so what keeps you alive, and why? — Rhasta1

Dead Poet's Society. Applied science is how we live, and what poetry addresses is why. In one word, love. We love what's on this side of the grave, even if it and we are mortal, and perhaps even more because it is mortal, because there is no one meaning that dominates all the rest.

love just because of simply the act of loving or expecting something in return?

Camus would approve

love just because of simply the act of loving or expecting something in return? — Rhasta1

I'd say look beyond categorization and try to remember some of the best moments of your life with people, or some of your best moments this last week with people. A great example is a couple of lovers pillow-talking, smiling and joking with another. They don't experience much of a sense of separateness. The boundaries between the so-called self and the so-called other break down in moments like this. Philosophy is maybe weak where poetry is strong. The categorizing-analytic approach tries to break a continuous whole (life as it is lived) into nice little fragments. A nice example is a bicycle. Let's say you take it apart and stare at the parts individually. This isn't really a bicycle anymore. It doesn't work unless all the parts have a living relationship. Similarly life as it is lived resists being trapped in our categories.

When all is going well in life we don't even think to ask for some abstract justification of its value. We live that value. And if we question the value of life, we are even then living the value we find in questioning and being analytical.

I like Camus. I hope the old boy is indeed smiling down (surprised to still be conscious, if so.)

that sounds beautiful, but first of all what if you aint got none to be all cute with. and then after that we both know that poetry even though is super fulfilling when it's present in our lives, it's absent most of the time

that sounds beautiful, but first of all what if you aint got none to be all cute with. and then after that we both know that poetry even though is super fulfilling when it's present in our lives, it's absent most of the time — Rhasta1

That's true. And really sometimes life is hell. I think hope and fear keep us hanging on through those hellish times.

As far as 'the poetic' being absent most of the time, I think that really varies. I think we can become more generally open to life (a thing of the heart and the body as much as it if of the theoretical mind) so that it is more often poetic. In my own experience, I got better at staying in that poetic state of mind. That doesn't mean that one ever escapes the possibility of more hell. Nor do I claim to have a theoretical justification or cure for life. I'm just saying that love is at the center of why we bother to survive, despite the possibility and actuality of 'hell.' (Not that we should or should not 'carry on,' but only why we usually do.)

I know I focused on romantic love, but friendship can be powerful. Just having coffee and taking a long walk and talking about everything heavy and grand and terrible can be pretty great. And really there's a lot of pleasure to be had alone, pursuing one's hobbies. Finally (and I'm serious) watching good TV is not be dismissed. In some ways it is hyper-real. It is poetically denser than ordinary life.

fear keeps us going? fear of what?
i understood what you meant by love, you basically mean loving something, and love doing something, a passion that paints color on the canvas that our lives are on.
but the question is, is that truly all you can hope for in this life? (i dont know what else im hoping for but i quite feel that there's gotta be something else)
and the other question is that what if you love something that's considered wrong? hitler loved killing jews and it was wrong

I don't agree with that widespread belief that life is pointless.

The very notion of point, of purpose, stems from wanting, from feeling a desire. Something has a point because you want it, when you don't want it you don't see a point. It's not that life is pointless, it's that it appears pointless to you when you don't feel desire.

Death does not make life pointless, unless your sole desire is to live forever. And even then you can escape that pointlessness by believing that death is a new beginning.

The quest for purpose is a quest for desire. When you don't feel love you ask what's the point of love? But when you feel love you see precisely the point.

We think that feelings are meaningless while it is feeling that gives meaning. Physicists want us to believe that we are a heap of elementary particles devoid of feeling, that feeling is an epiphenomenon, an accident that has no influence on anything, then you discard your feelings and you find life pointless, but see that they're wrong and focus on what you feel, and then you'll see the point.

some live good lives even though they know that life is ultimately pointless. — Rhasta1

The first thing to come to mind is that nobody actually knows whether life is pointless or not. There are opinions on all sides of that issues, but nobody KNOWS. And so perhaps the question becomes, how practically useful is a particular opinion?

so what keeps you alive, and why? do u have any tips on how to get past nihilism? — Rhasta1

The best I can offer for the moment is to ignore such questions until at least age 50. Stop reading books about nihilism, stop trying to come to a decision, stop thinking about it. Put it down and walk away. Until age 50 just assume that life is meaningful and preferable to the alternative, even though there is no way to prove that.

