So we are slaves to the rules of physics. — Benj96

No we're not. We as a species made those "rules". What do you think our scientific progress (i.e. paradigm shifts) consists in? We govern ourselves – exercise freedom – to the degree we live adaptively by the rules which we make. That's not "slavery"; it's principled and/or lawful responsibility. C'mon, man, you're just rationalizing nonsense. If you need some Meaning / Purpose From On High, then just say you're espousing a religious worldview and defend that explicitly. What you seem to be saying, however, is unwarranted and nonsensical outside of a religious context. :roll:

So you're saying there's no meaning to anything that happens without applying human constructions like physics to reflect what we observe?

For me, the happening itself has inherent meaning. It is only use that put that meaning into a communicable language (equations, formulas, speech)

But that meaning is particular is at its most basic - information. Data. Interaction.

If you want to characterise meaning as "information according to a sentient being" then sure, there is no meaning without humans or an awareness as they cannot be untethered from one another.

But the universe precipitated the evolution/emergence of humanity which does have meaning. So if the universe doesn't have direct implicit meaning, it at least has meaning by proxy - by creating the concept of it through humanity.

Meaning does exists. The conditions by which it exists is up for debate.

Asking "what's the meaning of Life?" is as incoherent as asking "what's the meaning of Grammar?" — 180 Proof

Haha... and maybe as inevitable as a child asking why the sky is blue. Perhaps though instead of “incoherent” (with its connotations) one could substitute “incomprehensible” or “mind-boggling”.
Just a thought...

It seems to me that only individual lives, like particular word-uses, can have meaning, and that meanings are as finite and mortal as their bearers. — 180 Proof

“Have meaning” that one could even to begin grasping... with great difficulty. Like trying to eat a week’s worth of food in one bite. As incomprehensible as a novel is to a dog maybe.

Whenever I try to determine the exact meaning of even single a experience 10 years ago, I rarely can pin it down precisely. There usually are so many ramifications and consequences from EVEN ONE SINGLE EVENT that it soon overwhelms my mind. Total domino effect or ripple effect.

Your actual mileage may vary... (meaning that someone with more mental abilities might do quite easily what I find difficult lol).

Assume there is no creator/purpose to the world:
Then why does this world even exist? You would assume that no God and no purpose implies no universe, nothing. No creator implies nothingness. Therefore, our world and our lives just sort of "dangle" without any rationale or justification. Life and the universe are then just some sort of anomaly. In other words, Occam's Razor dictates that without a God, nothing should exist, and yet here we are alive, in existence, discussing this very issue.. Something therefore seems wrong with this notion...

OTOH, assume life does have meaning:
Then what do our experiences mean? We all have one fleeting moment after another and then we simply die. Each moment exists for only a fraction of a second. Even a long 'chain' of moments disappears into nothingness. Therefore, under these circumstances, how do our lives have meaning, as whatever we find meaningful is fleeting and only exists for a fraction of a second? Even for yourself, look down the road at what the future holds; at some point, every single one of those moments will be gone and you will be gone as well. This is of course true for all of us. This implies that life is meaningless and seems like a scary proposition to me... — jasonm

Just an aside, but this post suggests Existentialism to me. I assume you’re familiar. Maybe a deep drive back into it. (after a beer or doobie lol).

So we are slaves to the rules of physics.
— Benj96
No we're not. We as a species made those "rules". What do you think our scientific progress (i.e. paradigm shifts) consists in? We govern ourselves – exercise freedom – to the degree we live adaptively by the rules which we make. That's not "slavery"; it's principled and/or lawful responsibility. C'mon, man, you're just rationalizing nonsense. If you need some Meaning / Purpose From On High, then just say you're espousing a religious worldview and defend that explicitly. What you seem to be saying, however, is unwarranted and nonsensical outside of a religious context. :roll: — 180 Proof

Hmm...

“We as a species made those rules (of physics)”... you say? Well, ok. Perhaps in a kinda nitpicky (quibbling?) way of saying that humans wrote down (or “made”) the formulations etc of the phenomenon of gravity, for example.

I hope you are not saying humans made / created / invented gravity itself!
Say it isn’t so, Joe! lol.

That would be quite New Age-y, and something that even hardcore “New Agers” might quibble with. (Hardcore New Ager... is that a contradiction in terms? lol).

(I say this because I think this is what @Benj96 was getting at in that particular point. Please correct if mistaken!)

If existence (e.g. "energy") has a Meaning / Purpose that we haven't created, then we are nothing but prostrate slaves before that alien Meaning/Purpose. I think our freedom as individual and collective agencies consist in us having to create, or make, our lives as meaningful / purposeful for ourselves and each other as we are able to day to day. Existence is a blank page or canvas; how will we fill it – with poetry, theorems, blueprints, musical scores, epic hero journeys, doodles, painted scenes, family histories & photos, philosophical treatises, pastoral sermons, political speeches, love letters, pornography, fashion designs, ambitious plans for explorations of distant planets & moons, or make intricate orgami figures ... or leave it blank? Or just splatter our brains all over it ... Non serviam, my friend. Amor fati.

