There’s no meaning but I think we’re here to enjoy life and learn from the experiences we go through. The question is why though … why do we accumulate countless experiences if we can’t take it with us when we die ?

From a theistic point of view though we’re a product of gods creative energy and there must be a reason why we’re here.

I think life is a big test and we’re here to test ourselves.

There’s no meaning but I think we’re here to enjoy life and learn from the experiences we go through. The question is why though … why do we accumulate countless experiences if we can’t take it with us when we die ?

From a theistic point of view though we’re a product of gods creative energy and there must be a reason why we’re here.

I think life is a big test and we’re here to test ourselves. — kindred

It can be whatever you want to be because there is no purpose to it. But I'm mostly referring to the argument I made in the link.

Seeing stuff as either objective or subjective might be the source of the problem.

Look at the issue instead in terms of whether it is something we decide or something we discover. We don't discover the big picture, but we might decide it, by choosing what counts as being important and what doesn't.

So it's not that the big picture has no purpose, but that we attribute, rather than discover, the big picture.

We don't discover life's meaning, so much as create it.

It's not something we find, so much as something we do.

Or more technically, we might benefit by dropping "objective" and "subjective" and instead thinking about meaning in terms of the direction of our intent. See Anscombe.

Seeing stuff as either objective or subjective might be the source of the problem. — Banno

But people look at it, or shall I say, frame it as larger than even that.

It's about "permanent" and "impermanent". What people consider or also frame as (whether incorrect or not) "fact" vs. "opinion."

Where the phrase "cut the fat from the meat" comes from. People want to validate and vindicate their life and life choices and know they didn't utterly and foolishly waste their time making stupid decisions and falling for mirage-like illusions just because everyone around them, perhaps even the world, did as well.

Water boils at 100 degrees and freezes at 0. That's something we can rely on as a bedrock of reality. Or can we? Most would agree it's better than nothing. Compare that to someone in their older years with a partner they discovered they never really knew and in fact outright despite thinking "if only I would have listened to that nice guy I met at work who was shy but liked me who I looked up and is now is a millionaire (or not even that, perhaps he's relatively poor but lives a happy life with children)". Realizing what poor impulsive decisions we all make when young. There has to be something, whether not a 1 or 0, an absolute, but something that is wiser and something that is foolish as far as choices we can make in our everyday lives. And it does, at least in some methodologies of thinking, boil down to such binary forms of classification.

Ok.

I guess from the link he was trying to infer to some greater level of it and I disagreed with that notion. Like there is no objective purpose because purpose is something we create and how WE as humans understand the world, but that doesn't mean that it is reality.

Like I know we create it but if you read the link he seems to think we search for it.

But again I'm looking more for if my assessment was correct in my arguing against him (per the link)/

Ok. You said "making and searching for meaning is what we do, it’s not our purpose". That appears to imply exclusively that either it's something we do, or it's our purpose. But isn't our purpose something we do?

No, purpose is a property that is conferred by something external, it implies design. It's the reason the watchmaker analogy fails as an argument for god.

The fact that we make meaning doesn't mean it's our purpose, it's just what we do. It would be like arguing the purpose of gravity. Purpose can be something that we do but just because we do something does not make it our purpose.

Purpose exists in our heads and we project it onto the world because that's how we understand things, cause and effect. He seems to argue that because that is what we do that makes it our purpose yet that is easily proven false through the various philosophies that argue otherwise (Buddhism being one that comes to mind).

Meaning making is what we do, but just because we do it does not make it our purpose. Eating is what we do but our purpose is not to eat, rather you can argue eating serves a purpose (even that is debatable).

The problem is that we are taking something WE use to understand reality and try to apply it to everything when it doesn't work. He even gets evolution wrong by implying it's some sort of ladder.

He seems very opposed to things being an "accident".

ok.

I think you overstate the case ... though I agree with the gist of your comments but for a different reason:

Even if there is an ultimate "purpose", we cannot know it because we do not have an ultimate perspective – a god's eye view from nowhere – from which to perceive / conceive of the whole of reality; we are partial (i.e. ephemeral, proximal) beings for whom 'ultimates' (e.g. purpose with a capital "P") are merely illusions (i.e. "projections" ~Feuerbach, or "hollow idols" ~Niezsche, or "nostalgias" ~Camus ...)

Agree with 180 proof.

We do not *know* there is no objective meaning to life, there's just no good evidence for such a thing at this time.

The OP is right though that that doesn't entail everything being meaningless let alone impacting epistemology. You can decide on your own meaning. And you can value this life for what it is.

I think you overstate the case ... though I agree with the gist of your comments but for a different reason:

Even if there is an ultimate "purpose", we cannot know it because we do not have an ultimate perspective – a god's eye view from nowhere – from which to perceive / conceive of the whole of reality; we are partial (i.e. ephemeral, proximal) beings for whom 'ultimates' (e.g. purpose with a capital "P") are merely illusions (i.e. "projections" ~Feuerbach, or "hollow idols" ~Niezsche, or "nostalgias" ~Camus ...) — 180 Proof

I have a hard time articulating my thoughts and everything just comes out at once, even though I know the point I'm trying to make.

