I’m not depressed (at the moment, well maybe a little), just feeling philosophical.
Edit: the idea of this came to me because I was pondering why people fight so hard to beat diseases and live a few more years. What are they planning to do? Why exert effort just to be here longer when you don’t have a reason?
Just why?
Being a good friend, finding what makes me happy while in some way better off, and trying to do those things.
Failing that, doing very bad things to very bad people.
Nothing lasts […] are we just amusing ourselves until death?
It seems to me like you are of the opinion that the finiteness of life robs it of meaning. If so, why not contribute to longevity research? It’s only been a couple decades since we learned how telomeres relate to senescence. If enough people work on the problem or donate to it, we very well might be able to crack immortality before you croak. At the very least, that will give you a few more centuries to figure out what the meaning of life is.
You might object that immortality would lead to great wealth inequality, and you’d rather live a finite life than an unfair life. You can only believe this if you believe that the finality of life does not ultimately make life worthless. In which case, why not contribute to the cause of socialism?
I’m asking why people fight to live longer, and you think I’m concerned about the finiteness of life? No. I didn’t say it would have meaning if we didn’t die. My point is, what does life mean? Why want to live forever?
You don’t even begin to address the question.
Then why did you cite that “nothing lasts” as evidence there is no meaning to life?
None of our accomplishments. The great things we do as humans.
World trade center. Library in Alexandra. etc.
Seems likely to me the lunar lander will be there for aeons to come. The pyramids are also still there. The library of Alexandria may have burned, though I don’t think that was inevitable, and many of the written works and treatises from that era still survive. Euclid’s elements is still mathematically correct.
Consider also the negation though – the burning of the library of alexandria still affects us to this day. Aristotle’s views on women and Christianity’s views on homosexuality still persist. Colonialism and slavery over the past millenium has negatively shaped the lives of billions. These are all actions by humans with enormously negative consequences that reverberate in the present. Surely we must admit that these agents had meaningful lives.
And there may have been countless more such catastrophes averted, which we don’t know about because the lack of something bad happening is not terribly newsworthy. But people who stopped such far-reaching catastrophes must surely have had meaningful lives.
Life has no meaning. People will tell you it does, to give it meaning or to follow a religion, but it’s all in service to deal with the fear of death.
It can have meaning, like in helping someone in need.
But for the rest you’re quite correct IMO.
This is the first post I’ve ever seen that’s gotten twitter-style ratio’d. There are more comments than votes.
Yeah, interesting, isn’t it?
Life is/can be very enjoyable, but hedonism in itself is vacuous and ultimately unfulfilling. Make sure your existence is a net positive for the world and at least you’ll not only be glad you lived, you’ll also be glad YOU lived. Mmmhh. I guess in the end I can’t say anything more useful than the Solomonic principle: “fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man”. 🤷
At a macro level, it’s the preservation of our species. On a micro level, it whatever makes you happy and doesn’t hurt others (because that would conflict with macro).
“Ambition is overrated. Whether a janitor or surgeon, being virtuous is what matters [1]. Avoid contempt and envy because we each have our part to play [2], powerless to choose our upbringing. Often there’s more than meets the eye so hold off on passing judgement. Everything is borrowed [3], so avoid craving credit too. The meaning of life is sharing (and) laughter [4], helping each other through peaks and throughs. Bref, GLHF.
- Dr. Michael Sugrue: Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations: The Stoic Ideal.
- Nicky Case: Fireflies.
- The Streets: Everything Is Borrowed.
- YouTube: The Meaning of Life.”
[Quoting my own website arscyni.cc because POSSE: “Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere.”]
Well, if you’re feeling philosophical I think you’d first need to address your presupposition that life has or is meant to have any meaning whatsoever.
Like, according to who? And how did they determine that? Would you be sad if it turns out there isn’t any underlying meaning?
Absurdism - How to Party At the End of Meaning
I very much love exurb1a but I think I particularly love this one most of all.
“Why am I here” is the question that precedes “Why is ANYTHING here?!”, and I think that to answer both (or even consider them as valid questions, as you pointed out!) with any degree of ‘objectivity’ (because if not you can always just go with “it’s whatever you want the answer to be!”) you’re gonna need to go through that external uncreated intelligence…Y’all know where I’m going with this. 😅
The questions “why am I here” or “why is anything here” are irrelevant. They are also unanswerable, you might as well ask “why is green seven?” And adding a supernatural deity into the mix won’t help either, because then you need to ask “who created Zeus?” And “why is Zeus here?” - it doesn’t answer the (irrelevant) question, it only adds a layer of complexity.
You mean “who created Odin” and “why is Odin” here ofc.
They’ve been asked since we started thinking BIGLY until today, so they don’t seem that “irrelevant”… 😉
No meaning to life besides try to live your best one. We’re all just earthlings floating on a space rock sitting in a giant void surrounded by more exploding stars
There’s no meaning to life, because that implies intent for it existing. It just does. However, I think it does give us an imperative to try to do good with the life we have. We’re one of the few things in the universe that can experience pain and joy, and we should be trying to minimize the former and maximize the latter for the other beings capable of them.
Nothing happens if you do or don’t, but it does make everything better for everyone if you do, which includes yourself for the purely self motivated out there. Life isn’t a zero-sum game, so we should try to make it as nice as possible.
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I don’t understand how you’re both not spiritual and believe this. However, if you’re right then those people are assholes and so I want to align myself opposite to their goals.
To explore this existence.
Why live? What’s the meaning of life? What’s the purpose of life? I hope I don’t have to explain that people have been asking this question since we first were able to form words and start thinking. You’re going to get as many different opinions to answer this question as there are people to write a response. You could spend a lifetime studying philosophy and not find a definitive answer. And in the end you just have to decide for yourself which answer most speaks to you. Are you atheist, materialist, spiritual, philosophical? Take your pick.
Personally, I like Buddhist philosophy for these kinds of questions. And I suspect the Buddha would say that we are here because of craving for sense pleasures, craving for existence, and ignorance of our true nature and the true nature of reality. We live because we want to exist, we want to have experiences and feel the things that are available to us as living beings. Whether it’s food or sex or money or adventure or admiration or love we feel like getting the things we want will make us happy. The flip side of craving is aversion, where we feel like achieving separation from those things that are unpleasant will make us happy.
Volumes have been written about this and it’s impossible to summarize well in a single post. But if it speaks to you there’s a lot more to say about it.
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I think the meaning of life is experience. I have a personal belief that is hard to explain because it’s obviously going to sound a little wacko but I think since all matter is energy and it seems like there’s really only energy I’m convinced everything and everyone is the same thing and I think that thing, lets call it the universe, is just also trying to understand what’s going on just like us. So everything from the sun to butterflies to black holes are either some kind of organ or vessel or after effect of the universe trying to understand itself/what is going on but not in a conscious way exactly.
I think we share a universal consciousness and being alive is just peering through a very limited perspective.
But also we’re chemically designed to try and not die. Rage against the dying of the light and all.
Open individualism is extremely similar to what you’ve described. I have a hunch that something like this is the case, though I’d stop short of calling it a belief.
There’s some good discussion on /r/OpenIndividualism.
