I did exactly that, I gave an example to measure futility, we can compare the futility of different goals to get an objective measure of the objective futility saturation.

Again it becomes very obvious that everything is not futile in equal measures.

What I intended for you to ask yourself is how futile is it for you to pursue the goal of trying to prove everything is futile?
How important is it for you to realize that goal?
Are there other goals that you have that are equally or more important that are less futile that you can pursue? — m-theory

If I don't know whether things are futile or not, how can I start pursuing other goals? If everything is futile then no goal is worth pursuing. I will just sit down and either be content or depressed until my time runs out on earth.

Having a sense of humor isn't the same thing as finding everything a 13-year-old does funny.

I did exactly that, I gave an example to measure futility, we can compare the futility of different goals to get an objective measure of the objective futility saturation.

Again it becomes very obvious that everything is not futile in equal measures. — m-theory

Ok so I turn on the tape to get water because i need it for survival = not futile.

But why survive?

it seems any practical examples you give to measure futility you end up with "why even exist?"

If I don't know whether things are futile or not, how can I start pursuing other goals? — intrapersona

Do you find anything useful? If so, you don't think that everything is futile.

Are you saying it is equally likely that should not exist?

Having a sense of humor isn't the same thing as finding everything a 13-year-old does funny. — Terrapin Station

No, you're right. It's called being a uptight mammering, pox-marked haggard who can't see the value in being playful and whimsical and child-like.

I bet you hate your kids when they try to play with you. Your responses are probably "Don't be so foolish child! you need to read your books and act like a gentlemen, shame on your child!" all the while tooting your lipps and frowning your eyebrows. and they respond "but daaad, i wanna be silly".. then you respond "shut up and be mature, why can't this family be normal?"

Do you find anything useful? If so, you don't think that everything is futile. — Terrapin Station

Usefulness could be part of the self-formed delusion I was talking about:

"As long as you acknowledge that you are content with the futility of everything, then it is fine. if you however have fooled yourself into thinking your life has worth or value in some way (butt doesn't stink) then that is a problem and that seems to be what most people are doing, at least unconsciously as a survival instinct incorporated in to rationality as the pursuit of happiness."

Finding everything a 13-year-old does funny is called being an uptight, mammering, pox-marked haggard who can't see the value in being playful and whimsical and child-like? If you say so.

Are you saying it is equally likely that should not exist? — m-theory

I am not sure. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, nevertheless where is it to be found that life isn't futile? so...

Can you be wrong about feeling that something is useful?

Finding everything a 13-year-old does funny is called being an uptight, mammering, pox-marked haggard who can't see the value in being playful and whimsical and child-like? If you say so. — Terrapin Station

Yes, and those sort of characters usually only respond with only "if you say so" because deep down you know that you have lost that ability to be playful. You are just a stuffy old man who grumbles and gripes and has no imagination... isn't that so? response: "if you say so" *rolleyes*

I already gave examples of when some things are not as futile as other things.

Everything is not equally futile.

Can you be wrong about feeling that something is useful? — Terrapin Station

Yes, I build a new farm shed and spend hours thinking that the materials are useful. Once finished I realize I am bankrupt and someone set fire to the shed. More than that, I found out that it was DESTINY that that was going to happen.

Yes, and those sort of characters usually only respond with only "if you say so" because deep down you know that you have lost that ability to be playful. — intrapersona

Me? But I don't find everything a 13-year-old does funny.

I already gave examples of when some things are not as futile as other things.

Everything is not equally futile. — m-theory

Yes but if you follow all those examples to the end of their purposes (i.e. but what is the purpose of? and what is the purpose of that etc on and on) then you end up with futility (aka we don't know why we are here etc.)

Me? But I don't find everything a 13-year-old does funny. — Terrapin Station

Yes because you have become jaded with age. That is the downside to certain forms of maturity... I bet a 13 yr old laughs A HELL of a lot more than you do.

Yes, I build a new farm shed and spend hours thinking that the materials are useful. Once finished I realize I am bankrupt and someone set fire to the shed. More than that, I found out that it was DESTINY that that was going to happen. — intrapersona

You can have a different opinion at a later time. That doesn't mean that your earlier opinion was wrong.

How can the default (existing) be more futile than not existing?

How can the default (existing) be more futile than not existing? — m-theory

Non-existence can't have value placed on to it, as it is not a thing. It just is.