My main point was that just because we do something doesn't necessarily make it a purpose and that even the language I use is just purposeless lines and pixels without me or someone else there to give them meaning.

In the exchange with him I feel like the word purpose was doing some heavy lifting and from his response he seemed defensive at the notion of things happening by accident, which if you know evolution they kinda do.

I just feel like he misunderstands the terms he uses

Agree with 180 proof.

We do not *know* there is no objective meaning to life, there's just no good evidence for such a thing at this time.

The OP is right though that that doesn't entail everything being meaningless let alone impacting epistemology. You can decide on your own meaning. And you can value this life for what it is. — Mijin

Well that was what I found odd about his reply to me, purpose not existing in the objective sense doesn't mean that we don't know anything or such. Though you could argue whether we know reality itself if all we have is our senses and models of it but I don't think that's what he's going for.

but I felt like the post was mistaking what humans do with that being purpose. Like us making meaning is what we do but that doesn't necessarily imply a purpose right? — Darkneos

There's a gap in his argument regarding 'man's search for meaning is the man's purpose'. I am also not satisfied with that.

What I find is that, "purpose" is often confused with "essence", as in the essence of man is wisdom, for example. Philosophically, I haven't found a strong argument for purpose (I'm not widely versed, so I could have missed it). But I always find the explanation for the 'meaning' of existence, which is not the same as purpose.

Search for Aristotle passages and see if he wrote about "purpose" or "essence". What does humans embody? What is it to be human?

There's a gap in his argument regarding 'man's search for meaning is the man's purpose'. I am also not satisfied with that. — L'éléphant

Yeah to me that just didn't track and his reply to me just sorta felt like a strawman.

I'm also not really sold on how he thinks we make meaning:

It merely refers to the fact that I, you, and all of us, are continually maturing. We evolve, and in that adaptive development over time we apportion significance to our experience in a manner that manifests as mood, motivation and morality.

Even his concluding remark isn't convincing that making meaning is our purpose:

If we think about it, regardless of what you believe about how man came to be, logotherapy (like all human endeavours) must be evolutionary. It develops in a progressively responsive manner, and even if we imagine that everything is a result of coincidental evolution, acting via complexity for complexity’s sake, then nevertheless we are left with man’s search for meaning occurring within that - which is as much a testament to the undeniable purpose of people as could ever be possible.

This was the link: https://www.amazon.com.au/Evolution-Everything-How-Ideas-Emerge/dp/0062296019

That said all that doesn't sound like purpose, it's just what we do. Heck existentialism was about how to deal with meaning in a meaningless universe. Camus had the best take on it and likely would have denied his arguments.

In fact I'd go further to say that we aren't searching for meaning so much as looking for a way to make it work.

I'm also not really sold on how he thinks we make meaning:

It merely refers to the fact that I, you, and all of us, are continually maturing. We evolve, and in that adaptive development over time we apportion significance to our experience in a manner that manifests as mood, motivation and morality. — Darkneos

The use of the word "maturing" here is suspect. It is because according to historical accounts, maturity of the mind, similar to the conception of "modernity", does not differ among people thousands of years ago.

In fact, dating as far back as 200,000 years ago, one discovery that researchers have found is that, compassion and helpfulness have been around since the cave man era. There were evidence that members of a tribe had carried their wounded members to safety, not left them to die out in the field.

Well that was what I found odd about his reply to me, purpose not existing in the objective sense doesn't mean that we don't know anything or such. — Darkneos

I couldn't quite follow what was going on in the linked thread, but he may have been alluding to "pre-supposition" arguments.
Pre-sup has become really popular in the context of philosophical / theological debates. The debater basically argues that the other person cannot say anything because they have no foundation of knowledge.

I could write a lot about why I think these arguments are flawed (frankly they remind me a lot of sovereign citizens, trying to define themselves into victory), but it would be a hijack for this thread.
I'm just making you aware that that might be where the person in the Quora thread was going if you're not familiar with this phenomenon.

In fact, dating as far back as 200,000 years ago, one discovery that researchers have found is that, compassion and helpfulness have been around since the cave man era. There were evidence that members of a tribe had carried their wounded members to safety, not left them to die out in the field. — L'éléphant

Any data on the cannibalism rates back then or not so much? Hey, never let good meat go to waste am I right. :monkey:

I don't think you need other people to justify your actions for you.

Purpose is an intended outcome. Asking for the "purpose" of life is asking for the outcome that the existence of life is intended to achieve. That requires that someone or something with intentions created and/or is using life to achieve that outcome, e.g. one or more gods perhaps.

Personally, I'd prefer it if my life wasn't being used by someone or something else as pawn in whatever game they're playing. I decide for myself what to do with my time here.

