Howard Gardner wrote a book about his discovery of seven intelligences. (I see on Amazon he's made of himself a cottage industry of his ideas.) Anyway, two of those intelligences are interpersonal and intrapersonal.

What he means by intelligence is pretty simple, mainly what we all mean by it. Skill, knack, comfort with, and so forth. But he also, having done research with brain injury, argued from evidence that the seven intelligences were associated with locations in the brain, hence with some justification intelligences.

Since then others have jumped on the bandwagon with all kinds of "intelligences," but without Gardener's bona fides.

My point, then, in opposition to yours. But I think we all can agree that being deprived of interpersonal connections is likely harmful to anyone.

I do think meaning (in any context) does always seem to be particularly about relationships. A solitary person may find it necessary to be creative in finding meaningful relationships between different parts of themselves, or themselves and their environment. [/casual opinion]

Jesus went and spent 40 days, and Zarathustra 10 years in the wilderness. Buddha had given up his royal life and family, and went up to the mountain for meditation.

For peace and quiet of meditation and cleansing mind, maybe it is good to have no one around you apart from you for a while. Of course, they came down to the towns when they found the answers to the mystery of life and taught and enlightened the people. (Not sure about Mr Buddha, what he had done or happened since gone up to the mountain.) Anyhow, not exactly meaningless exercises I would reckon.

Life is essentially meaningless on a physical level. Giving meaning to it seems to be the only reason we are in this eddy of entropy; having exterior validation of the meaning we have given to our surroundings would make it more real and as a result more meaningful.

If meaningful interpersonal connections are the only meaning of life — Kaveski

It's not only interpersonal connections that make life meaningful, but any connection. Teaching and helping other people are indeed half of the ways to find meaning, the ways that make you meaningful to the world, but the other half of the ways can still make the world meaningful to you: learning things, and achieving things, which you can do even if nobody else exists.

:up:

If meaningful interpersonal connections are the only meaning of life, then a life without any interpersonal connections is totally meaningless. — Kaveski

Something is meaningful when it has the potential to result in a desirable end. When there is no such end in sight, things start to look meaningless.

If meaningful interpersonal connections are the only meaning of life, then a life without any interpersonal connections is totally meaningless. — Kaveski

This isn't really an observation., it's a tautology.

If green beans are the only meaning of life, then a life without green beans is totally meaningless, right?

Well, maybe you and the eminent/esteemed philosophers in this microcosm *cough* can start by investigating the nature of relationship first, yes?. Are the said philosophers clear on it? Then may be investigate the nature of meaning, yes? Investigation first, conclusion later, right? Just a suggestion, has no authority.

Whether your life has meaning or not is not in your gift. You did not create yourself or subject yourself to a lifetime here, so you cannot be the source of your life's purpose. Your life's purpose, if it has one, is determined by someone else, not you.

If I make a knife to cut things, then that knife's purpose is to cut things even if the knife itself would prefer not to cut things (not that knives have preferences - but if they did, it'd make no difference).

Also, your opening line is fallacious. Let's say I create a knife in order to cut things. However I find that there's nothing my knife will cut. Well, that doesn't mean by knife lacks a purpose. It just means it isn't fulfilling it.

But anyway, the purpose of our lives is not to form meaningful relationships. God exists and if God's purpose in placing us here was for us to have meaningful relationships then we'd all find them easy to acquire and maintain (and they wouldn't end). But they are hard to acquire and maintain (and they always end). If you are in one, then the object of your affection could die at any moment or cease to feel for you what you do for them and vice versa.

The purpose of your life is to do your time. You're in prison. It's really the only plausible possibility, once one understands that God exists.

Those who think God exists and their life has some other purpose, are self aggrandizing idiots who grossly underestimate God's power (and have warped and sick ideas about what love involves).
Those who think God does not exist and that they have the power to give their lives a purpose are also idiots. Idiots for thinking God does not exist, and then idiots again for thinking that they have the power to give their lives a purpose despite having not created them or the world in which they find themselves. If God does not exist, then the purpose of your life is determined by whatever mucky end your parents had when they created you. That is, your life probably has no purpose at all and was just the foreseen but unintended consequence of satisfying an animal urge, or its purpose was something sad and pathetic (a misguided attemp to achieve immortality; a self indulgent desire to have someone who will look up to them etc, etc).