:death: :flower: — 180 Proof

:up: Wonderfully and poetically put!

The world exists because there is a fundamental universal entity, principle or phenomenon with rules/or that is a rule, that involves change/transformation.

This is energy. Energy is not energy unless it does work. If energy is the only existant, then it can only "work on itself". Ie. Change the nature or characteristics of itself.

If this is a rule, then existence absolutely must exist/happen because:

energy =matter (e=mc2). And with both objects (matter-unfree/locked up energy) and actions (free energy) the universe can continue to "do stuff" and so does stuff.

And the stuff it did lead, through evolution (constant change due to persistence of change that continues over changes that don't/are dead ends), to more arrangements and interactions (new stuff). Emergent phenomena. Because nothing can stay the same as before (energy must do work) therefore emergence of novel existants is the only way forward.

Because the first stuff is simple. A single rule or premise. Then the only thing it can do is to complexify. More variations, more interactions, more options thus more complex and sophisticated interactions/systems - dynamics and relationships.

This emergent sophistication is what we call life, agency and awareness. Humans are great at obeying the law of change. Because imagination is a great way to conceive of, do and implement stuff (exert/manifest change).

Imagination is fast, spontaneous, effective and reformulatory in nature - the human equivalent of the "creative force" at work. New thoughts, new ideas, new songs, poetry, fictions, books, films, new emergent phenomena/existants.

We are just doing what energy has always done. Create from itself: reproduction, natural selection, invention, reinvention, change, culture, evolution, "improvement" of the changeable nature of energy. ( ... ) — Benj96

:up: Excellent! Thanks for writing and sharing that. Much food for thought.

So long as we understand and obey universal laws, physics... — Benj96

You have the option of not following the laws of physics?

Thanks.

Quoted from the OP:

Assume there is no creator/purpose to the world:
Then why does this world even exist? You would assume that no God and no purpose implies no universe, nothing. No creator implies nothingness. Therefore, our world and our lives just sort of "dangle" without any rationale or justification. Life and the universe are then just some sort of anomaly. In other words, Occam's Razor dictates that without a God, nothing should exist, and yet here we are alive, in existence, discussing this very issue.. Something therefore seems wrong with this notion...

OTOH, assume life does have meaning:
Then what do our experiences mean? We all have one fleeting moment after another and then we simply die. Each moment exists for only a fraction of a second. Even a long 'chain' of moments disappears into nothingness. Therefore, under these circumstances, how do our lives have meaning, as whatever we find meaningful is fleeting and only exists for a fraction of a second? Even for yourself, look down the road at what the future holds; at some point, every single one of those moments will be gone and you will be gone as well. This is of course true for all of us. This implies that life is meaningless and seems like a scary proposition to me... — jasonm

Hello jasonm,
I would like to answer. One part of my answer will be to give different perspectives. The other will be a story from my life. I'll do both, as your OP is both theoretical and mentions your concrete fear as well. It therefore makes sense to me to acknowledge both. I hope this is in tune with your intentions for this thread.

1. Assume there is no creator/purpose to the world.
Different perspectives:
You ask why this world even exists without a creator or a purpose. The first thing that comes to mind would be that we or other conscious beings, have the potential to become gods in this world. Then we/conscious beings would fulfill your criteria for a justification for this world existing. It is still a potential, so on the road towards that end, living existences will still not be able to satisfy the criteria of giving the world purpose completely.
With regard to the purpose of the world, what I can mention is the possibility that the purpose for the world to exist, and the purpose for existences like us to exist, might not be the same.


2. OTOH, assume life does have meaning:
Similarly to the perspective above, if we open up to the possibility of there being a different purpose to our existence and to the world respectively, it would solve the issue as follows:
That part of our existence, which is connected to the Universe, might get broken down and in time be indistinguishable from any other form of matter/energy left - OTOH this might not be true for our existence. It is therefore fully possible to see our existence and the workings of the world as functioning under different premises. Life could be inherently meaningful and important.
The other perspective would be to just follow the claim you have already made. We assume that life has meaning, period. We might be able to add meaning to life, as well as subtract added meaning, but It will never reach zero. Life is meaningful, regardless of if you are personally able to add additional meaning to it or not.

