You really should go first.

In a full life, many things are relished, enjoyed greatly, and missed when they are gone. And over time, if we live long enough, we lose a lot of it.

I miss my dog a lot. Was she the most important thing in my life? No, but a skillful dog succeeds in becoming the center of things. Their seductive love is unconditional and ruthlessly enforced.

I miss my spouse more, however.

And I would miss the flavor, stimulation, and social function of coffee.

Bodhi (the Buddhist term for awakening, the term which was originally translated by Buddhologists as 'enlightenment'). There's a lot of maintenance, housekeeping, relationships, means of livelihood, hobbies and skills, and other such things that require constant attention and nurturing, but bodhi is the most important thing as far as I'm concerned.

Probably my self-esteem. Like basically everyone.

Careful what assumptions you make about 'everyone'.

Loved ones, family.

Also my family.

I don't believe there's any need to pick a single thing one values most.

We're not making a top 100 film or album list or something where we need to pick a #1.

For that matter, I don't believe there's any need to think about films or albums so that we have a single #1 that we prefer to all others either.

I value all sorts of things. I have no need to put them into a hierarchy where there's a single entry on each level.

Looking up from the screen, through the window I can see the daffodils.

The most valuable thing in life is its variety of values.

I assert that there is something all humans possess which is more fundamentally valuable than anything else. It is consciousness. It is in consciousness that all of our experience is held. Everything we have and value is in consciousness. It can be argued that the only thing we own is consciousness. Our bodies are vessels for the existence of consciousness and we are just renters - tenants in our bodies. All of our experience is in our minds eye. Through the eye of consciousness the entire universe is unveiled. The most valuable thing is consciousness.

The most valuable thing is consciousness. — woodart

Explain Romeo and Juliet

Love, but not the erotic kind.

God's love. All else is vanity...

Love. All types.

• Friendship, first and above all because it is only in friendship that one can learn how to give love ("brotherly" love)

• To create a family of my own where I can trust and care for others and likewise in return (familial love)

• To share a life and give love to someone I genuinely admire (a best-friend) and likewise in return (erotic love)

• To fight injustice and support in righteousness those at a disadvantage or those who are vulnerable (God's love)

• To dedicate myself to learning and knowledge so that I know and understand the world and become aware of myself and my place in it (self-love)

• To never stop caring for others; to never hate, only hope that they will get better (unconditional or "motherly" love)

Since life is vanity, a life lived in virtue is the only way to truly be happy.

Life itself, the ability to enjoy everything else.

I ask you to you to profess and define what is most important to you. I think the answers will surprise us all. — woodart

It's hard for me to deny that my life is the most important thing in my life. For it seems that without my life, I'd lose everything else that I have, and the basis on which I have it, and whatever interest I have in any other thing.

This thought's not disturbed by the fact that I may value some things more than I value my own life, and that there are circumstances in which I might be willing, or hope I'd be willing, to sacrifice my own life. For instance, to save my wife's life, or perhaps to defend the liberty of the people from the oppressors.

For without my life, I would not value these things or any other; and if I were not alive at the moment of sacrifice, there would be no question of sacrificing.

Accordingly, it seems my life is "the most important thing" in the sense that it is a prerequisite. I must be alive in order to value anything at all.

I think it is hard to argue that anything is more fundamental or valuable to each of us than consciousness. Our consciousness contains everything that we physically and mentally experience. Love, hate, sex, God, trees, mountains, stars, galaxies all are only in our minds eye. I am not saying that trees or galaxies are not real or separate entities from ourselves. What I am saying is that our individual contact with them is only experienced through our individual awareness. Our awareness is the framework upon which all our experience is filtered. Our awareness holds the entire universe, God or no God, ourselves and everything we have ever done or will do. So I ask you, what is this thing – consciousness?

The most important thing is myself if I'm being honest: my conscious experience, my ideas, beliefs, and well-being. Everything in my life are a means toward improving those ends. Some family members and friends are de-facto considered as the recipient of these ends, not means, in that regard; the hunt for how best to achieve these ends is about finding these things of highest value.

I derive value even from trying to deriving value.

The most important thing is myself if I'm being honest: my conscious experience, my ideas, beliefs, and well-being. — VagabondSpectre

(Y)

The question is how do you know whether you are honest to yourself? Does honesty precede love and moral consciousness?

There are two fundamental attributes of consciousness. I call them gifts. The first gift is volition – we have the ability to choose. We not only have the ability to choose, in fact we are obligated to choose – something. We make choices all the time, every day. The second gift of consciousness is love. Love and all of its attributes and permutations are present in consciousness. Love is a continuum of feelings that spans the gamut from extreme positive, to the extreme negative - all the way to hate. In order for love to exist we must be able to define its opposite – hate. Love in all of its transformations is emotion.