Anyway, there you go. Your life has a purpose and there's nothing you can do about it. And its purpose is to protect others from you; to give you your just deserts; and lastly and least importantly, to give you some opportunity to reform your depraved ways.

God exists and if God's purpose in placing us here was for us to have meaningful relationships then we'd all find them easy to acquire and maintain (and they wouldn't end). — Bartricks

Nonsense. Something being easy, abundant, and easily taken for granted would not remain meaningful. Relationships are valued because they aren't always abundant or easy to maintain. Also, something being finite adds to it's perceived value. Literally, the opposite of every point quoted is the truth of the matter. It is possible for people to disconnect from empathy; in which case it would seem more reasonable to think the quoted view is true.

Those who think God exists and their life has some other purpose, are self aggrandizing idiots who grossly underestimate God's power (and have warped and sick ideas about what love involves). — Bartricks

That's me!

Oh do think it through Dumbartonshire. God is all powerful. So he could give you all the benefits of a meaningful relationship without any of its frustrations and anxieties if he wished. That you may be unable to imagine how is no constraint on him. You really need to stop thinking God can't do things, or can't do x without doing y. He can create meaningful relationships for us all in the blink of an eye.

He hasn't. He let whether we find one be a matter of chance and ensures they all end. Why? Coz he clearly doesn't like you. He wants to leave you to dwell in ignorance in a dangerous world among depraved people. How do I know that? Because you are dwelling in ignorance in a dangerous world. Think that's a mistake? Think God makes those? Think he loves you? Then you are a very bad lover!

It's been proven that drinking seawater is bad for your health. No need to run any more tests.

Er, ok. That's a shame, given there's so much of it. Why would someone who thinks you're great plonk you on a world that's 73% covered in poison?
Oh, cos he loves you. That's right. L is for love.

I don't suppose to know what other people think about me; much less what impression I'm leaving with a self perceiving universe. I just try to show it what I like to see.

I don't know what you are on about, but it sounds a bit navel gazy to me.
Anyway, should you want to understand the purposes for which you are living a life here, reasoned reflection will reveal to you that you are doing porridge.

Purpose is just to look at stuff and experience the world. Maybe, paint a picture. It's what humans do.

Well if the cap fits...

God: I've made you a cake and i am going to force you to eat some.

Bert: ooo, thank you - it must be because you love me so much. I am so loveable.

God: I made it with flour and sugar and eggs and almond essence and some broken glass and some dog poo.

Bert: oo, sounds yummy. You must have put the glass and dog poo in it to enhance the loveliness of the almond essence. You love me soooooo much.

God: no, I put the glass in so you'd cut your mouth to buggery and shred your innards and make you die slowly of internal bleeding. And the dog poo I put in to diminish the flavour of the almond essence and sugar, because I don't want you to derive too much pleasure from eating the cake.

Bert: Aw, you love me soooooo much. This is the yummiest cake. Almond glass and dog poo is my favouritist cake ever!!! I am going to build you a big house and sing songs to you in it.

God: Jesus!

I have no idea how you'd arrive at those conclusions. If it is to look at stuff, why are there blind people? And why isn't everything unremittingly beautiful?
Apply your reason and stop the daydreaming!

I have no idea how you'd arrive at those conclusions. If it is to look at stuff, why are there blind people? And why isn't everything unremittingly beautiful?
Apply your reason and stop the daydreaming! — Bartricks

Gladly, it's obviously all conjecture. But, if you look at the tricks animals do like bird nests or spider webs. We seem to naturally develop a knack for language and proceed to label and describe the world. If in fact all matter is collectively 'awake' then it seems we add something. Otherwise it seems a bit excessive relative to a natural environments survival demands.

Look at stuff, was a satirical placeholder for the whole of human internal experience. I want to focus on this mistake "And why isn't everything unremittingly beautiful?" The same reason the abundance of relationships don't make relationships more valuable. Value derived from scarcity isn't a complex idea. Consider the juxtaposition as an example. Doesn't work without contrast. But, it is used to convey meaning in media constantly. We see the spaces between things as much as things.

I still don't see how you're arriving at your conclusion. If God exists, what possible reason is there to think that this life's purpose is to, well, look at stuff or any of that other guff you mentioned? It's just silly and self-indulgent and unreflective.