Apologies, but most such questions on philosophy forums are being asked by young men in their twenties. Through no fault of their own such folks simply don't have enough experience to usefully grind their gears on such questions. Maybe nobody does, but certainly not a 23 year old, no offense intended.

some live good lives even though they know that life is ultimately pointless. — Rhasta1

I don't think that life is ultimately pointless. I just think that under a rock is the wrong place to look for a point. It's like looking for orange juice on a coral reef. You need to look in the right place for the item you're questing.

This is the question Camus asks in the Myth of Sisyphus -

“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest — whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories — comes afterwards."

As we all know - Camus point was the absurdity of men looking for meaning in life, where there is none. So like Sisyphus - why do we continue to push the rock up the hill, only to have it always tumble back down. If there is no greater purpose.

Camus' answer was a type of existentialism acceptance - his absurd hero, who knows there is no higher meaning - but finds or make his own meaning in life.

Camus would suggest that those who believe there is a greater meaning, are committing a philosophic suicide, believing in a falsehood.

I have given these 2 positions some thought, and I do not see any philosophic difference at all in believing there is no meaning, and there is a meaning.

Life appeared pointless to Camus because he was depressed.

i thought a lot about what you said, and it was very clever. but i guess you define something's point differently than i do.
see, there are things we do in life, we eat, we sleep, we love and we loathe. and we do each and all of our actions because of something, we eat because we dont wanna starve. little things in life make sense, theyre not pointless. but life itself, ultimately is pointless. lemme explain better
imagine youre in a car and its 2 am, youre driving somewhere you dont know. you turn on your headlights cause you dont wanna crash, you put on your seatbelt cause you dont wanna die, you listen to music on the road cause you dont wanna fall asleep.
But the grand question is, why are you going in the first place? you dont know that. your trip is pointless but the little things you do on the way or not pointless
you understand me?

I do a lot of things simply because I want to do that thing. I do not need a reason other than that.

but the question is, is that truly all you can hope for in this life? — Rhasta1

I understand your question, but that is the question of a particular mood. When we are joyfully immersed in some form of love (from flirting to constructing philosophical systems to making our best pot of chili ever), it never occurs to us that something is lacking. We might say that the mood that asks for more is like the chain slipping off the sprocket as we ride our bike.

As I see it, my entire notion of 'Heaven' or 'transcendence' is derived from actual experiences that I would just like more of and perhaps at an even higher intensity.

In some way searching for an explicit justification of existence (what it is all about) is like wanting life to take on the linear structure of a video game. How does one 'beat' life? There is something wrong with life because there's no final 'boss' to defeat.

i dont know what else im hoping — Rhasta1

Bingo. Think deeply about this. The question dissolves as we try (and fail!) to imagine what kind of answer would satisfy us. Examples: let's say there is God. Somehow you know this without a doubt. Moreover, He or She or It has rules for you. Do this and get rewarded. Do that and get punished? Does this really illuminate anything? Or is this just a familiar human pattern? Another parent-child or employee-employer relationship with no new depth. The only 'meaning' that really matters, as far as I can tell, is in the realm of feeling. But feeling is temporary, right? And that's not good enough. Why not? And what can we learn from our terror in the face of our mortality? Does mortality 'force' us to see that what dies with us is not what is essential? That what is best in us also lives in others? In the children that replace us? That therefore (in some special sense) we do not die? (Or not until the species dies, but our interest fades out as we scan the distant future.)

