There is no meaning to life
- Hereandnow
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Re: There is no meaning to life
- BelieveNothing
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Re: There is no meaning to life
The reader keeps on reading to find out the way it goes..
When the reader’s done, the author’s message in their mind,
they have had some fun or found a reason to unwind.
What the author’s made, selecting words to make it rhyme
is not designed to fade from memory even over time.
If you’re feeling sad or lonely contemplate a while.
It’s not all that bad if you remember how to smile.
- Hereandnow
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Re: There is no meaning to life
A rite, way to see?
Does it cast the world sublimely,
Undoing complacency?
What are smiles but willingness
To take the world unseen
And unredeemed and premature,
Celebrate a dream.
- juney34
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Re: There is no meaning to life
- Felix
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Re: There is no meaning to life
You may wish to ask where the flowers come from,
But even the God of Spring does not know.
-
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Re: There is no meaning to life
I think so, yes. Not necessarily an outside or objective meaning, our own sense of what things mean, what they mean to us, and goals within that.
The grammatics of the question lead to a yes answer implying that without meaning we would die. But my sense is more that the meaning is inherent in the we. If we exist, we apply meaning to some things, and have goals related to that. We cannot live with out them since this meaning creation is a part of us being alive. Rather than a causal thing, like oxygen getting to the brain.
- Sculptor1
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Re: There is no meaning to life
Not haiku
Haiku is strictly 5-7-5
My life is unknown
Guess what my purpose must be
Never shall you know.
My life is unknown
1,2,3,4-5
Guess what my purpose must be
1,2,3,4-5,6,7
Never shall you know.
1-2,3,4,5
- BigO
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Re: There is no meaning to life
Following what the stoics said, I think this materalistic and deterministic view of our existence could be used to justify life. Live and experience, because one day you'll just be ash. Enjoy every second of your life until you submerge with the earth. That thinking gives us the possibility of a meaningful life in a nihilistic and mechanical universe.Alphabravo123 wrote: ↑June 11th, 2012, 11:09 pm Nothing we do matters at all. Our short physical existences are but a micro fraction of the blink of an eye in the face of time. Therefore, no emotion or action can make any true difference, seeing as our society will last at the most only a few million years. Our corpses will have turned to ash, disintegrated, and have been reabsorbed and redistributed by the universe myriads of times, and any insignificant deed will be forgotten. In light of this knowledge, I implore you, what reason is there to exist at all? How can we justify our lives when they are so inconsequential in vast scope of this entire metaphysical plane?
- hc101
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Re: There is no meaning to life
I believe that life has no meaning. The world will continue to go on without me when I die. My death will impact no one but my family and a few friends. If it does not affect the rest of the world, it definitely does not affect the rest of the universe. Our lives are insignificant. We are barely dots in the face of the universe.
Apparently there are 30 billion planets in our galaxy alone, and there are over 100 billion galaxies in the universe. If Planet Earth were to disappear entirely, it would have no effect on the universe.
Being a nihilist has its disadvantages. I find it harder day by day to cope with life when I know I'm going to die anyway. Add the happy little thought of life having no meaning and it just gets worse.
- Hereandnow
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Re: There is no meaning to life
Well, "life", not to put too fine a point on it, certainly does have meaning. I suppose if you're a paramecium this may not be true, but i don;t think you're talking about this kind of thing. You're talking about people, and people's lives have meaning. They care about everything that makes its way into their value system. So when you say human life has no meaning, you're just way, way off. The question you want to address is whether the meaning we encounter in life has meaning. This has a name: metaethics, or, metavalue. I value these nike running shoes, but then, this fall under the general appreciation people have for all the things they love and like, doesn't it? Better: we all care about the things we value (something of a tautology).hc101
Whether life has any meaning or not will always remain a question to some and a certain answer to the rest. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
I believe that life has no meaning. The world will continue to go on without me when I die. My death will impact no one but my family and a few friends. If it does not affect the rest of the world, it definitely does not affect the rest of the universe. Our lives are insignificant. We are barely dots in the face of the universe.
Apparently there are 30 billion planets in our galaxy alone, and there are over 100 billion galaxies in the universe. If Planet Earth were to disappear entirely, it would have no effect on the universe.
Being a nihilist has its disadvantages. I find it harder day by day to cope with life when I know I'm going to die anyway. Add the happy little thought of life having no meaning and it just gets worse.
No doubt, we have meaning in our lives, but does this meaning have meaning? Does this value have value? It certainly is not about my nike shoes. It's about valuing itself. Now, if you go the way of non Cartesian empirical thinking, you would be faced with the idea that a person is no more than the material world, only more complex: a person IS the world, and is not In it as a sojourning entity. Thus, the things I do, the thinking in my head, these are all expressions of molecular behavior, and molecules are really nothing special; they are what the world is. Thus, value is reducible to this as well: this hagen das (sp?) I am having is sooo good, but this is simply what matter does in complex forms like ours, just as when light is moving away it exhibits a Doppler effect. So, in a very real sense, the value I experience is really the value matter "experiences" under certain conditions. Valuing, caring are very much what the world IS, for in every and all observable and quantifiable data we have objectively gathered about the world, it is always under "certain conditions" that the data is acknowledged, making value just as objective as the principle of inertia, say.
At this juncture, it has to be admitted that the value of life, as you put it, is just as objective as any other principle of physics. Does this mean that value has value? That is, can we affirm metavalue based on what is clearly value? Metavalue is simply the metaphysics of value. I argue that it can be affirmed, but its a longer argument. Suffice it to say, if value were merely an empirical concept, I could not affirm it as I say, because such things as concepts about perceived events in space and time, are contingent, that is, they are not absolutes; they could be otherwise.
Ah, but value! this is a horse of an altogether different color. For value is NOT contingent.
- dawwg
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Re: There is no meaning to life
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Re: There is no meaning to life
- Hereandnow
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Re: There is no meaning to life
I don't understand what this means. Contingent on intelligence in what way?dawwg
Surely value is contingent upon intelligence. How can it not be?
- Hereandnow
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Re: There is no meaning to life
Here as well, what does this mean??aveenire
while not knowing the meaning of life, this isn't the meaning of life
- dawwg
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Re: There is no meaning to life
Observation and judgment being tempered by intelligence, assessed values vary according to the intelligence of the observer.Hereandnow wrote: ↑August 21st, 2019, 12:14 amI don't understand what this means. Contingent on intelligence in what way?dawwg
Surely value is contingent upon intelligence. How can it not be?
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