Why is up to us.
— Banno

I don't think — Thorongil

It actually is. To create meaning, to have meaning, one must create. No one will do it for you. No one can do it for you.

"... the "why" question deals with the reason for there being objects of experience at all as opposed to the question of what they are ultimately composed of." — Thorongil

I mean, it is super obvious. There are objects because someone wanted to create them.

"Hell is other people?"
You'd have to be a celebrity to really get it.

Why is there a someone?

Why is there a someone? — Joshs

All of life is the result of the same creative process. There is no hierarchy. Just creation and experimentation. This is real Evolution. They are lots of names given to this creative force (yes it is a force just like any other force). God, Laws of Nature, Thermodynamic Imperative, Tychism, Dao, etc. I preferred the simple idea of Mind, since that is what is peering out the eyes seeking to create something new - such as a post on a forum.

"the meaning we can create isn't proportional to, and doesn't fit, what the desires of the heart demand."
Desire is always relative to a personally construed situation out of which it emerges. If there is no prior constructed context of meaning , there is no basis for a desire, which is our affective assessment of the sense of need in that situation. One would have no sense of what it is one needs or lacks if we didn't already construct it. To say 'I want thi' is to say that 'I lack this', which is first to experience the 'this' imaginatively, then lose it and attempt to regain in a more sustainable fashion.
The feeling of being at a loss, in a state of need, is not continual. It's part of an infinite constellation of moods and comportments, varying from relative satisfaction to despair.

For me, at least, I find The Myth of Sisyphus resonating and persuasive. I can't speak to Nausea specifically, since I haven't read that one -- but Camus is definitely an author that I think takes on the problem of nihilism head on, and overcomes it in a way that's also persuasive.

"Find" doesn't make sense in the world you posit. Meaning must rather be created. But the meaning we can create isn't proportional to, and doesn't fit, what the desires of the heart demand. — Thorongil

I would say that humanity has the queer ability to contort its own soul to desire more than what can be found -- or created. (I don't see too much of a difference between the two, but I am an atheist, so I probably wouldn't either)

But that humanity can turn its soul against itself doesn't mean that humanity must do so. Disentangling human desire from the various butchers of the soul that the world has on offer is a process, by all means, and one which isn't the easiest to do. But we can learn to live within our means -- and our means provide a world without intrinsic meaning, yet we can live happily all the same if we choose to let go of foolish desires.

The issue though is that one of the fault lines between idealism and materialism is over what kind of thing 'experience' is. That is, at stake is not just the status of the 'objects' of experience - experience on one side, its 'objects' on the other - but experience itself. So the very framing of the OP - speaking of the 'data' of experience - is already to commit to a certain understanding of how experience happens, even at the very level of its grammar. In other words, speaking of 'the data of experience' is not a 'neutral' starting point that can then be treated, as though in a second, unrelated step, in either a 'materialist' or 'idealist' manner.

The more interesting and pressing question is whether the phantasmagoria of experience exhausts the category of the real. In other words, the more important question is not what objects are, but why they are. If this question has no answer, nihilism results. If this question has an answer, but we can't know it, skepticism results. If this question has an answer, and we can know it, then something like theism results. — Thorongil

Eloquently stated, although perhaps too poetic for my tastes. I believe this to be a prevalent theme in Heidegger's obsession with Being, one of the drama kings of 20th century philosophy. Heidegger thought metaphysics begins with the question of why anything exists at all - or the question of Being. That there is a distinction between that which is, and Being as such, is what I feel is what makes it so powerful to me when Leibniz wrote:

"...[concerning knowledge] of the necessary and eternal truths, above all those which are the most comprehensive and which have the most relation to the sovereign being ... this knowledge alone is good in itself ... all the rest is mercenary."

This comprehensive understanding of everything is the aim of metaphysics. And I think it to be true that Heidegger and many of his contemporaries represented a movement in philosophy that attempted to deflate the importance of metaphysics - at least a certain kind of metaphysics. No more should we approach metaphysics with the confidence that we know what Being is. No more should we consider existence as a substance.

"Metaphysics is a dualism," Heidegger once wrote, and his and others' work reflect a desire to mitigate this reoccurring split. The mind is not separate from the world, it is in the world. Theoretical knowledge is not the primary form of understanding. That something like eliminative materialism is seen as even remotely plausible speaks volumes about what I see to be a deficiency and prejudice in the epistemology and metaphysics of many today.

When you say:

If this question has an answer, and we can know it, then something like theism results. — Thorongil

I agree in some sense but not entirely. I reject the notion that the divine, if it exists, would be something that we can come to "know" in such a way that we can express it using the vocabulary of the everyday. Aquinas' insistence on the analogical nature of theological language is important here. And Levinas takes this to a whole new level. We encounter without understanding the Other, grasping its trace (its existence confirmed by its non-existence) without its essence. The modern notion of theism (and one in which atheism is almost overwhelmingly dependent on) that God is a being-amongst-beings, differing only by quantitative magnitudes and suspiciously anthropomorphic characteristics, stands opposite to both Scholastic and post-modern conceptions of God which explicitly resist describing God as if describing an ordinary object.