To look for an existential answer in terms of a metaphysical equation is like looking for ice in the desert. The 'truths' that matter are hidden in 'music.' At their best religion traditions (understood metaphorically) point to possibilities of experience-as-a-whole, things that are 'only' 'subjective.' Along these same lines, there is no final or deep explanation of existence. This concept is related to that concept. The 'presence' of things as a whole, mysteriously disclosed so that we can sketch these relationships in the first place, cannot be captured by such a relationship, since there is nothing outside of the 'whole' to put the whole in relation to.

I hope some of this helps. You are wrestling with fundamental issues. All I have done is shared some of tools that worked for me.

Yes I understand. Are you satisfied with the answer "you live because you want to live"?

Everything you experience makes up your existence. Within that existence you have desires, things you want. It is wanting to not crash that gives rise to the point of turning on your headlights so that you don't crash. It is what you desire that gives rise to point, to meaning. You ask what is the point of your existence, so you are asking what desire you have that your existence helps you attain. If you do not desire anything then your existence has no point. If you desire anything then the fact you exist is what allows you to have that desire at all so that you may attain it.

You're focusing on the whole of existence and are asking what desire the whole allows you to attain, but everything you desire is part of the whole, and everything you may attain is part of the whole, so it is meaningful to speak of point and purpose within the whole but it is meaningless to speak of point for the whole, since there is nothing to put the whole in relation to, everything is part of the whole.

Then the question "what's the point of my whole existence?" is itself meaningless. With words you can construct sentences that are meaningless, that do not refer to anything you can experience. Another example of a meaningless question is "what is the smell of existence?". The concept of smell does not apply to the whole of existence just like the concept of point does not apply to the whole of existence, they apply to parts of existence.

We don't know what happens when our body dies, maybe our existence goes on in a different form or maybe it just stops. If it goes on the whole of existence would include what we experience after our body dies, and applying the concept of point to the whole of existence would still be meaningless. The whole of existence might be seen as a journey without a destination, but that doesn't make the journey not worth traveling, when you feel desires and follow them you find all the point you want.

I got better at staying in that poetic state of mind. — macrosoft

What in god's name is a "poetic" state of mind?

It is poetically denser than ordinary life. — macrosoft

I think Marshall McLuhan had something to say about that.

We don't know what happens when our body dies — leo

Oh, sure we do. It quickly becomes a site of ghastly decomposition. The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out -- literally.

Life after death is just like death before life. Do you remember what you were doing those billions of years before you were born? No. Because you didn't exist in that time. You don't exist; you exist; you don't exist. That's the whole opera in 3 acts.

If there is an afterlife, I will know it once I die. If there is no afterlife, I will not know it once I die. Nothing more! Nothing less!

What in god's name is a "poetic" state of mind? — Bitter Crank

Come now. Do you like Patti Smith's album Horses? I think she and her band were there.

The written word alone can get there too:

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful. — Auden

Then there's the state of mind in which one writes poetry. Even philosophical prose can catch fire. Some of my favorite passages from the therefore-greats are passionate and (conceptually-metaphorically) visionary. For instance, consider this interpretation of the Christ personality. Is this love or hate? It's in The Antichrist.

What the “glad tidings” tell us is simply that there are no more contradictions; the kingdom of heaven belongs to children; the faith that is voiced here is no more an embattled faith—it is at hand, it has been from the beginning, it is a sort of recrudescent childishness of the spirit... A faith of this sort is not furious, it does not denounce, it does not defend itself: it does not come with “the sword”—it does not realize how it will one day set man against man. It does not manifest itself either by miracles, or by rewards and promises, or by “scriptures”: it is itself, first and last, its own miracle, its own reward, its own promise, its own “kingdom of God.” This faith does not formulate itself—it simply lives, and so guards itself against formulae. To be sure, the accident of environment, of educational background gives prominence to concepts of a certain sort... But let us be careful not to see in all this anything more than symbolical language, semantics, an opportunity to speak in parables. It is only on the theory that no word is to be taken literally that this anti-realist is able to speak at all. — Nietzsche

The very notion of point, of purpose, stems from wanting, from feeling a desire. Something has a point because you want it, when you don't want it you don't see a point. It's not that life is pointless, it's that it appears pointless to you when you don't feel desire. — leo

I agree. Well said.

