What's the meaning of life?

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Tamminen
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Re: What's the meaning of life?

Post by Tamminen »

-1- wrote:Man in his 100,000 year history has contemplated the meaning of life.
So why stop contemplating it now? There must be a good reason for thinking about existence, because man has been thinking about it at least 100 000 years.
If there were any meaning, you'd think that someone would have discovered it by now.

But 4,000,000,000,000 minds (give or take a few) did not find the meaning of life.

There was not one single soul who found the meaning of life.
How do you know that no one has found the meaning of life? Perhaps there are many who have found it but don't want to talk about it.
Cause, yes, there was a causation process. But reason, no.
That is a metaphysical belief which we must criticize in the same way as all metaphysical standpoints. If reality is not rational, i.e. if it has no meaning, this irrationality is still something we are concerned with, and it does not necessarily stop our questioning about meaning.
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Re: What's the meaning of life?

Post by -1- »

Tamminen wrote: *A* So why stop contemplating it (the meaning of life) now? *B* There must be a good reason for thinking about existence, because man has been thinking about it at least 100 000 years.
*A* Because you ought to realize by now that the contemplation is futile. It leads to nowhere. Don't let me stand between you and your contemplation, it's a free country, but I guarantee right now that you won't find the meaning of life in any way.
*B* A good reason for thinking about finding the meaning of life is that it is painful to accept that there is no meaning of life. However: pain does not necessitate the lack of pain in the future. For instance, in the Christian beliefs, being in hell damned for ever never stops the pain.
Tamminen wrote: How do you know that no one has found the meaning of life? Perhaps there are many who have found it but don't want to talk about it.
I suggest that if someone found a reliably true and even provable meaning of life, they'd publish it. It's like asking, if someone found out the way to create cheap, abundant, safe cold fusion, would they keep it a secret.
Tamminen wrote: That is a metaphysical belief which we must criticize in the same way as all metaphysical standpoints. If reality is not rational, i.e. if it has no meaning, this irrationality is still something we are concerned with, and it does not necessarily stop our questioning about meaning.
Like I said, question away. I won't stand in your way. Just remember my guarantee. If you like, we could make it into a bet: I bet my $1000 against your $1 that in ten years you won't find the meaning of life. The odds I offered are deceptive, because the odds of my winning is actually 4000,000,000,000 to zero. (Going on historical results.)

-- Updated 2017 August 31st, 5:10 am to add the following --

Tamminen, thank you very much for not quibbling about the number of humans I estimated who had gone before us and contemplated about the meaning of life. Many users on this site would have tried to bring my claim down by charging me that the 4000,000,000,000 give or take, is the wrong figure. I detest quibbling on that level of importance of detail.

Hence, I appreciate your criticism: you attack the main, important points, and leave the minor and trivial parts alone.

I like that.

-- Updated 2017 August 31st, 5:16 am to add the following --
Ranvier wrote:-1-

After everything I had said... the three absolutes (there are more ;)) and the prove for "God"....?

-- Updated August 30th, 2017, 6:55 pm to add the following --

*proof

-- Updated August 30th, 2017, 6:59 pm to add the following --

Using a religious metaphor... Peter... how many times must you place your finger in the wound?
Ranvier... a few suggestions, if I may.

1. Try to use a language to express your thoughts.

Okay, I stop there right now, I don't want to cause an overload. :-)

-- Updated 2017 August 31st, 5:26 am to add the following --
Greta wrote:
... wouldn't the fact that people have wondered so much about the question intrinsically make it worthwhile?
Yes, finding the meaning of life would make all the thinking very worthwhile. No question about that.

It does not mean, however, that there will be an answer found.

My personal belief is that this universe is a happenstance, and as such, trying to find a meaning behind it or behind any of its features is completely void of possible success.

You can prove me wrong, Greta, by finding the meaning of life. And I will be one of your most ardently grateful recipients of that piece of information.

But first things first. Find it, that's task no. 1.

The balls are in your court.
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Belindi
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Re: What's the meaning of life?

Post by Belindi »

Tamminen wrote:
Belindi wrote:'Life' is an idea. Living things exist but life does not exist except as an idea. Life cannot mean or intend anything as it is not a living thing.

Not every question makes sense, and the title of this thread does not make sense.
'Life', 'existence', 'being' etc. are concepts or ideas the meanings of which we understand more or less, and surely not as well as we want to understand them. Therefore we desperately try to clarify their meaning, because they are crucial for our very existence. That is why we have religions, philosophical schools, science, humanities and so on.

Heidegger wrote his main work 'Being and Time' to clarify the meaning of 'being'. He got a bit further than many others but did not find the aswer. So let us continue our discussion, perhaps we'll reach the goal. :)
Tamminem, this is a copy of the post in which I explained why the question does not make sense.

-- Updated August 31st, 2017, 5:38 am to add the following --
Belindi wrote:'Life' is an idea. Living things exist but life does not exist except as an idea. Life cannot mean or intend anything as it is not a living thing.

Not every question makes sense, and the title of this thread does not make sense.
I cannot delete or else I'd delete my last reply to Tamminem which wasn't the post I intended to copy. instead, the above is my reply to Tamminem's query why the OP's question does not make sense.

I do agree with Tamminem that the questions that the OP probably intended are important questions. But the question as asked does not make sense.
Tamminen
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Re: What's the meaning of life?

Post by Tamminen »

Belindi:
'Life' is an idea. Living things exist but life does not exist except as an idea. Life cannot mean or intend anything as it is not a living thing.
'Life' is an idea that refers to a real phenomenon as we all know, and to this phenomenon we have a relation: it means something to us. But in addition to this, and what the OP probably meant, there may be some kind of teleology involved in the universe, so that life as a phenomenon could have a purpose or meaning in the cosmic sense. We don't need to accept this, but it is a meaningful question. So the original question is proper and meaningful as far as I can see.

-- Updated August 31st, 2017, 10:19 am to add the following --

-1-:
...you ought to realize by now that the contemplation is futile. It leads to nowhere. Don't let me stand between you and your contemplation, it's a free country, but I guarantee right now that you won't find the meaning of life in any way.
I sort of like your pessimism. But there has been enormous progress in science during the last 100 years, why not in philosophy during the next 1000 years? Maybe we will understand more and more about our existence, not the whole story at once. And isn't the progress in science part of that story?

But what is most important: why stick to a metaphysical belief in the irrationality of reality? We exist, doesn't this alone claim some rational explanation?

A materialistically thinking astrophysicist once, in his weak moments, started to wonder why the universe had the enormous trouble of starting to exist.
Belindi
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Re: What's the meaning of life?

Post by Belindi »

Tamminem wrote:
'Life' is an idea that refers to a real phenomenon as we all know, and to this phenomenon we have a relation: it means something to us. But in addition to this, and what the OP probably meant, there may be some kind of teleology involved in the universe, so that life as a phenomenon could have a purpose or meaning in the cosmic sense. We don't need to accept this, but it is a meaningful question. So the original question is proper and meaningful as far as I can see.
Life is not a phenomenon, it's a concept, i.e. it's an idea made up of a lot of attributes. We cannot perceive life but we can perceive the phenomenal signs of life.

The original question of the thread is a meaningful question in the sense that "what's the meaning of death?" makes sense. Death is also a concept not a thing. If the questioner wanted to posit a teleological cause then they should have said so, if only because so many people don't believe that a concept

-- Updated August 31st, 2017, 11:58 am to add the following --

don't believe that a concept of life can have intentions of its own.

-- Updated August 31st, 2017, 12:02 pm to add the following --

PS 'Life' is a word that refers to at least two ideas.

1. Life is used as a term to indicate experience of life, often one's own life.

2. 'Life' is used as a term to indicate the category of living things.
Tamminen
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Re: What's the meaning of life?

Post by Tamminen »

Belindi:
Life is not a phenomenon
Life is a phenomenon in the phenomenological sense. Life defines living beings. When we ask about the meaning of our individual existences, we also ask about the meaning of life in general.
don't believe that a concept of life can have intentions of its own.
Not the concept of life, but living beings, i.e. us, can ask about the meaning of life.
'Life' is used as a term to indicate the category of living things.
Better: to indicate the "property" that defines living things.
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Re: What's the meaning of life?

Post by Belindi »

Tamminem wrote:
Not the concept of life, but living beings, i.e. us, can ask about the meaning of life.
We can and do, as the contributors to this thread bear evidence. Philosophers ask what if anything a question means. You have consistently refused to address the vagueness amounting nonsense of the question. I understand your point that the original poster and you yourself seek meaning. So do I. So does everybody. However our quest for meaning is not aided by imprecise language.
(Belindi wrote)'Life' is used as a term to indicate the category of living things.

(Tamminem replied)Better: to indicate the "property" that defines living things.
Biologists define life as a set of attributes. About sixty years ago I learned the accepted set of attributes which as I recall includes metabolic and reproductive processes. Biologists will have moved on since. I bet they don't identify a living thing by any one property.