And this is what I see to be the seductive aspect of metaphysics: the drive for the extraordinary. All around us are the mundane, the repetitive, the ordinary. If only there could be some better dimension, perfect, stable and transcendent to this boring and violent place! Obviously this is a Nietzschean view of things.

In my opinion, I think metaphysical theorizing is primarily motivated by a strong desire to find reasons to believe in what is not experienced. Yet a religious belief based on rationalist proofs is hardly religious at all, because it lacks the risk of faith. Before the modern era, demonstrations of God's existence were meant to get people on the path of faith, not establish without a doubt that God exists, because that would jeopardize faith and ran contrary to the epistemology of the time which held that only God, and not reason, could establish a connection between the object (man) and the subject (God), which was later reversed in the modern Enlightenment as man became the subject and God became the object which was to be known.

But even Aquinas' analogical language and his insistence on the limitations of human reason make me queesy. I prefer the idea that we must lose God in order to come closer to him. I have lost God, I cannot find him but have not stopped trying to listen. These attempted proofs strike me as ways humans try to accelerate their relationship with God, and put God under the totality.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Point being, I agree that if there is a reason for the world being, then this engenders some form of theism, but I think if this is indeed the case then we can never know much more than pale imitations and metaphors. We may know but only so much, to perhaps such a minimal degree that we might even wonder if it is even knowledge and not simply an encounter with something which exceeds ourselves.

The more interesting and pressing question is whether the phantasmagoria of experience exhausts the category of the real. In other words, the more important question is not what objects are, but why they are. — Thorongil

Do you mean your personal experience?
Do you mean human experience?
Or are you willing to make experience a broader feature of reality in general?

Strawman. I neither said nor suggested any such thing. In fact, if you read the OP, I said exactly the reverse of what you impute of me here. — Thorongil

I was caricaturing the idealist position you prefer for rhetorical effect, you'll see it has no influence whatsoever on my line of argument, which you've ignored in favour of the easier target.

How do you avoid the infinite regress? Whatever you claim to 'know' about 'things' you must have derived somehow. That necessitates a belief in the existence of at least some facts a priori, and the authenticity of whatever mental process you used to derive these new facts about things from the ones you take to be true a priori.

If you are prepared to accept a priori facts simply on the grounds that they are self-evidently true, then why not the apparent 'fact' that a universe appears to exist?

If you wish to ask why a universe exists, then why are you not asking why logic exists and why your a priori truths exist, both of which you require in order to assign any properties at all to the set 'all things'?

Well then boy, I think you need to grow some subtlety.

"... the "why" question deals with the reason for there being objects of experience at all as opposed to the question of what they are ultimately composed of." — Thorongil

I don't think either of the questions make sense to me. On the one hand, "what are they ultimately composed of" makes no sense because I don't see what import (if any) this has. What does it even mean for an object to be "ultimately" material, or "ultimately" idea? :s This is a fictive excrescence on the real metaphysical issue of seeing how things hang together in the most general sense.

On the other hand, the question of "why objects of experience at all" is formed of a category error. Namely, objects within experience have a "why" that can be asked of them - you can ask why this table, why that chair, etc. and the answer will always be with reference to some other object in existence. But when you ask the question why of everything (presuming now that such a totalization is even possible) you presuppose that there exists something outside of this "everything" that can be pointed to as an answer to the why question. But of course, this just means that the "everything" isn't really everything - if it was everything, the question you're asking would be incoherent.

It has been a recent contention of mine that the data of experience are the same in all metaphysical systems, whether idealistic or materialistic, to name the two major poles. Both try to give answers to the question of what objects of experience are, but neither doubts that such objects are. In light of this, it seems to me that much less rides on the answer being what the idealist or the materialist says than is often supposed. (That said, I have always leaned toward idealism and still do, primarily due to the coherency and stability of what it affirms; the matter of the materialist changes every century, which casts doubt on what exactly is being affirmed.)

The more interesting and pressing question is whether the phantasmagoria of experience exhausts the category of the real. In other words, the more important question is not what objects are, but why they are. If this question has no answer, nihilism results. If this question has an answer, but we can't know it, skepticism results. If this question has an answer, and we can know it, then something like theism results. — Thorongil

No. Theism relies on faith. If this question has an answer, and we can't know it, then something like theism results. If this question has an answer, and we can know it, then something like science results.

If an idealist believes the external world is made of the same stuff as the mind, then how is that any different from saying that the mind is made of the same stuff as the external world? It seems to me that the dichotomy is false and idealists and materialists are arguing over nothing. The fact is that I experience causation - of me willing my legs to move and I walk, of me preparing for a math exam and then taking one, of me relaying an idea on a philosophy forum and others reading and responding to it, etc. If there is a causal relationship between the mind and the external world then there is no need to make distinctions between mind and body, or mental vs. physical.

I have come to the conclusion that the phenomenal is reality, and the purpose of philosophy/science is to explain why what appears is as it appears. So no hidden 'reality', rather the reality we experience is all there is, and the question is why it is the way it appears. — Cavacava

The bigger question would be why does it appear as an experience of an external world if there isn't one?

