Absurdity is not a subjective judgement. Absurdity is an objective assessment based on the rules of logic. By what logic is life absurd? The question in the OP is not "Is life unhappy?" or "Is life unpleasant?" but "Is life absurd?" Do you say life is absurd because it is difficult or painful or uneventful? Would life make any more sense if it were easy, pleasant, and exciting? Why would life necessarily be those things? By the same token, why wouldn't life be those things. The thing is, life constantly fluctuates among different possibilities. Sometimes life can be pleasurable, sometimes painful. Sometimes life can be exciting, sometimes boring. For life to be only one to the exclusion of the other would be arbitrary and partial, and thus more cosmically absurd than a life that is a mixed bag.Rubenjameshg wrote:Absurdity is a subjective judgement that a rational observer can make. I have concluded life is absurd.
Is life absurd
- Mysterio448
- Posts: 393
- Joined: May 3rd, 2013, 6:44 pm
Re: Is life absurd
- Misty
- Premium Member
- Posts: 5934
- Joined: August 10th, 2011, 8:13 pm
- Location: United States of America
Re: Is life absurd
Weight wrote:Is life absurd? Why or why not? Is there meaning to life? How can we create meaning if there is none to begin with? I am doing a study on Albert Camus and would like to hear your views on the subject and know if life is absurd or not. Thanks.
Sometimes life is absurd and sometimes it is not absurd. Albert Camus and dualism of absurd. He is an interesting person, who died young but lived more than most people - what a life!
Life seems absurd because we spend so much time building knowing our blocks will be knocked down. But we build anyway or we would die of boredom. Each person will have to decide if their life is absurd or not. You know one mans trash is another mans treasure.
The eyes can only see what the mind has, is, or will be prepared to comprehend.
I am Lion, hear me ROAR! Meow.
- Kateb
- New Trial Member
- Posts: 2
- Joined: December 25th, 2013, 7:22 am
Re: Is life absurd
- Kieferavery_1998
- New Trial Member
- Posts: 1
- Joined: January 3rd, 2017, 6:31 pm
Re: Is life absurd
If a person does not believe in a higher power or an ultimate controller go the universe, then they know that they can in fact do as they wish without any substantial repercussions. They live life as they chose without an ultimate goal, they have no reason to live and believe that with the end of their human life comes the bitter end. This is where someone might find life to be "absurd" if a person does not truly find a meaning to life. Absurdism is in the eye of the beholder and that truly is the paradox of it all, if the person who lived a sinless life dies and learns that it was all for nothing. Was their life absurd? Or was it worth it because they lived a clean and sinless existence? What if the atheist dies and learns that there was in fact a hell? Was their life useless because they didn't take advantage of the opportunity that they had?
Absurdism is ultimately something that can only be defined by a person who believes or disbelieves in life purpose. A person has the ability to disregard absurdity if they so chose or if they truly believe in a purpose. There are those who are condemned in believing there is not purpose in life because they cannot simply believe in the religious or scientific explanations for life's meaning. Absurdity is in the eye of life's beholder.
- Ranvier
- Posts: 772
- Joined: February 12th, 2017, 1:47 pm
- Location: USA
Re: Is life absurd
- Rr6
- Posts: 1034
- Joined: April 5th, 2015, 2:20 pm
- Favorite Philosopher: R. Bucky Fuller
Re: Is life absurd
How much more absurd can we get?
r6
-
- Posts: 37
- Joined: April 9th, 2016, 9:44 am
Re: Is life absurd
The longer answer is:
Some aspect of anything humans experience can be interpreted as absurd or not. The same goes for whether or not anything has meaning. Is life itself absurd? Probably, if you sit and think about it for too long. But you're already stuck in it.
So, you can wallow in the meaningless thought that we are here till we simply die and view it as absurd... Or you can find a way that gives life some meaning that resonates with you and shed the thought that it's absurd.
To view life as absurd and meaningless is a very logical way of looking at it. Also, to view it as meaningful is a logical argument. One cannot view life through the eyes of a peer. It truly depends on the individual.
As a whole, I find it absurd to a degree. Live, work, pay, and die hoping you've left enough knowledge and preparation to hand to your children, so they can do the same. The cycle is a bit pointless once you step back and analyze it. However, there are things I enjoy doing here on this planet. So I go do those things because the joy is interpreted as meaningful. That joy makes the absurd tolerable and temporarily fill the gap between spaces of meaninglessness.
So yes. It is absurd, but not completely meaningless.
- Ranvier
- Posts: 772
- Joined: February 12th, 2017, 1:47 pm
- Location: USA
Re: Is life absurd
I don't know r6...I just don't know. Sometimes I think that there was a some kind of mix up and I was just born in a wrong century.Rr6 wrote:Humans can be absurd much of the time. Humans can destroy humanity and seem destined to do so. imho
How much more absurd can we get?
r6
- Rr6
- Posts: 1034
- Joined: April 5th, 2015, 2:20 pm
- Favorite Philosopher: R. Bucky Fuller
Re: Is life absurd
Yes, it could get more absurd. We could not only have crazy president in US voted in, we could have crazy VP, crazy republican congress etc........Ranvier wrote: I don't know r6...I just don't know. Sometimes I think that there was a some kind of mix up and I was just born in a wrong century.
I think Trump only got in with 27% of the electorate so that system is partly crazy in of itself.
Humanity is evolving ass-backwards into the future, bumping their rumps into hard events.
If humans were wise they would be going mind forward into the future anticipating the needs and problems and then be ahead of the came instead of waiting til we go ass-backwards off the game board.
r6
- Lark_Truth
- Posts: 212
- Joined: December 24th, 2016, 11:51 am
- Favorite Philosopher: Brandon Sanderson
Re: Is life absurd
- Papus79
- Posts: 1800
- Joined: February 19th, 2017, 6:59 pm
Re: Is life absurd
Absurdity as far as I'm understanding it here takes faith in certain nihilistic precepts. If you don't have faith in those precepts - such as if you're truly agnostic or, further down this rabbit hole, stuck in a sort of non-materialist limbo where you sense that the 'supernatural' in certain respects is clearly real but equally incoherent in its expressions (as if it's pushed out like weather patterns), you get the impression that there's a lot more that needs to be done to understand and do right by the world you live in. Additionally you do wonder, if it's looking more likely that you won't cease to exist when you die, what your duties are to yourself to make the best go of your future trajectory (the closest thing I've come to as a universal atheist/theist/agnostic answer to life is cultivate integrity - its your best bet). You'll easily feel like what you do in this life matters, but you'll also quite easily sense that there are are no guarantees because so much of what you do and the consequences of luck are data buried way too deep to find quite often. That and, if something is watching over you, you're just barely allowed to catch a glimmer of that reality but without much to call clear guidance.
If there is something actually sentient overseeing all of this, rather than just vast and sleeping, it clearly doesn't have us here for comfort.
- Ranvier
- Posts: 772
- Joined: February 12th, 2017, 1:47 pm
- Location: USA
Re: Is life absurd
- Papus79
- Posts: 1800
- Joined: February 19th, 2017, 6:59 pm
Re: Is life absurd
- Ranvier
- Posts: 772
- Joined: February 12th, 2017, 1:47 pm
- Location: USA
Re: Is life absurd
- Papus79
- Posts: 1800
- Joined: February 19th, 2017, 6:59 pm
Re: Is life absurd
2024 Philosophy Books of the Month
2023 Philosophy Books of the Month
Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Mitzi Perdue
February 2023
Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023