Personally, I'd prefer it if my life wasn't being used by someone or something else as pawn in whatever game they're playing. I decide for myself what to do with my time here. — Michael

A captain without a compass then. Going wherever the wind takes him. One would at least hope the fates are kind. Lest one crash into rocks. No?

That's sorta what I meant when I told him in the "big picture" there is no purpose and he got majorly defensive, saying that:

What 'big picture'? If what 'you' are saying is correct then not only is every one of the 'words' in your comment merely a jumble of purposeless pixels but there's no 'comment' either - only a clump of coincidences that fell together like the mass of salty proteinaceous mush that just so happened to conduct enough current to 'think' it was 'clever' to be entirely contradictory in producing such a mess of meaninglessness.

Not only do you not understand what I've written - but by your own 'logic' you don't understand anything.

This is why I am sick of the internet. It continues to suggest to me that people aren't worth my time.

Oh, and of course - your fake profile is blank. I should have known.

To which I would reply, yes. Outside my head these words are not words, there is no comment, nothing like that.

It reminds me something of what Buddhism argues with not only the two truths doctrine but also:

Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters.”

And to me it just reads like someone who cannot step out of the human perspective and recognize that all this is mostly for our benefit. Purpose is how we understand the world and reality, without us there is no purpose.

It's sorta like relative and ultimate reality in Buddhism

More than likely though I'm talking to someone who doesn't really understand the concepts he talks about as evidenced here: https://qr.ae/pCGCmB

The use of the word "maturing" here is suspect. It is because according to historical accounts, maturity of the mind, similar to the conception of "modernity", does not differ among people thousands of years ago.

In fact, dating as far back as 200,000 years ago, one discovery that researchers have found is that, compassion and helpfulness have been around since the cave man era. There were evidence that members of a tribe had carried their wounded members to safety, not left them to die out in the field. — L'éléphant

Well part of me thinks he comes of as a crazy sage who's seen some truth because he uses words like semantics and syntax and cites Wittgenstein a lot, but when I look at other stuff of his it doesn't seem like that. like his stuff seems deep only if you don't know better

The meaning of life, if it exists, is not thoughts or feelings. It must be something that we are not able to experience, perhaps because we are not cognitively well-developed. Life does not have any purpose per se. Any intelligent creature, however, is able to define a purpose for his/her/its life.

We're passengers and crew on a great, ancient ship tossed about in an endless storm. What matters most, it seems to me, is deciding how we choose to spend whatever time we have. :death: :flower:

The meaning of life, if it exists, is not thoughts or feelings. It must be something that we are not able to experience, perhaps because we are not cognitively well-developed. Life does not have any purpose per se. Any intelligent creature, however, is able to define a purpose for his/her/its life. — MoK

I don't think that's true, that it's not thoughts or feelings since those things are where we get the notion of a meaning for life. There isn't anything saying it's something we are not able to experience.

We're passengers and crew on a great, ancient ship tossed about in an endless storm. What matters most, it seems to me, is deciding how we choose to spend whatever time we have. :death: — 180 Proof

That is not what matters most.

Well part of me thinks he comes of as a crazy sage who's seen some truth because he uses words like semantics and syntax and cites Wittgenstein a lot, but when I look at other stuff of his it doesn't seem like that. like his stuff seems deep only if you don't know better — Darkneos

I would think not crazy but prone to generalization and using arguments by jumping to conclusions, unsupported claims like like everyone is a philosopher and historical accounts that have been proven inconclusive or just outright inaccurate.

Any data on the cannibalism rates back then or not so much? Hey, never let good meat go to waste am I right. — Outlander

Lol. Though cannibalism happened, there were some evidence that some tribes did it against enemies. As a victorious behavior.
At the same time, there were evidence that within tribes, there were medical procedures done to save their limbs or life. Instruments or tools were found in their possession.
Some populations or tribes actually survives for many decades or hundreds of years due to the concept of hygiene and cleanliness.

So, while cannibalism is an horrific act, it wasn't practiced commonly.

I would think not crazy but prone to generalization and using arguments by jumping to conclusions, unsupported claims like like everyone is a philosopher and historical accounts that have been proven inconclusive or just outright inaccurate. — L'éléphant

Yeah, I was never really good at telling when people online are bullshitting or not. That or I'm so easily impressed I just accept it because they have pictures and big words so they must know

I don't think that's true, that it's not thoughts or feelings since those things are where we get the notion of a meaning for life. There isn't anything saying it's something we are not able to experience. — Darkneos

It is correct. You cannot explain the meaning of life using thought and feeling. Otherwise, you need to explain it using thoughts and feelings to me. As I said, if there is such a thing as the meaning of life, then we are not able to experience it since we are not cognitively evolved well, similar to animals that didn't evolve in order to have thoughts, but feelings only.

That is not what matters most. — Darkneos

If so, then what else matters most?