The quest for purpose is a quest for desire. When you don't feel love you ask what's the point of love? But when you feel love you see precisely the point.

We think that feelings are meaningless while it is feeling that gives meaning. Physicists want us to believe that we are a heap of elementary particles devoid of feeling, that feeling is an epiphenomenon, an accident that has no influence on anything, then you discard your feelings and you find life pointless, but see that they're wrong and focus on what you feel, and then you'll see the point. — leo

While I don't think physicists (in general) want us to believe that, I do think the modern vision of nature as a blind machine that doesn't care about us takes some time to process. What comes with that vision? Our deaths and the toppling of all absolute authority. 'All is vanity,' despite what the self-deceived and the lying manipulators who 'also see the void' say. This dark 'truth' (vision of existence among others) has the appeal of at least some kind of brave honesty. On the other hand, the same vision mocks every brave pose. And maybe some people don't get a conscious thrill from facing it but instead are simply horrified, when they aren't eating a sandwich like everyone else.

Anyway, one just adapts to this background nullity of all things. To agree with and paraphrase what you say, 'feeling is first.' Desire imposes a structure on the world. To be in love (requited or not ) is to find life almost too meaningful (at least when one is younger and hasn't settled in to a warm, reliable buzz.)

I agree too with what you imply. It's our philosophical interpretation of science (and for some politics) that drives us to despair, angst, etc. Under or through a different interpretation that same view of the blind machine has a bitter beauty. Something like our freedom and dignity might even depend on it.

Oh, sure we do. It quickly becomes a site of ghastly decomposition. The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out -- literally. — Bitter Crank

You see with your eyes what happens to others when their body dies. But what you see with your eyes is not all that is. If you look at me with your eyes you don't know what I feel or think, yet I feel and think, experience all kinds of things you don't see with your eyes. You're just assuming that everything that is stems from the world you construct out of what you see with your eyes, but that's a peculiar belief, which sadly has taken hold of many people, and led to a world where what matters is appearances and not what we feel.

Indeed what we desire shapes the world in many ways, through how we see the world, through how we feel, through what we do, which impacts what others see and feel and do. We separate 'reality' from 'imagination', but they both shape each other, they are a whole rather than two separate parts.

Some of the more vocal physicists do want to push the vision that all our existences can be summed up into neat mathematical equations, that it's just a matter of finding the correct ones. But their equations are fundamentally devoid of feeling and can never account for the experience of feeling, they are missing something fundamental. From being taught this vision many come to see their feelings as irrelevant, which as you say drives to despair and angst, instead of seeing what these equations say as irrelevant for their feelings.

We carry out science as if what is seen with the eyes gives us access to the fundamental stuff of existence and as if what we feel is a byproduct of that stuff, instead of noticing the fundamental character of what we feel in shaping everything. We focus on the seen and so construct a world where the seen is what matters rather than the felt, instead of focusing on the felt and constructing a world where the felt matters. And such a world could, I feel, be much more beautiful.

thats not actually practical. i dont know how one can control his/her thoughts. no apologies needed, im 19 , younger than you expected.
but seriously, i've tried what you said, i tried to distract myself, but no matter how long i keep my thoughts at bay, they find their way back in at 3 am when i wanna sleep

and where would the right place for that be?

Yourself, your own mind. You create your own "point," your own meaning.

i've read that book, what camus said was very appealing, but unfortunately, i find it impractical. i mean yeah it'd be great if we could just do stuff without ever thinking too much about it, its the perfect answer. just like how the answer for a football team on how to win the league would be "win every single match". works on paper but impractical.

so what youre basically saying is that, i gotta live if i wanna play guitar and fall in love, and if i dont want anything, suicide is the best option

but what if we're living in a simulation and after our death we go to hell or heaven orrrrr another dimension orrrrr meet the programmers of the matrix
we probably turn to dust but there is the possibility of something else happening