Hello,

Welcome again!

We can only invent a meaning, meaningful to ourselves as human beings and because of our individuality we can't invent an objective meaning, only individual ones. We might be able to conclude a meaning, value or purpose that might be true for as many people in as many different cultures and situations as possible, but we could never find anything truly universally objective. — Christoffer

Personally, I see a false dichotomy being drawn here. There's also a subsidiary no true Scotsman fallacy being drawn here. Let me explain:

1. Meaning can only be true if it is objective.
2. We don't know what is objective due to our subjectivity.
3. Hence, life is meaningless until we create meaning for ourselves.

Does that sound like your argument or is it just a clumsy strawman on my part?

Forgive me if I assume too much; but, I get the feeling in the sense that you're trying to express the inescapability of your condition, hence you feel despairing. Fighting with depression is like pulling on a Chinese finger trap. There's no point in fighting with it head-on/directly. There are better ways to deal with it indirectly. Instead of focusing on it too intently, shift your thoughts to things that give you comfort and happiness. Such, as feeling appreciative for the things you have. Don't compare yourself to others in that they are happier or without (seemingly) any problems that you have. Everyone has some problems they deal with and there's really nothing good that result from unfair comparisons, such as envy/jealousy/and such.

Objective meaning can only exist if you can prove it to exist. — Christoffer

Nice post. Just sad that you had to start it with a statement equal in merit to one that begs the question. What do you think?

Hear hear. Great post. I just wonder about whether anything can be said about ethics objectively if that is the case. What about the golden rule?

But, what if you take the concept and apply it to existential questions regarding having meaning in one's life?

For anyone who's interested as to why the view is wrong, it's because it predicts a de dicto reading of "Nixon might not have been named Nixon" that is contradictory. — Snakes Alive

I was under the impression that de dicto is all that can be said. De re there is nothing that can be said. Is that correct?

One also has to deal with the thorny question of how to characterize name-bearing in a non-circular manner if one seriously adopts such an analysis – think about it seriously for five minutes, and it will dawn how utterly bizarre things become. — Snakes Alive

Through essentialism? Oh, wait I thought Kripke was against that...

USA has over 10 million illegal immigrants, which costs the country in the order of $100billion, though Trump may be right and the figure could be $250billion annually. — Inis

Please provide a source for this claim.

Why would meaning or purpose be of divine status when it objectively doesn't exist? — Christoffer

Isn't that a paradox? Meaning that if one can objectively state that life has no meaning, then that objective statement in itself provides grounds to establish some meaning. This is the issue in a nutshell. To provide meaning to a life that objectively has no meaning. Hence, should we treat meaning as something of greater importance than tastes and preferences?

Thanks, everyone for the responses. I have nothing to disagree with in particular with any of the posts except, one issue.

Namely, as mentioned in the OP, if we reduce matters of what gives one meaning in life or purpose to a matter of taste or personal whim, then haven't we idiotized the issue of what gives one meaning in life to a simple matter of what I like best or dislike most?

Yeah, you have to also remember his joke on his supporters about shooting someone in broad daylight and them still glorifying and praising him even after the fact.

It really goes to show what a likeable and caring person he is.

It's not that there is no meaning. Even an antinatalist or nihilist proclaims meaning found where there is none. The problem is that (at least in the West) meaning had been subjugated into a concept of utility or economic satisfaction like preference or tastes. Thus, rendering any discussions about said preferences or tastes as moot, and unwelcome.

Silly puns aside, like there is none or that that's only for you to decide... despite their repetition, are pretty sound advice for anyone starting out on the road of individualization. I also believe that if we all recognized the Golden rule as some goal to strive towards, we would be much better off as a species and collectively speaking.

All the vile shit is surfacing and now needs to be flushed down the drain. I'm actually glad we have Trump as president so this cult of fear and paranoia can finally be adequately addressed by the appropriate governing entities like the FBI and a slumbering and rudderless intelligentcia of the nation.

I hope this festering sore cult group of Trump supporters get a much needed reality check.

Oh, yeah, and the racism needs to be evacuated also.

@Banno and @unenlightened what are your thoughts?

Also epigenetics...

Perhaps an interesting excursion from this line of thought is the thought experiment called "Swampman". Anyone know something about it?

What's at the end of this tunnel thing??? Damn it's bright in here, why didn't I bring my sunglasses? — Jake

An oncoming train.

Sounds good to me. I won't comment much henceforth and there really isn't much to comment on either way for the better. I wish we could group work on a PDF with comments on the side of highlighted text to be more precise as this text contains a lot of content despite its brevity.

Drink the Kool Aid peasants!

Yes, I agree.

I understand enough to comment that I thought about whether the Sim hypothesis is falsifiable or can be verified. It can't in either case rendering it metaphysical.

Thanks for the sobering responses everyone.

I actually wanted to just post "meaning is use" in that thread but it would have come off as shitposting.

Difficult to comment on such a phenomenon. Even though our cells are replaced regularly it doesn't necessarily mean that it is in some different configuration, yielding differing memories, values, or genetic blueprint. I think that memories are perhaps our only feature that persists over time to some extent. To what extent is a mystery.

I just had one of those uncomfortable moments of salience, where I realized that there are some things I will never understand. Like this paper.

Ah, a complaint clinic. You're in the right place. Please take a seat and wait until your complaint will be addressed. Which will happen never.

Indulge in it.

Let's see. :nerd:

So, maybe LENR is a feature of an unknown physics due to our inability to comprehend it on existing science. Does that sound as an explanation why Rossi or whoever isn't dead?

According to the website, in December 2020, the cheap power becomes available for purchase. I'll go ahead and prepay for mine by sending my money to the world headquarters in Estonia. — Hanover

Which website?

If you're really interested, here is a topic I started in regards to this issue some time back. It has grown significantly on Lenr-Forums. Have a look at tell me what you think:

https://www.lenr-forum.com/forum/thread/5728-how-do-you-convince-a-skeptic/

N&N is not much help in resolving this as Kripke fails to address accessibility relations, which determine what the ensemble of possible worlds under consideration is. — andrewk

Kripke doesn't provide any grounds for counterfactual definitiveness; but, nowadays it's assumed that the same laws of physics and of nature are the grounds where accessibility relations are maintained. AFAIK, theories like the many world hypothesis don't even maintain counterfactual definitiveness, so good luck with accessibility relations wrt. to that theory.

I talked about this issue in the de re and de dicto distinction. Have we arrived at this point yet?

Here's a brief sketch of the book referenced in the OP:

https://anotherangrywoman.com/2011/09/22/rwa/

If you could provide me with the full text, I would appreciate that. All I gathered is that empty names have semantic value dependent on the social and cultural or historical context of said empty name. Yeah, but so does any name for the matter also share this characteristic although to a much lesser degree than an empty name.

When is this starting?

Interesting. Steam has it and it has some phenomenal reviews. Might give it a try.

@andrewk

How do you think Kripke's would respond to the issue of "empty names"?

There are no empty names. It is itself the name of a empty category. An empty container called "empty names".

Other than that, the question doesn't make sense to me.

The notion is the result of grossly misunderstanding how the attribution of meaning works. — creativesoul

Hmm, I'm not so sure about that...