Our predilections for one thing or another is a curious blend of want and desire. In other words – volition and love or emotion is what forms most of our awareness or consciousness. The substance of our consciousness is mostly concerned with emotion and will. There are other aspects to awareness like recognition, memory and sensory input; but volition and love most fully define our individual consciousness. There is another special aspect of consciousness call pure awareness or stillness. Let’s set this characteristic aside for the time being, perhaps we will discuss it later.

Well let’s be practical and ask where does consciousness come from? I would say the Holy Spirit but this answer is amorphous. So let’s not argue about the existence of God. Let’s focus on what we know and feel and can prove to ourselves. We know consciousness exists and that we all have it. And we know or sense consciousness has two main characteristics – volition and love - desire and emotion. Is there a logical association between volition and love and our behavior that we can be certain of? Can we deduce a causal relationship in human behavior which explains it? I think we can.

Consciousness is not so much a thing as it is a phenomenon. It is consumed with experience and yet everything is claimed and defined in it – both physical and metaphysical. Aside from the spiritual dimension love can be explain on a very practical level. Love exists and is initiated between a mother and a child. From the moment of conception a mother loves her child. Why, because it is not different from her – it is her. A mother loving her child is the same as loving herself, because they evolve as one being. Where did a mother learn love? Answer – she learned it from her mother. Love is born in the mother-child bond. Love of self is learned from a mother or mother figure.

Love has another attribute which reverberates in consciousness - desire. Love speaks to the existence of will in consciousness. Love and will co-create each other in consciousness. There is a symbiotic relationship between the two. Love is not solitary, nor is volition. They need each other in order to exist. We need a push or predilection in order to make a decision. A will needs a desire and a desire needs a will. They don’t exist separately.


I believe love has a spiritual dimension and origin that precedes all of physical existence. However, the defining of God is difficult, if not impossible. Therefore the practical unfolding of the mother-child bond is enough concrete proof of loves origin and existence. We do not have to answer first cause. We do not have to explain how or why the universe exists – it just does. We don’t have to say God created love. We can see a real origin for love and we know it exists, it is true. The mother child bond is enough of an explanation for love. We don’t have to know the origin of the chicken or the egg. We don’t have to explain or prove the universe exists. We know love exists and we know where it comes from. Love is very practical.


However, we are not always aware that loves is the basis of all civilization. Society is held together by collective agreement. The first collective agreement is between a mother and child for the relationship to persist. The mother-child bond is the basis of all relationships – family, hunter/gatherer group, village, town, school, commerce, city and nation. We live in society by collective agreement. All of our institutions are held together by collective agreement and all of these institutions are patterned after the first collective agreement. I would call the mother-child bond the first contract. It is a contract that surpasses all others. It is the mother of all contracts literally and figuratively.

What I mean or what I ask - is there a thing which surpasses everything else in your existence in value? I say it is consciousness because everything is contained in it. All other values are a subset. Now a person could argue that life is the greatest value, but we need consciousness in order to appreciate life. This is the existential principle – existence precedes essence.

So what is love?

What I mean or what I ask - is there a thing which surpasses everything else in your existence in value? I say it is consciousness because everything is contained in it. — woodart

How can something that surpasses everything be contained within it?

All of my experience – past, present and future – is contained in my consciousness. The external universe – is contained in my consciousness. Even my own perception of consciousness – is contained in my consciousness. Consciousness is a type of tautology.

"thing" is a bit harsh if I said my wife. my family, friends, loved ones I would diminish the value certainly by filing them under "thing."

"In" could also have different outcomes such as within my life or within what I consider to be my life. Subtly different but philosophy is a word game.

The most valuable thing in my life is likely my house but it means relatively little to me in comparison to say loved ones.

Like I said a language game. I'm drunk and bittercrank knows more words than me.

During an asthma attack it's the ability to breathe.

My arse. Without a functioning arse, one is obliged to talk shit. It's really not worth arguing whether a chair without legs is better or worse than one without a seat; it is completeness that makes it worth anything.

Chair without a seat is better. You can just put a piece of cardboard on it. Maybe some duck tape.

Consciousness, meh. Sense of self (Y). You can be conscious and lack identity or be a walking self-contradiction, and all the love and money in the world won't help you. The base level of value, meaning etc. is a sense of self in a context in which to apply it, and the will to do so self-constructively.

Good Health is the most valuable "thing" in my life.

What is love?
Compromise