Now the personal bit:
I grew up in churches, and for many years I would call myself a Christian. One aspect of it, that I realized much later, was that danger and also outer space, had this kind of safety-wool around it, which I wasn't consciously aware of.
When I got bouts of depression, and after a very hard and intense one, I struggled hard to make sense of it. I tried really hard to find a solution, reading books by Christian mystics and believing I was in a similar situation as Job (From the Old Testament - He lost everything, but got everything and more back.) but when people around me mentioned that I was becoming prodromal (meaning I might develop a psychosis) I was urged to stop reading the books as well as the Bible.

When I didn't read the Bible every day, the intensity in my desire to find a quick solution dwindled. Instead, I could feel my sadness, pain, confusion and numbness. And since it was there, real, and actually spoke to me directly, I tried to listen more.
A few years later, as I was walking out from the Student library, I became aware of the wool that had been there, as I felt it evaporate. I could sense the cold, hostile space outside our atmosphere, and I felt alone and vulnerable.

Closing words:
The way I understood your post, was neither a full deep-dive into what we feel about the meaning of life, nor an intense philosophy major into the topic, so I opted for a down scaling on both sides, mostly on the personal side. Therefore, I do not dive into my personal perspectives or evaluations, but use your premise as a springboard into the big subject "The meaning of life".

Kindly,
Caerulea-Lawrence

The first thing that comes to mind would be that we or other conscious beings, have the potential to become gods in this world. — Caerulea-Lawrence

What does this mean? How might we become gods? What is your definition of a god in such a case?

When I didn't read the Bible every day, the intensity in my desire to find a quick solution dwindled. Instead, I could feel my sadness, pain, confusion and numbness. And since it was there, real, and actually spoke to me directly, I tried to listen more.
A few years later, as I was walking out from the Student library, I became aware of the wool that had been there, as I felt it evaporate. I could sense the cold, hostile space outside our atmosphere, and I felt alone and vulnerable. — Caerulea-Lawrence

Can you clarify this? The wool evaporated? Are you saying that the wool which had been pulled over your eyes by religion was removed and you saw clearly without religion?

Seems to me you are describing an emotional state, but how useful is this to understanding reality such as it is? Seems to me that confusion and vulnerability or, conversely, feelings of wellbeing and invulnerability are usually tied to beliefs and these beliefs need not be true.

What does this mean? How might we become gods? What is your definition of a god in such a case? — Tom Storm

Can you clarify this? The wool evaporated? Are you saying that the wool which had been pulled over your eyes by religion was removed and you saw clearly without religion?

Seems to me you are describing an emotional state, but how useful is this to understanding reality such as it is? Seems to me that confusion and vulnerability or, conversely, feelings of wellbeing and invulnerability are usually tied to beliefs and these beliefs need not be true. — Tom Storm

Hello Tom,

I'll give it a bit of thought and see if I can find some good answers for you. If I can't find any good answers after giving it a bit of thought, I'll just forgo answering, in case you might be wondering.

Thank you in advance.

Caerulea-Lawrence

Assume there is no creator/purpose to the world:
Then why does this world even exist? You would assume that no God and no purpose implies no universe, nothing. No creator implies nothingness. Therefore, our world and our lives just sort of "dangle" without any rationale or justification. Life and the universe are then just some sort of anomaly. In other words, Occam's Razor dictates that without a God, nothing should exist, and yet here we are alive, in existence, discussing this very issue.. Something therefore seems wrong with this notion... — jasonm

It's equally rational to Occam's Razor that with the complexity of how reality functions, the probability of complex life is obvious on a large enough timescale. I see nothing wrong with our reality coming into existence as the result of infinite possibilities leading to such a result. Why would Occam's Razor dictate a God? Isn't that just the result of a narrow minded demand on the self to rationalize something because all the questions haven't been answered yet?

Like, throughout the history of science, every single time something weren't able to be explained, people turned to "because God" and yet, every single time the unexplainable were explained through new discoveries and scientific tests, they all went into the public notion of truth about reality. At this point in time we have some answers and some we have not, but the public still position the unexplained as "it must be God".

You only feel that this feels wrong because A) You don't have enough knowledge in science/physics to grasp the scientific concepts about reality or B) You feel an existential dread and you jump to the conclusion of "God" as a self defense mechanism.

It is quite possible to accept that reality is so much more complex, weird and incomprehensible than we know, without having to fall back on concepts that emotionally makes sense to us. We can accept that it is all that complexity and still understand our small existence within it as being what it is, nothing more or less.

OTOH, assume life does have meaning:
Then what do our experiences mean? We all have one fleeting moment after another and then we simply die. Each moment exists for only a fraction of a second. Even a long 'chain' of moments disappears into nothingness. Therefore, under these circumstances, how do our lives have meaning, as whatever we find meaningful is fleeting and only exists for a fraction of a second? Even for yourself, look down the road at what the future holds; at some point, every single one of those moments will be gone and you will be gone as well. This is of course true for all of us. This implies that life is meaningless and seems like a scary proposition to me... — jasonm

So, yes, it is meaningless, but it is only scary if you position yourself in a narcissistic position of being the "centre of the universe". I see the awakening from this state as a form of Copernican self-realization. The world didn't "lose meaning", in a societal sense, just because the earth was discovered to not be the center of the universe. The same goes for people realizing their existence isn't the center of the universe. Like with Copernicus and Galileo, it was the believers of the church that had an existential crisis through this fact and wouldn't accept it, but people with a scientific mind had less trouble adjusting their concept of reality after it.

