If science provided a causal explanation of your existence (consciousness and all), would you be satisfied?

What's the meaning of the universe? What's the meaning of atomic particles? People often want to know the meaning of their lives, but I think that's a very egocentric to focus on ourselves. Why not ask the same questions about the universe or other things?

My definition of meaning isn't about profit in a next life or ethereal afterlife. It is about being more than the matter I am made of. — TiredThinker

If that is your passion, that is fine. Work on become a neuroscientist or AI developer. There are people who are trying to mimic the brain with the ultimate goal of transferring consciousness over to something more durable and longer lasting than a human brain. You may not obtain it, but your work may allow others to obtain it in the future.

But taking the gift you have and lamenting it is not something else is something I think many people go through. Some don't find meaning because they were born in a poor area of the world where they subsisted on meager eating until dying at a young age. Some don't find meaning because they suffer a crippling disease, and wish their life was one that did not have it.

There is no meaning in something that cannot be. Its not meaning that you're looking for. Its a desire for a wish to come true. You have to look at what you have, at what is, as real and naked in front of you as it is, and find value in making it something you feel proud of.

And the mind can survive death in its ideas and impact on the world. You are able to type your woes online. That is the lasting impact of a mind beyond its fleshy vessel. The works of famous philosophers created scientific and political changes that you benefit from today.

Meaning does not rely on a fantasy. Meaning relies on reality. You can let your mind be more than its woeful self (I say in jest). Get out there and let your mind make an impact on the world that will last beyond your death. Just...make it a positive one if you would? It helps everyone else obtain the same goal as well. =)

I am not assuming anything about the duration of time or the finite or infinite nature of the universe.

I go back and forth on this a lot. One thing I've come up with is that "meaning", as understood even within the confines of this idea of life having meaning only in the present, is a concept that stems from some sort of metaphysical "meta-meaning" situation. We thought life had meaning in relation to an afterlife, but now we've amended that, and, using the same language, we say that life only has meaning in the now. And then it gets twisted up with some concepts borrowed from Hinduism or Buddhism. — Noble Dust

Interesting. I have had the thought that the "meaning in the now" is second-rate in comparison to some ultimate transcendent purpose, kind of like salvaging whatever we can.

On the other hand, I have also thought that meaning derived from the future is "horizontal", while meaning derived from the present is "vertical". The present has depth, the future has breadth. The present is real, the only real, but is fleeting. The future is never real, but always eternal. Whatever we don't have now, we can project into the future. The present slips through our fingers, and the future is a mirage. Neither one is exactly what we want or need; any search for meaning necessarily falls short. This is the burden of time-consciousness.

I'm a little drunk right now so idk if that made sense.

I am not assuming anything about the duration of time or the finite or infinite nature of the universe. — TiredThinker

You referred to an "immortal being", which implies living forever, and therefore everlasting time.

I suggest life can have meaning without an afterlife.

Meaning is something deeply personal (not based on some objective truth) and exists solely in the present (you cannot feel in a time you do not exist). This would imply to me that life only has meaning in the moment that you're in. Once you die, your ability to experience meaning will die with you but that doesn't speak to the meaning you experienced when you experienced it.

I believe this would hold true even if there was eternal life or an afterlife of some kind. In that scenario, could you really experience meaning in any moment other than the one you were present in?

Why does it matter how the universe, particles, and mud came from if it is unable to recognize its own existence. The mind is the only thing I want to know is special.

I referred to a fictional immortal being in reference to those concerned with boredom of an immortal existence. I don't believe bored would be a forgone conclusion

What good is a sense of meaning that is deleted upon death? It was just a super sophisticated motivation to keep going. Evolution pushing us to serve our biological purpose. The mind has many tricks to keep us going. But that doesn't mean we exist for a particular meaning beyond the ecosystem. Everything else must just be ego to think we are special without proof.

Meaning is “deleted” in life too. For instance, suppose you enjoyed a certain show as a child. In your present life you may even struggle to remember you felt that way. Using your phrasing, it’s been deleted. Meaning only exists in the moment you’re in. This isn’t a unique feature of death.

Nothing in nature claims to be apart from everything except the human Self. It says "I am separated from the whole, I live here in my myself-bubble. I'm not even one with this body I'm inhabiting".
We may claim that we are all one but we don't (and we can't) experience oneness.

I don't think there's anything metaphysically wrong with the universe, rather the problem is the "I", the thinker and it's thoughts.

When there's no thinking there can be no problems. Nothing says "I am here now but one day I'll be gone". In between two thoughts there's no problem.

Can the Self be a product of human culture? Much like a few hundred years ago when basically everybody believed in God. Since you grew up surrounded by people constantly referring to this "God", he became "real".
The present day child has first no notion of a self, of a me, that is taught by repeatedly pointing and saying things like "yes you did that John!", "this is your teddy bear" and so on, repeatedly referring to the child's Self. Still it takes years until the child have self-produced thoughts (a Self).

