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. — andrewk
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. — andrewk
Screwdrivers make useless teapots.
Until you set out to do something, yes, everything is futile.
But as soon as you decide to do something... — Banno
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. — Terrapin Station
As pointed out a number of times it depends on what you are talking about. — Jeremiah
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. — darthbarracuda
so vague it has many interpretations. — intrapersona
Philosophy has become the act of taking the simple and making it sound far more complicated than it is. — Jeremiah
If you want to make good conversations — intrapersona
Is not that something that you set out to do ultimately futile though? — intrapersona
It seems you can have non-futile actions if a futile universe. What sense does it even make to call a universe futile though? If it has no purpose, then it is futile. I doubt we can find out the answer to that so the best we can do is imagine both states where it is futile and where it isn't and decide what the differences are. — intrapersona
So if there was no mind to think of unicorns, how would they think about them? AFAIK unicorns are imaginary and imagination is a product of the mind. The analogy is no different as it's purpose was to point out the ridiculousness of believable ideas that can be justified by the self alone. — intrapersona
Someone said this to me today that "when you break it all down everything is futile".
Instinctively I said yes but is there not some leeway in terms of perspective?
Is this argument purely about processes we observe and participate in in life or are all processes ends in themselves and are therefore unable to be termed futile as futility is a human construct design to determine the value of any given thing. — intrapersona
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