So, why does it matter that you have this short time of existence and then you are gone and forgotten? What is the legacy that you are desperate to hold on to? Sure, people want other people to remember them after they die, most people would surely like to be remembered for a long time, but then what?

Isn't your experience in life what you apply meaning to? Your experience, emotions etc.? You will not be able to experience anything after you die, so you wouldn't have any reason to be depressed by a loss of meaning.

Basically, you can only experience meaning when being alive, so the idea of life being meaningless because you die seems like you only try to apply meaning as an afterthought to your own subjective experience. Disregarding all the people who will absolutely remember you after you die, who will think about you and be happy that you gave them meaning in their own lives, you can only think about meaning while you are alive, therefor your life has meaning to you and when you die that meaning doesn't matter anymore because you are dead.

That life as a whole, and against the very existence of the universe, has no meaning, doesn't mean it has no meaning for you. It only means there's no "plan", we simply just "are" because of the universe and that the meaning comes from the subjective experience that ends at death. A plant will experience its meaning while growing and existing, and then when it withers, it will not experience meaning anymore.

Meaning can be an emerging attribute of our experience in life, but if we focus on trying to find some overarching meaning, we will just waste time experiencing any current meaning as a subjective being capable of experiencing it far more than any plant. The hunt for meaning after we die or about us in the context of history has more to do with our ego than actual meaning.

Is my ego larger than the universe? Then I will fight the wind mills and die on a battlefield of disappointment. Or will I meditate on my short blimp of existence against the vastness of time and space, find meaning in my short time alive and die knowing I at least had a life capable of experiencing all this wonder?

The first thing that comes to mind would be that we or other conscious beings, have the potential to become gods in this world. — Caerulea-Lawrence


What does this mean? How might we become gods? What is your definition of a god in such a case? — Tom Storm

Hi again Tom,

this is not an argument for gods, but simply a hypothetical idea with regard to the first OP's two assumptions.

When I didn't read the Bible every day, the intensity in my desire to find a quick solution dwindled. Instead, I could feel my sadness, pain, confusion and numbness. And since it was there, real, and actually spoke to me directly, I tried to listen more.
A few years later, as I was walking out from the Student library, I became aware of the wool that had been there, as I felt it evaporate. I could sense the cold, hostile space outside our atmosphere, and I felt alone and vulnerable. — Caerulea-Lawrence


Can you clarify this? The wool evaporated? Are you saying that the wool which had been pulled over your eyes by religion was removed and you saw clearly without religion?

Seems to me you are describing an emotional state, but how useful is this to understanding reality such as it is? Seems to me that confusion and vulnerability or, conversely, feelings of wellbeing and invulnerability are usually tied to beliefs and these beliefs need not be true. — Tom Storm

Yes, it is the latter, an emotional state.

From my post earlier:

I'll do both, as your OP is both theoretical and mentions your concrete fear as well. It therefore makes sense to me to acknowledge both. I hope this is in tune with your intentions for this thread. — Caerulea-Lawrence

This was the reason for writing this. If you want to look at the personal/emotional part of my answer, it would only make sense to me if you are a bit personal/emotional as well, as I believe that is in tune with the intentions of the thread.

Kindly,
Caerulea-Lawrence

If you want to look at the personal/emotional part of my answer, it would only make sense to me if you are a bit personal/emotional as well, as I believe that is in tune with the intentions of the thread. — Caerulea-Lawrence

Thanks for clarifying. I don't think you've answered my questions, but I shan't press the point. In relation to the above - as I said -

Seems to me you are describing an emotional state, but how useful is this to understanding reality such as it is? Seems to me that confusion and vulnerability or, conversely, feelings of wellbeing and invulnerability are usually tied to beliefs and these beliefs need not be true. — Tom Storm

Two thoughts:

Perhaps 'the purpose of existence' is for existents to recognize that existence itself cannot provide existents with "purpose" thereby engendering in existents a "metaphysical need" that also cannot be satisfied (i.e. "a useless passion") and yet persists as a meta-"metaphysical need" to deny – via idealism (e.g. fideism) or nihilism – the "metaphysical need" itself. :eyes:

Besides, "purpose" is a map and the only map which can describe, or apply to, the whole is, of course, the whole itself; thus, the "purpose of existence" is existence itself, and the "meaning of life" is life itself.

:sweat: