if this were the case in reality. (Which I'm not saying it is).

Re: The Meaning of Life

#20

Post by [deleted] »

Codhisattva wrote: post #15

"Let instinct trump logic" - bad advice. Instinct is simply pattern matching current conditions against memory. Without experience, instinct is a poor criteria and logic should be employed. Read Kahneman for the supporting research into that.

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