So maybe the gurus are right, the self is an illusion?

(wow, this got off the track, sorry.)

Memories seem to get updated and altered, but the brain is imperfect and perhaps a mind outside of the brain records everything perfectly as perhaps the universe itself may

I agree that without the impression of "I" there would be no problem. But since there is, there must be a reason for it.

If there is no afterlife can we assume life had no meaning? — TiredThinker

An afterlife would require that your experience machine (thoughts, feelings, perception) would somehow exist separate from the nervous system, which to me seems impossible.

Why not ask the same questions about the universe or other things? — Wheatley

Some molecules began to make copies of themselves. The race for survival and reproduction began on this particular planet, and it's still going on. What's the purpose of a worm in the ground?

Life obviously has no meaning whatsoever. Life will flourish wherever there's fertile soil, but it's indifferent to the opinions, suffering and pleasures of its creations, whether it's worms or primates.

Can we properly examine life while still alive? — TiredThinker

"Properly" or not, we can't examine anything once we're no longer alive.

If there is no afterlife can we assume life had no meaning?

Whether or not there is afterlife, we can assume anything about life's meaning or lack of meaning, but that won't change the fact that living is 'evaluating, selecting, prioritizing, interpreting ...' in order to survive and even thrive for as long as we live; and only in hindsight does one's irrevocable - irreparable - losses in the course of 'evaluating', etc, have meaning to the degree they shape one's life and remind one of lessons learned for survival and perhaps even provide (recurring) challenges - traumas - to be overcome. Whether or not there's a "here after", now here has every one alive by the throat struggling to delay the inevitable, fatal misadventure permitting, for as long as one is able, while gasping for meaning - the means to go on, to breathe (re-spiritus) ...

... imagining Sisyphus happy. :mask:

There are many things which allow us to differentiate between reality and imagination which is, interestingly enough, how they each ended up with a label. Imagination is intangible, and even imagined things which appear to a person as if real are only indistinguishable as long as that person is alone.

The rest of us are able to identify their mental health issues, Exhibit A--DSM-V. Of course, there are cases of mass hysteria or mass hallucination, but I'm not convinced that's really a thing. People can say whatever they want, and they do, and it gets ridiculous, and it's saturated with anxiety, attention-seeking and great quests for limelight and immediate gratification.

I think a good example of imagination is schizophrenia. I'm never going to hear a voice, or bump into a stranger, if it only exists in someone's imagination, and I've actually never seen someone with schizophrenia touching the imaginary person they're talking to, but that's just an observation based on personal experience.

As far as I can tell there is no strong evidence that anything happens after we die, and yet I can't imagine life having meaning or purpose unless there is. — TiredThinker

What meaning or purpose does the existence of an afterlife provide?

No matter how proud we might be of our intelligence, and our inability to find anything seemingly more intelligent it seems we are just over complicated poop machines. — TiredThinker

So are other animals. What makes humans special complicated poop machines in that we have an afterlife and other life doesn't?

We can try to define a purpose based on our occupation, or some might argue that being happy is the only meaning to life, but that only sounds like a way to prevent sadness and suicide. — TiredThinker

Isn't a belief in an afterlife a way of preventing sadness in suicide? It seems that you are distressed that the evidence indicates that there isn't an afterlife.

"What's the point of a soul
When all I'm being is
A faulty copy of myself"

-VETO

I think the word 'meaning' has different meanings to different people. We don't seem to have a generally accepted definition here.

When I was a youth, it worried me that my life didn't seem to have any meaning. By that, I think I meant something like 'purpose'.

After a year or so of soul searching, I came to accept that it in fact didn't have any meaning. But, far from making me more depressed, I realized that that was actually a good thing. If my life had a purpose, then I would feel under some sort of obligation to fulfill that purpose. If it had no purpose, then I was free to do whatever I wanted with my life.

Some might think that that would then lead me to be a totally depraved, immoral, self-centered seeker of immediate pleasure with no regard for anyone else. But it didn't, because I realized that ignoring the needs of others in the long run would make life worse for me. I wanted to have friends. What I chose to do with my life was to get as much pleasure and as little pain as possible from it. And this in fact led to the same sort of life that people with morals lead.

I used to think there would be no meaning to life if there was no afterlife. I thought that if I and other beings didn't contemplate the things I did, they would have no meaning. This is still accurate because "Meaning" and "Purpose" can only exist in the minds of thinking beings. If there are no beings to contemplate "Meaning" or "Purpose," life will indeed cease to have meaning at that time. That follows that life continues to have meaning as long as beings are capable of contemplating "Meaning."

This would be true whether there is an additional realm for eternal contemplative bliss or not. I think the real question is: If there was such a realm of eternal life, how would the meaning of life be different?