If there is a causal relationship between the mind and the external world then there is no need to make distinctions between mind and body, or mental vs. physical. — Harry Hindu

The distinction should be between that which is living and that which is dead. The former bring that which is creating and organizing and the later being that which is used to create. I have always found the comparisons of humans to computers, or any dead matter, a bit distasteful.

I don't think so. — Thorongil

How could the why not be up to us? Are you in personal contact with God or aliens? What sort of BS have they been feeding you?

How could the why not be up to us? Are you in personal contact with God or aliens? What sort of BS have they been feeding you? — Marchesk

I think @Thorongil meant "the more important question is not what objects are, but why they exist." We are not responsible for the reason of a thing's existence (excluding the obvious man-made stuff).

I think Thorongil meant to "the more important question is not what objects are, but why they exist." We are not responsible for the reason of a thing's existence (excluding the obvious man-made stuff). — Michael

Oh well, why ask why? What reason do we have to suppose things have a reason for existing? We can explain the mechanics for how they came to exist (to a point), but not give a reason in terms of purpose.

Oh well, why ask why? What reason do we have to suppose things have a reason for existing? We can explain the mechanics for how they came to exist (to a point), but not give a reason in terms of purpose. — Marchesk

I didn't mean "reason" in these sense of "purpose". I meant it in the sense of "cause"/"explanation".

I didn't mean "reason" in these sense of "purpose". I meant it in the sense of "cause"/"explanation". — Michael

Right, okay then no disagreement here. I think Banno was talking about meaning/purpose, not causality.

It has been a recent contention of mine that the data of experience are the same in all metaphysical systems, whether idealistic or materialistic — Thorongil

Of course. As I've been saying, it can't be proved that Materialism's world doesn't exist as a brute-fact and an unverifiable, unfalsifiable proposition.

Of course there are things in metaphysics that can't be proved. There are also definite things that can be uncontroversially said.

But let's not imply that all metaphysicses are equal. Brute facts and unverifiable, unfalsifiable propositions are considered unaesthetic, unappealing and unconvincing.

Michael Ossipoff

I was caricaturing the idealist position you prefer for rhetorical effect, you'll see it has no influence whatsoever on my line of argument, which you've ignored in favour of the easier target. — Pseudonym

So you admit to strawmanning my position. Besides being thoroughly unnecessary, you ought also to have expected my disinclination to address whatever line of argument you think you've presented thereafter.

How do you avoid the infinite regress? — Pseudonym

With respect to what? A necessary being by definition avoids it, a point you seem incapable of acknowledging for whatever reason.

Do you mean human experience? — prothero

I mean this.

On the one hand, "what are they ultimately composed of" makes no sense because I don't see what import (if any) this has. — Agustino

My dear friend, this was effectively the point I was making.

you presuppose that there exists something outside of this "everything" that can be pointed to as an answer to the why question — Agustino

I presuppose no such thing. The question could be meaningless, in which case there is no such thing.

The more interesting and pressing question is whether the phantasmagoria of experience exhausts the category of the real. — Thorongil

I don't know about that, but Reality is unknowable, undiscussable, un-describable. Metaphysics doesn't cover or describe Reality.

In other words, the more important question is not what objects are, but why they are.

Of course. Metaphysics is the discussion of explanation and origin. But it's also about the matter of what is. (...though that part of course is also called "Ontology" too). In this usage "what is" needn't refer only to physical objects (except of course for Materialists).

If this question has no answer, nihilism results. If this question has an answer, but we can't know it, skepticism results.

If you ask someone that question, and they say that it's unknowable, undiscussable and un-describable, that could be called an answer, or not, depending on what you mean by "answer".

You're referring to something more ultimate than metaphysics. Idealism and Materialism are only metaphysicses.

If this question has an answer, and we can know it, ...

I think most of us would agree that that's not so.

then something like theism results.

Maybe some Theisms. But many Theists, including those in some of the official church denominations with the largest membership;, don't believe in that knowability.

I think Thorongil meant "the more important question is not what objects are, but why they exist." We are not responsible for the reason of a thing's existence (excluding the obvious man-made stuff).

[...]
— Michael

I didn't mean "reason" in these sense of "purpose". I meant it in the sense of "cause"/"explanation". — Michael

Correct.

Well then boy, I think you need to grow some subtlety. — Janus

Oh no, I've already passed that stage of development. My subtlety is so immense, I often need a crane to hoist it.

Theism relies on faith — Harry Hindu

Some forms of it might, but not all. Fideism has never been theism's most common expression, at least among philosophers and theologians.

It seems to me that the dichotomy is false and idealists and materialists are arguing over nothing. — Harry Hindu

Yes, I tend to agree, as this was the point I tried making.

I presuppose no such thing. The question could be meaningless, in which case there is no such thing. — Thorongil

So, how else does the question make sense in the absence of that presupposition?

My dear friend, this was effectively the point I was making. — Thorongil

Fair enough, I did get that impression from part of your post.