I thought not existing would be the default.

You can have a different opinion at a later time. That doesn't mean that your earlier opinion was wrong. — Terrapin Station

tis if it's fate. and tis if it wasn't... as time is a sequence, your efforts are measured in terms of what you receive because of them. If you receive nothing, your efforts were in vein.

tis if it's fate. and tis if it wasn't. — intrapersona

??? You'd have to explain better why in your view fate would have anything to do with whether you can be right or wrong in an opinion of whether something is useful to you at a particular time.

I can place value on non-existence, it is more futile than existence.
I say this because I definitely cannot imagine any pursuit with a more futile goal than non-existence.

Also, for me, the default is existence, I can not remember any time that I did not exist, I can imagine such times, but I have never experienced non-existence...as far as I can tell.

??? You'd have to explain better why in your view fate would have anything to do with whether you can be right or wrong in an opinion of whether something is useful to you at a particular time. — Terrapin Station

I already did, you missed it because you think that what is true at one period is true is true exclusively of that period even despite later evidence that negates it. "I build a new farm shed and spend hours thinking that the materials are useful. Once finished I realize I am bankrupt and someone set fire to the shed. More than that, I found out that it was DESTINY that that was going to happen."

Right. So we disagree on what makes "useful" obtain, so to speak.

First, do you believe that it can be true or false that something is useful?

Right. So we disagree on what makes "useful" obtain, so to speak.

First, do you believe that it can be true or false that something is useful? — Terrapin Station

We probably don't disagree, we both know what practicality is when we see it.

Whether or not something is useful is dependant upon the use of the thing to the person or people judging what its use is. Now seeing as our lives are just an absurd blip in a something we know nothing of, we can not say what use our lives have other than to say that they have use in and of themselves to us who live the life... which is sort of self-justifying incorrectly. Sort of like saying "I exist therefor I exist", or more to the point: "My life has value, because I said and think it does". This is equivalent to us just sniffing our own arseholes and saying that it smells lovely. Is it a delusion that we think our arseholes (our lives) don't stink (have value)? What you end up with therefore, is people saying that the reason for their existence is to smell their own butts (live their life for the sake of self-perceived value). What is wrong with that? Well what is wrong with someone who believes in unicorn just because it is a self-perceived and self-validated truth. Just because YOU believe it doesn't make it any more justified, in fact it makes it LESS justified. What forms the basis of good decisions? Integrating observable phenomena with logical thinking and correlating that with repeatability in the world and in others. From what I can see, saying your life has use only to you is not integrating observable phenomena from the world or correlating it with repeatability. It is just saying "I fucking win because I say so, so shutup".

As pointed out a number of times it depends on what you are talking about.

Futility is a limitation in terms of something else. Fighting a one-man revolution is an exercise in futility, for example. Trying to bring back the dead is futile. Proving God's existence on pure reason alone is an exercise in futility, despite what some super-sophisticated theologians might pretend to know.

Not everything is futile so long as it's described within a context that makes action worthwhile.

But if we're talking about the state of the world, where it's going, where we are going as a species, what we're doing and why we're doing it in the first place, all within a broad, existential cosmic context, then I would say it's pretty obvious that we spend a great deal of effort fighting the unstoppable force of entropy. That surely is futility.

We probably don't disagree, — intrapersona

Actually, given what you wrote there, we very much disagree.

With the unicorn example, what's at issue is whether a particular sort of creature exists, where we're talking about something external to one's mind.

When we're talking about usefulness or value or assessments of whether something smells good or bad, etc., we're talking about something that isn't at all external to one's mind. We're talking about something that solely occurs as an individual's present/conscious mental phenomenon at a particular time.

Someone said this to me today that "when you break it all down everything is futile". — intrapersona

It depends what 'futile' means.

One possible meaning is 'absurd', in which case the statement is just a less elegant restatement of Camus' famous observation of life's absurdity which, seemingly paradoxically, can be a magnificently life-affirming statement.

Another meaning is something like Keynes's observation that 'In the long run we are all dead'. When Keynes says it, he's making an important point about economics, that while we do need to focus on long term as well as short term goals, there is a diminishing utility as that long term gets further away. But some nihilists adopt this to mean that there's no point in doing anything here and now - which begs the question 'what do you mean by no point?'. To me there's plenty of point. If I can create pleasure or remove harm from somebody else or for myself, that is all the point I need.