My thought is this, if humanity could deal with the obvious meaninglessness of life, and realize that all we have is each other, could we not move on to a higher level than to dwell in delusions and denial. — boagie

We already do that. It's called "popular culture".

Once, there was the Theatre of the Absurd. Now, we're living it.

We already do delusion and denial, no argument here, but, can we not shake it and move on. Are we as mindless as the beast, and must wait for nature to clean house. Perhaps collectively there is no mind, but we are rather doomed if we cannot enact a greater skill at self-control. Perhaps nature needs to take out her wrath before humanity could rise to the occasion. I suspect that will be the bell that tolls for humanity.

We're to weave a mythic narrative, a tapestry, that hides or fills the horror vacui, whether embracing agency as the hand that paints itself or as the hand that is painted.

Better yet we've never heard of the abyss and toil with full absorption in fruitful aspects of the gardens of life.

"Thoughs who know the most, must mourn the deepest, orr the fatal truth, the tree of knowledge is not that of life."

Self-control of the collective must be the goal of humanity, or as Leaky stated in his advice to humanity, change or perish.

My thought is this, if humanity could deal with the obvious meaninglessness of life, and realize that all we have is each other, could we not move on to a higher level than to dwell in delusions and denial. — boagie

Who's to say some of us haven't already done so?

You wouldn't recognize such people even if they hit you in the face

My thought is this, if humanity could deal with the obvious meaninglessness of life... — boagie

Don't treat meaning as if it were something you find. It's not. It's something you build.

Don't treat meaning as if it were something you find. It's not. It's something you build. — Banno

Good point. There's something more to be said about this. Searching for meaning, which many of us may or may not do, implies a belief in the universal truth about life. Certainly, Schopenhauer believes that there is a universal truth about life, for example.

If it's come down to this, that it is something you build, then you know meaning is subjective and to each his own. It's an admission that there's no meaning out there to be found. It's what you make it. And this does not appease some people. To some, it's a depressing thing to realize.

...you know meaning is subjective and to each his own. — Caldwell

That doesn't follow. Meaning is built - it is what you do. And what you do, you do together with other people. Creating meaning is inherently a communal activity.

meaninglessness — boagie

self-control — boagie

Yup!

The choices are:

1. Slavery: Do what you're supposed to do. Don't even think about asking questions

Or

2. Freedom: Do what you please.

Interestingly, these same choices can be rephrased in a moral context as,

3. Slavery

Or

4. God's evil

Either God is evil or life is meaningless. A dilemma to give you sleepless nights.

That doesn't follow. Meaning is built - it is what you do. And what you do, you do together with other people. Creating meaning is inherently a communal activity. — Banno

:meh:

:meh: — Caldwell

Yep; if I say "private language argument" I'll lose my audience...

:wink:

Meaning is something derived from experience, or meaning, experience, is knowledge. I think your talking about reaching for a goal, to build a meaningful life ect.

Meaning is something derived from experience, or meaning, experience, is knowledge. I think your talking about reaching for a goal, to build a meaningful life ect. — boagie

Yep. Meaning is built from experience, but it builds into the future.

Claiming that life is meaningless misunderstands what meaning is. Life is meaningful if you so make it.

Banno,
There is no inherent meaning to the physical world as object, there is nothing in this world that has meaning in and of itself, but only in relation to a conscious subject. I quite agree that if one is to live a meaningful life one needs to create it, give it meaning. The physical world is utterly meaningless, it is biological consciousness which bestows meaning upon a meaningless world.

Claiming that life is meaningless misunderstands what meaning is. Life is meaningful if you so make it. — Banno

I like this. Is it possible to push it any further? I'm thinking along the lines that people have a responsibility to construct their own meaning rather than inherit an 'off the rack' version (theism or scientology, whatever). Or would you find this too prescriptive?

Yep.

Perhaps facing meaninglessness we can without guilt, take the power of self-control and bring in a new world perspective, for without self-control, there is no control, and that is, our apparent reality in a dying world. — boagie

A bit too messianic for my taste, but something like that.

I'm thinking along the lines that people have a responsibility to construct their own meaning — Tom Storm

It's far worse than that: people have no choice but to construct their own meaning. Hence the angst that comes from simply being.

And yes, authenticity is pivotal here. Allowing others to decide for you - "off the rack" - is itself making a decision, but an inauthentic one.

