The meaning of life?

[gjm]

Questioning the meaning of life is like questioning the meaning of a toaster: the meaning of a toaster is to toast, the meaning of life is to live

A toaster and a life are two different things. A toaster has a function. It was made by a life form to serve the life form. A toaster can't ask itself whether its worth staying alive.

I think a toaster could ask itself whether it is worth staying alive. Why couldn't you put a processor in a toaster to make it learn like a computer? After compiling information over time it could reason about life...

I think you are talking about intelligence. Could this type of intelligence adopt a value system, or create a value system that leads to self determining acts in relation to everything around it without it being programmed to program itself?

[Android Bishop]

Early in this thread I stated that life has no meaning. It just is.

then we are in agreement. all your other points are irrelevant

[gjm]

Early in this thread I stated that life has no meaning. It just is.

then we are in agreement. all your other points are irrelevant

No we are not.

the meaning of life is to live

And No, my points are not irrelevant. 'Reason' your self to stay alive. What's the point of staying alive? Where do you find value?

[evolwizard]

cheap booze and lots o' whorin'

[Android Bishop]

Early in this thread I stated that life has no meaning. It just is.

then we are in agreement. all your other points are irrelevant

No we are not.

the meaning of life is to live

And No, my points are not irrelevant. 'Reason' your self to stay alive. What's the point of staying alive? Where do you find value?

I am not talking about value, which is subjective and irrelevant. I am talking about absolutes. The absolute "meaning" of any given thing is its existence. Life, however one may define it, is its own meaning. If you decide to kill yourself, the meaning of your life was to kill yourself. It is still a part of life

[gjm]

Firstly Android, thanks for the discussion. I have enjoyed trying to understand your thoughts and current position. Any first person references should not be taken personally. Its just the limitaion of the medium.

I am not talking about value, which is subjective and irrelevant.

Correct, I introduced 'value', and even though it is subjective, it is completely relevant. Its my contention that life has no meaning. What I mean by this is that there is no separate and 'other' system that gives 'life', whether an insect or a human any intrinsic value. It is not sacred or special. It is the same as the rock or the molecule of water. As you pointed out, the human entity is made up of many individual parts. In and of themselves the parts are the same as the rock, minerals, metals etc. Its the mixture of these parts that give the human entity an ability though to be able to create subjective evaluations of it environment, and ultimately its purpose or value. Each human life also has an instinctual survival mechanism, to some degree or other. Even these instincts can be subjectively challenged, ie birth control. So, there is an interesting relationship between the inbuilt innate 'animal' response to survive, and the ability to decide to survive or not. This poses a problem. That problem is why did this ability evolve, why is it part of the human make up. Why is it a 'life' experience to think about meaning?

I am talking about absolutes.

This is an interesting statement. How is it possible to know absolutes unless you know everything absolutely? An important extension of this is, how do you know that what you know is true (absolute). Do you have all the necessary information to make the statement, 'I am right' and you are wrong? One persons experience base combined with their ability to reason or think can result in an opposing position to another. What is then called upon to settle the difference is a value system of some sort. Absolute vs Absolute.

The absolute "meaning" of any given thing is its existence. Life, however one may define it, is its own meaning.

I would suggest that this position is entirely subjective. This is actually fine by me by the way, because I also happen to hold the view that in the absence of absolute knowledge, each human needs the freedom to accumulate, evaluate, develop and then form his/her own position, and then repeat this cycle as many times as they need. This however results in further subjectivity.

If you decide to kill yourself, the meaning of your life was to kill yourself.

I am not comfortable with this. It suggests that every last moment of living is 'the meaning' of a persons existence. If I choke on a chicken bone and die, then equally this was the meaning of my life. What is interesting, is that other people would evaluate the impact of my presence or absence in different ways.

Although to big to deal with here, I subjectively think that the human ability to form opinions about existence and meaning cannot be explained adequately by discussing the individual parts. There is no viable explanation yet to explain why all of the individual parts can create something like conscience, or remorse, guilt, love, hate and a host of other problems. There are to many 'functions' of thought that are essentially non existent to simply leave each human being without an explanation, if they ask about meaning. So, as I stated earlier, life has no meaning, but, life has purpose. Find your purpose, you then find life. I am comfortable with this. It is the result of my very small attempts to think about meaning. It works for me, and ultimately, thats all that matters.

Thanks for the challenge, and the chat.

[rikhyray]

then take it as a compliment

because it sounds exactly like one of his sayings "life is like music, if the point of music was to get to the end of the piece, then the fastest composers would be the best, but we know that is not the case"

people have been telling me to listen/read alan watts pretty heavy the last couple of weeks (I know who he is but I never checked out any of his stuff). maybe its a sign I should look into it...