I suspect that you are a covert religionist who believes that a living thing is defined by its "soul", or its "life force". There are no such things .

As for our quests for meaning ; as human adults we are responsible for or own meanings. If you don't like this yous can always accept some other man's meaning. There are plenty of men who would be delighted for you to follow them.
Tamminen
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Re: What's the meaning of life?

Post by Tamminen »

Belindi wrote:I suspect that you are a covert religionist who believes that a living thing is defined by its "soul", or its "life force". There are no such things .
No, I am not a religionist, I try to analyse phenomena from a "clean table" which was the starting point of Husserl, for example.

We are living beings, and conscious beings. As I wrote, when we think about our own consciousness, for example, and as philosophers we often do, we also think of the meaning of consciousness in general at the same time, because consciousness is a phenomenon we can detect in nature. And this is true independent of our being materialists or idealists. The same applies to life. So what is wrong about questioning the meaning of life? I still don't understand.

Life cannot, of course, be defined by one property, but that does not change the situation.
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Re: What's the meaning of life?

Post by -1- »

Tamminen,

I have no difficulty accepting that there is no beginning of time during which matter has existed.

Your astrophysicist friend who has difficulty with the "beginning" ought to consider no beginning.

My uncle, a devout Roman Catholic, has numerous times started a discussion with me and his basic premise was, that "Andrew, the universe had to be created, and if it was created, it was created by someone." I told him equal number of times, that it's a fallacy in my belief (but not in his) to think that matter did not last for ever and it had to be created.

If there was a creator, who created the creator? If he wasn't created then why is it hard to accept that matter wasn't created?

There is a whole bunch of reasonable questions that speak against creation by a god. If god created the universe, and there had been nothing physical before, why did god create the world at that time? The infinite time that preceded the moment of creation was all along in every moment indistinguishable from the moment of creation... why create it THEN, and not some other time?

Also, there are more logical problems with the creation theory. Please ask fooloso4, he is very, very knowledgeable in these matters, and he is willing and happy to share his knowledge with interested parties.

My father used to think exactly like my uncle with regard to creation. Dad had started the seminary in his youth, but opted out.

-- Updated 2017 September 1st, 6:45 am to add the following --
tamminen wrote:I sort of like your pessimism.
I did not start out with pessimism. I started out with a conviction that matter is everlasting, and there is no creator. These are two assumptions I can't force you to accept by using logic. But I wish you could accept them. The lack of purpose in life grew out of it naturally. Pessimism is not me, or mine; it is a necessary hang-about of the outcome of the thinking.

You learn to live with the pain. You learn to roll with the punches.

(I said this once at a meeting of philosophically-minded people, as a refutation to the speaker's point; and the speaker was a rather influential professor of philosophy at the local university. So it was important for me to make a point, and to make it well. My accent, foreign-sounding accent, however, made the last word of my speech sound like a Latin American last name, like Lopez, or Gomez, or Panchez. The entire audience roared up in laughter, and I and my point was totally diminished.)

-- Updated 2017 September 1st, 6:56 am to add the following --
Belindi wrote:
We can and do, as the contributors to this thread bear evidence. Philosophers ask what if anything a question means. You have consistently refused to address the vagueness amounting nonsense of the question. I understand your point that the original poster and you yourself seek meaning. So do I. So does everybody. (*) However our quest for meaning is not aided by imprecise language.
(*) I actually don't. I stopped doing that when I realized there is no meaning.

Belindi: the phrase has taken on a meaning of its own. It is badly worded, fine, but everybody uses it that way. Think of it as a bastardized sentence, with an awkward structure, but accepted by the language and by those who speak it as a lingual phrase, as a completely fine and fully meaningful idiom.

When you or someone else says, "my world has come crumbling down" you don't expect that the world around the person has come crumbling down. Or when someone says, "time will tell if you are right or wrong", you don't expect time to assume a physical shape that can speak and then tell us what it precisely thinks.

Same with the meaning of life. Maybe you are right, it does not make sense semantically; I am not even sure if I can agree with that. But it does not need to, in order to convey meaning, because it is an idiom that everyone understands the same way, never mind its (according to you) awkward composition.
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Tamminen
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Re: What's the meaning of life?

Post by Tamminen »

-1-:

I don't believe in a transcendent creator of the universe. Modern cosmology has a satisfactory theory of the universe, and according to it time has a beginning. I have no difficulty accepting that. But this does not prevent me from wondering the rationality or irrationality of the existence of the universe. And there seem to be some cosmologists who have been wondering it as well, if only when they are relaxed.