When would a good, all powerful, all knowing person stop taking an interest in you and leave you to your own ignorant devices in a dangerous world? When you've behaved so badly they no longer like you and when you've attempted to do something similar to others of your own free will.

I mean, what does a good person do with such an individual? Destroy them? Maybe, but not necessarily, for good people don't like to destroy others if they can help it (and if that good person is all powerful, then they can always help it). Eradicate their free will and determine them to behave impeccably? Again, maybe, but not necessarily because, once more, good people value free will and prefer it when others are freely behaving impeccably rather than doing so because they've been determined to by someone else. What about just putting them away - putting them in another place, away from the abodes of the blessed and make them live among their own kind, to run the gauntlet that they would willingly have made others run if they'd had the opportunity? Well, yes, that seems like something a good person might do with a git. Let them go and stew in their own juices. Take no interest in them, at least for a bit.

Well, there you go. That's your situation. You're not here because someone likes you - I mean, look at the place, for christ's sake. And consider your own ignorance. It's huge. There's barely anything you know - barely anything any of us knows for certain. You think an all knowing, all good, all powerful person would make you languish here in ignorance if they loved you? That's completely mental. Pretty much any awful thing you can conceive of can happen to you here and in the next minute. At any time - any second - you could be pitched into agony. You think a good person would subject you to a lifetime in a world like that if they were fond of you? If you were a good, innocent person that they loved??? Blimey!! How deluded are you?

learning things, and achieving things, which you can do even if nobody else exists. — Pfhorrest

How could you learn things and achieve things if no one else existed?

If meaningful interpersonal connections are the only meaning of life, then a life without any interpersonal connections is totally meaningless. — Kaveski

What about connections to other things; animals, environments, creative pursuits, are they not meaningful?

How could you learn things and achieve things if no one else existed? — Janus

What would you need others for?

If God exists, what possible reason is there to think that this life's purpose is to, well, look at stuff or any of that other guff you mentioned? It's just silly and self-indulgent and unreflective. — Bartricks

My concept of God is better suited to the purpose I mentioned. It's something closer to integrated information theory than perhaps children's stories.

You think an all knowing, all good, all powerful person would make you languish here in ignorance if they loved you? — Bartricks

I don't think this definition is even relevant. It's a description of what a person would be as God or imagining themselves as God. It's a version for children's stories put forward.

You think a good person would subject you to a lifetime in a world like that if they were fond of you? If you were a good, innocent person that they loved??? Blimey!! How deluded are you? — Bartricks

It's another example as "person god"; I don't think it is the way things are so I don't have to consider the conflict you seem to be concerned about.

It's another example as "person god"; I don't think it is the way things are so I don't have to consider the conflict you seem to be concerned about. — Cheshire

My concept of God is better suited to the purpose I mentioned. It's something closer to integrated information theory than perhaps children's stories. — Cheshire

Yeah, you don't believe in God. Here's someone else who doesn't believe in God: "My concept of God is the concept of a tuber that grows in the ground and has a brown skin and white interior and tastes pleasant boiled, mashed or roasted". That's not God, that's a potato.

You mean to say, I don't believe you.

No, I think you don't believe in God. You believe in a potato.

If God exists, then the purpose of our lives is easily discernible by some rational reflection. We are in a prison being punished by being made to live in ignorance in a dangerous world along with others who have committed crimes similar to our own. So the purpose of our being here is a) to protect innocent others from us; b) to give us what we deserve; and c) rehabilitation.

If God does not exist, then the purpose of your life is going to be determined by what motivated your parents to create you. And so your life either has no purpose at all, or a very silly one.

Them main point, however, is that you - we - don't get to determine the purpose of our lives. This seems to be something that many today don't get.

If God exists, then the purpose of our lives is easily discernible by some rational reflection. — Bartricks

The term is called making a "wild guess".

determined by what motivated your parents to create you. — Bartricks

You said rational reflection created this masterpiece? Are you the type that assembles a jig saw puzzle with a hammer? What was the worse idea that this replaced?

Them main point, however, is that you - we - don't get to determine the purpose of our lives. — Bartricks

Even if I assumed your previous statements were correct this wouldn't follow in any definitive sense.

No, I think you don't believe in God. You believe in a potato. — Bartricks

Closer to a potato than modified santa claus, but I also don't think you believe in God, because it's not what I believe in.