Dont bother, not even worth it. It is one of those idealised by hippies and potheads "Buddhism, Yoga and anything eastern" franchise, paperback philosophy for intellectually not too bright. Better read the real thing - Tao Te king, Buddist texts, Upanishads or whatever. As Asian myself, I am allergic to all those frauds, cashing on our culture, spreading, primitive, watered versions of philosophies they never managed to comprehend, less actually live ( which is also the essential difference in understanding what philosophy/ religion is, for us in the East is what you live, not what you speculate about).
I liked your toaster thing (respect, absolutely brilliant and to the point) way more that pseudo poetry, pompous and pretentious by those 60s "thinkers". Am I too harsh in my judgement? Dont think so , just real. Life is the evidence, people like Watts, Richard Bachs or whatever "gurus" wrote a lot of "profound" stuff, selling shit loads of those in paperbacks but "cant fool all people all the time" the biography, life of those individuals, speaks for itself, is the truth, not what they tried to project to the world (cashing while doing it).

[ethios4]

Alan Watts is the last genius philosopher to come around in a long time

Eh, genius philosopher? As far as I know he didn't really come up with anything novel himself, but was great at explaining eastern spirituality to westerners. I love his writing, but I would never consider him a genius philosopher.

[hurlingdervish]

Alan Watts is the last genius philosopher to come around in a long time

Eh, genius philosopher? As far as I know he didn't really come up with anything novel himself, but was great at explaining eastern spirituality to westerners. I love his writing, but I would never consider him a genius philosopher.

whatever man hes great lets not pick fights.

[ethios4]

Sorry, wasn't meaning to pick a fight....I was kinda hoping there was some Watts territory I hadn't read. The Way of Zen was a life-changing book for me. I had a vacation up at Plum Island, MA a couple of years ago and found Tao:The Watercourse Way while I was there, which was incredible to read by the ocean. I do love Alan Watts.

[D K]

the meaning of life is understanding your situation and appreciating your blessings.
after the shit i just took, i am quite thankful that i am privileged enough to have some good toilet paper.
and that my drinking water doesn't have my turds in it.
always look on the bright side of life.

[babkubwa]

Only the best Monty Python movie evvuurrr
"ohhHH FiShy FIsHY FISHY"

"one more tincy wincy mint!?"

[knotkranky]

D K has got it.



fin

[yannxou]

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=wh ... ng+of+life

[Android Bishop]

I am not talking about value, which is subjective and irrelevant.

Correct, I introduced 'value', and even though it is subjective, it is completely relevant. Its my contention that life has no meaning. What I mean by this is that there is no separate and 'other' system that gives 'life', whether an insect or a human any intrinsic value. It is not sacred or special. It is the same as the rock or the molecule of water. As you pointed out, the human entity is made up of many individual parts. In and of themselves the parts are the same as the rock, minerals, metals etc. Its the mixture of these parts that give the human entity an ability though to be able to create subjective evaluations of it environment, and ultimately its purpose or value. Each human life also has an instinctual survival mechanism, to some degree or other. Even these instincts can be subjectively challenged, ie birth control. So, there is an interesting relationship between the inbuilt innate 'animal' response to survive, and the ability to decide to survive or not. This poses a problem. That problem is why did this ability evolve, why is it part of the human make up. Why is it a 'life' experience to think about meaning?

Again, value judgments are not what I am talking about nor am I interested in them. All I care about is what IS, and what is is the culmination of of a series of cause and effect chains that lead up to the present moment. What meaning or value it has is just some sauce your brain is putting it its experience of that moment, which is a part of the moment too, but it is not representative of the moment.

All these other things, like instincts and thoughts, and culture and all of that are merely responses to previous moments. It is the evolution of the universe, a constant state of response to previous "states". The reasons why they exist may be complex (i.e. the illusion of making choices is the ability humanity developed to run complex programs to formulate responses to its environment, which ultimately lead to more efficient responses which enhance its survival rates), but ultimately the reason why anything exists in its current state is because everything else has led it up to that point. There's always a reason, a "meaning" if you will, but that reason is just the cause and effect chain. And its always in motion, which means that this present moment is the cause for new effects down the line. If you look at suicide or war or serial killers or shit like that and wonder "how can there be meaning if these things exist?", you are ignoring the series of events that led up to those things occurring and their effect on the universe for the rest of eternity. Everything has a reason, and everything is a reason for something else. If there was no reason (i.e. cause/effect) it wouldnt exist.

I am talking about absolutes.

This is an interesting statement. How is it possible to know absolutes unless you know everything absolutely? An important extension of this is, how do you know that what you know is true (absolute). Do you have all the necessary information to make the statement, 'I am right' and you are wrong? One persons experience base combined with their ability to reason or think can result in an opposing position to another. What is then called upon to settle the difference is a value system of some sort. Absolute vs Absolute.

In order to make this statement, I take the liberty of assuming ONE thing:

*the universe exists

Ultimately I'm saying that the only truth is what is, the only real "meaning" or "reason" for any given thing is that which accounts for that thing's existence. What is, is. If it is not, then it isn't, is it? I'm comfortable with making that an absolute statement.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=wh ... ng+of+life

hahahahaha win