Belindi:

I have tried to understand your point, and I have come to these conclusions, correct me if I am wrong:

You seem to think that a concept does not refer to a real phenomenon but to a collection of individuals sharing some common properties, and these properties do not make a phenomenon. So, for instance, the physical concept of electron refers to all individual electrons, being born and vanishing all the time. But in physics there is the general wave function of the electron, and this wave function can be seen as the "meaning" of the electron among physicists. If there are other meanings of the electron is not a problem for a physicist, but some philosophers might be interested in asking even these kinds of questions.

And the same applies to life, of course. There is a difference, however: as an individual living being I can ask about the meaning of life in general, but because I am living myself, we can say that life seeks its own meaning. But all in all, my point is that life is a real phenomenon, and as such we can seek its meaning. Therefore, asking about the meaning of life, even its purpose, is meaningful even if we are sure there is no such meaning.

I think what you are proposing is extreme nominalism, but I don't think even that justifies the view that 'what is the meaning of life?' is not a meaningful question.
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Re: What's the meaning of life?

Post by Belindi »

Tamminem, you wrote, and I quote only the beginning of your post as it's quite enought o be going on with:
You seem to think that a concept does not refer to a real phenomenon but to a collection of individuals sharing some common properties,
A concept is mental object and so a concept cannot be " a collection of individuals sharing some common properties". It is clear that individuals are physical not mental . However one can have a concept of a collection of individuals, which is not the same as a concept of a collection of individuals, although it is unclear whether or not in the absence of any concept, or any human concept, a collection of indivduals exists in any meaningful sense. It follows that conceptualising perceptions allows us to make sense of the world in which we find ourselves.

A concept is a collection of ideas attributed to the same thing. So we have 'a concept of the USA', 'a concept of the best way to cook beef', 'a concept of the multiplication tables', 'a concept of bottled lemonade'. Etc etc. My concept of Tamminem until Tamminem put me right included that Tamminem was a covert religionist. My concept of Tamminem also includes a vague idea of what Tamminem looks like which includes that Tamminem wears a beret. And this small confabulation arises from the word 'tammy' which is a word for a beret.

I guess is that if you had written 'particulars' instead of 'individuals' I'd have understood your meaning better. I don't know how to respond to this and I don't know what nominalism is, although |I have actually tried to understand the term on several occasions. I think of concepts as to do with psychology and how people learn.
Tamminen
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Re: What's the meaning of life?

Post by Tamminen »

Belindi wrote:A concept is mental object and so a concept cannot be " a collection of individuals sharing some common properties". It is clear that individuals are physical not mental .
Perhaps I should have written 'denote' instead of 'refer', because that is what I meant.

And true, 'particular' is better than 'individual'.
And this small confabulation arises from the word 'tammy' which is a word for a beret.
Tamminen is a Finnish surname, so I am here as my own self. I wear a cap only in the winter. :)
Belindi
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Re: What's the meaning of life?

Post by Belindi »

Apologies, Tamminem. I should not have presumed that English is your native language. Keep warm :)

I have just finished a post in the other forum objecting to someone else's metaphor. My point is that metaphors can have implicit presumptions just like explicit language.

"My world came crashing down" is okay as it is all about somebody's feelings and life event and is a proposition pure and simple. "What's the meaning of life?" can be answered only with the further question "Whose life are you asking about?"
Tamminen
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Re: What's the meaning of life?

Post by Tamminen »

Belindi wrote:"What's the meaning of life?" can be answered only with the further question "Whose life are you asking about?"
And my answer would be: "Anybody's". Because life in general and my existential situation are different things and in this case I mean life in general.

Nominalism would mean in this case that there is no such thing as life in general, but I do not share that view. If you do, I cannot help, only disagree.
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Re: What's the meaning of life?

Post by Belindi »

Tamminem wrote:
in this case I mean life in general.
I have just looked up several dictionaries and in all of them life is described as a natural process is described . Do you agree that natural processes have no meaning?

Besides natural process, another way that people speak about life is experience of life. " A meaningless life " then does not refer to life as a natural process, but as lived experience. If I were to complain that my life had no meaning I'd be a cynic and maybe also in a depressed mood. If I complain that nobody's life means anything I'd be a cynic and perhaps depressed too.

When a person is depressed that person is vulnerable to indoctrination by another who might not have their best interests at heart. This is because total lack of meaning is an anxious state of mind for a creature who survives by seeking out and making meanings. I think that one of the uses of philosophy is to identify what meanings are worthy and what meanings are unworthy. Science does this too, and so do the arts, however philosophy justifies and codifies the meanings.
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