This is all just channeling Sartre, by the way.

That is a by-product of the realization of the truth of Nihilism, when all is said and done, the conscious subject is the free agent in creating his own values, meanings, and beliefs. Most of these things are in place upon your arrival. If you are conscious of the reality in which you live, you will discern your own values, meanings, and beliefs.

Authenticity; you channeling Sartre channeling Heidegger.

There is no inherent meaning to the physical world as object, there is nothing in this world that has meaning in and of itself, but only in relation to a conscious subject. — boagie

The natural world is replete with meaning for animals. Culturally we build on that basic, biological, embodied meaning that varies with different kinds of bodies. Or we shrink from that and imagine other-worldly meanings.

Certainly, different biologies experience a somewhat different reality than human biology. Whether we are talking of humans or other animals we are talking about consciousness. Life is consciousness, consciousness is life. Like humans, no doubt animal's sensory experiences provide it meaning relative to how its body is effect by the physical world, this meaning experience is then bestowed upon a meaningless world. For all animals, reality/meaning is a biological readout. Where subject and object stand or fall together, meaning is always the sole property of the subject, never the property of the object.

That's right - it's about expressing ideas clearly.

self-replicating molecule — boagie

The self-replicating paradox

The DNA molecule copies itself faithfully with probably one error in a billion replication cycles. Yet, children are not exact copies of the parents. It's like xeroxing a document only to discover the copy's different from the original.

If DNA were faultless, evolutionary development would not be possible. Mutation is a high price to pay for adaptation, with most mutations meaning death to the organism. It is imperfection that drives evolution.

If DNA were faultless, evolutionary development would not be possible. Mutation is a high price to pay for adaptation, with most mutations meaning death to the organism. It is imperfection that drives evolution — boagie

The DNA replication paradox

1. To maintain a good trait, its replication must be hi-fi.

2. To develop a better trait, it's replication must not be hi-fi.

3. Life has to maintain a good trait and develop better traits.

Ergo,

4. DNA replication must be hi-fi & DNA replication must not be hi-fi.

To live is to evaluate.

In Spinoza's terms, every life seeks to persist in its existence - continue, survive, grow-develop (à la 'will to power'); thus, every life values - is valuable to - herself; and insofar as a life recognizes other lives as valuable to themselves, a life enters into reciprocal valuing with and among them, to value and be valued by other lives. Thus, value, or meaning, does not come "out of nothing"; it comes from community - natality, eusociality, fatality - and reinforced, or enriched, by communicative practices (e.g. cooperative labors, crafts-arts, rituals, trade, discursive dialectics (e.g. scientific / historical / philosophical inquiries)). — 180 Proof

In other (more succinct) words, what said. :up:

↪Banno Authenticity; you channeling Sartre channeling Heidegger. — Janus

Low blow.

First problems above:

I think a big problem here is the English language. When talking about a ‘meaning of life’ we’re just
talking about ‘purpose’ or ‘reason for something’.

‘Building’ meaning makes no sense. Either something has meaning in reference to something else or it doesn’t. The colour blue has meaning if colour is important to an aim. Meaning is inherent in the aim of a task.

The problem framed with the terms ‘purpose’ and ‘meaning’ is when they are applied in a universal manner. That is the mistake.

Second:

Life is not ‘meaningless’ anymore than blue isn’t a colour. We are temporal so necessarily directed in one way or another towards something in way way or another. Understanding how we are directed, what we’re directed towards (relative to other items) and distinguishing items, is all there is to life.

What is the meaning of blue? Without context a useless question.

What is the meaning of life” Without specifics (ie. contained within tangible bounds) equally useless.

To further break this down we find ‘good’ and ‘bad’ (meaning valuation). The purpose/meaning grows from the context of a question/proposal and how we consider it as ‘better’ or ‘worse’ and for what reasons. We have small goals in life not some ultimate goal because we’re not privy to any kind of complete picture. We naturally investigate and map out our experiences and make up ideas and plans to help understand our direction - and possibly alter it (as we’re just time machines).

To live is to evaluate. — 180 Proof

More succinct that my rant :D

Meaning is built - it is what you do. And what you do, you do together with other people.

Creating meaning is inherently a communal activity. — Banno

Enter power games, hierarchy, and all that which eventually makes life so meaningless and so inauthentic.