More on the Meaning of Life
What do We Mean By The Meaning of Life?
My last submission to the Forum, The Meaning of Life generated a number of comments. That was what I was hoping for. For this essay, I will get a little deeper into the question.
A popular description of the meaning of life is shown by the movie by Monty Python. It is one of my favorite movies. Maybe we should just leave it with Monty Python and go on about our lives, but you know how people are.
The meaning of life can be looked at from several different levels. On the one end there is the selfish view of how it is useful to us. Am I happy, am I successful, do I have a lot of friends, etc.? On the other end it is tied with purpose and causality. Not just my life but what about life in general or human life. Is there a reason why I am, or anyone is.
We pretty soon get into the oldest conundrum in philosophy that the universe exists. There is no reason for existence. In part this is why man has come up with the need for a God. God is the reason I exist. Who knows. Maybe that is correct and all there is. We can just relax and do what God wants us to do. The only problem here is that it is not entirely clear what God wants. Each of the religions on the earth have a slightly different perspective on what God wants. Another problem is that man is a reasoning animal, and this simple belief does not allow for our reasoning.
So, we are back to square one. I guess we just have to accept that existence is. As Descartes said, I think therefore I am. As I mentioned before, my background is in mathematics. In mathematics we come up with a set of axioms, that is, statements that are self-evident and cannot be proven. Most peoples experience with this is studying geometry and learning the axioms that Euclid came up with. With numerical questions there are things like Peanos(1) axioms(2) . Nearly all of mathematics can be derived from his axioms. It would be nice if in philosophy we had a set of axioms, but I am afraid there is not general agreement on this.
Lets see if we can come up with some general statements that most people would agree to.
1. The universe et.al exists.
2. Life is part of that universe.
3. Man is part of that universe.
4. Man is a sentient life form.
5. As other forms of life, man has certain characteristics.
6. One of mans characteristics is that he is a reasoning life form.
7. Another of mans characteristics is that he is a social animal and interacting with other people is a necessary part of his existence.
8.
Can we get anything out of these statements? A necessary part of a fundamental set of statements is that they are complete and consistent. That is, can we generate all that we want from them and are none of them contradictory. These are probably not but lets work with them for a while.
So now back to our discussion of the higher meaning of life. Is there some reason for the existence of mankind? Is there a reason for my existence?
On the first question I dont think we can do much better than Aristotles statement of God being the first cause. Mankind exists and he is the result of evolution over millions of years in the kingdom of life. As to the second question, I think you were created because of all mankind. You are the result of the process of life. If a frog could think it would propose that the meaning of its existence was propagation of the species. Maybe individual humans are there only to ensure the propagation of the species homo sapiens. If we are just a part of the evolutionary milieu then that is all there is.
That is a dismal thought. Arent we more special than that? Looking at the statements above, is number 4, Man is a sentient life form, sufficient to make man special. If it does then that suggest there is more to us. Why would evolution produce a thinking being if there was no purpose in it other than continuation of the species? Could we not have been as successful in the world as a very clever ape? Does our ability to reason contribute to our ability to adapt and thrive on the world in a critical way? That is an open question that I dont think has been answered yet.
If we are an exception to the evolutionary path of life, why should we be? It does suggest that there is a higher purpose to our existence, but what could it be. It does suggest that there is some force in the universe that is, in very subtle ways, directing the evolution of life. I dont want to call it intelligent design as that leads to all sorts of other philosophic problems, but what is happening here.
Maybe this is just hubris on our part. Maybe we are just a spec in the evolutionary process of the universe, but a lot of brilliant people have thought about this for the last few thousand years and have not come up with a better theory than some higher being creating all this. This higher force does not have to be a God. It could be some yet undiscovered physical effect that permeates the entire universe.
Maybe it is not obvious but there is another problem here, is the universe infinite in size and time. I have spent some time thinking about infinity and after reading John D. Barrows book, The Infinite Book(3) , I can see there are a number of new problems that come up. One cant be flippant about saying the universe is infinite. If the universe is infinite, then probably the universe is God.
We are getting ourselves all bogged down here. There are too many big questions that we cannot answer. Maybe it is, as several people have suggested, nothing that we can answer so just accept it and go about your life.
On the personal side of the meaning of life, I suspect these questions are a matter for psychologists to talk about. These are matters that you feel about and help you live your very human life. They are not existential questions to be discussed in philosophy.
I know I have not finished talking about all the questions involved but I will offer this bit of thought on the questions. I would welcome all of your ideas. Maybe the one person with the answer is out there. We will see.
-----
(1) Giuseppe Peano 27 August 1858 20 April 1932) an Italian mathematician
(2)1. 0 is a natural number.
2. For every natural number x, x = x. That is, equality is reflexive.
3. For all natural numbers x and y, if x = y, then y = x. That is, equality is symmetric.
4. For all natural numbers x, y and z, if x = y and y = z, then x = z. That is, equality is transitive.
5. For all a and b, if b is a natural number and a = b, then a is also a natural number. That is, the natural numbers are closed under equality.
6. For every natural number n, S(n) is a natural number. That is, the natural numbers are closed under S.
7. For all natural numbers m and n, if S(m) = S(n), then m = n. That is, S is an injection.
8. For every natural number n, S(n) = 0 is false. That is, there is no natural number whose successor is 0.
(3) John D. Barrow, The Infinite Book, Pantheon Books, New York, 2005
My last submission to the Forum, The Meaning of Life generated a number of comments. That was what I was hoping for. For this essay, I will get a little deeper into the question.
A popular description of the meaning of life is shown by the movie by Monty Python. It is one of my favorite movies. Maybe we should just leave it with Monty Python and go on about our lives, but you know how people are.
The meaning of life can be looked at from several different levels. On the one end there is the selfish view of how it is useful to us. Am I happy, am I successful, do I have a lot of friends, etc.? On the other end it is tied with purpose and causality. Not just my life but what about life in general or human life. Is there a reason why I am, or anyone is.
We pretty soon get into the oldest conundrum in philosophy that the universe exists. There is no reason for existence. In part this is why man has come up with the need for a God. God is the reason I exist. Who knows. Maybe that is correct and all there is. We can just relax and do what God wants us to do. The only problem here is that it is not entirely clear what God wants. Each of the religions on the earth have a slightly different perspective on what God wants. Another problem is that man is a reasoning animal, and this simple belief does not allow for our reasoning.
So, we are back to square one. I guess we just have to accept that existence is. As Descartes said, I think therefore I am. As I mentioned before, my background is in mathematics. In mathematics we come up with a set of axioms, that is, statements that are self-evident and cannot be proven. Most peoples experience with this is studying geometry and learning the axioms that Euclid came up with. With numerical questions there are things like Peanos(1) axioms(2) . Nearly all of mathematics can be derived from his axioms. It would be nice if in philosophy we had a set of axioms, but I am afraid there is not general agreement on this.
Lets see if we can come up with some general statements that most people would agree to.
1. The universe et.al exists.
2. Life is part of that universe.
3. Man is part of that universe.
4. Man is a sentient life form.
5. As other forms of life, man has certain characteristics.
6. One of mans characteristics is that he is a reasoning life form.
7. Another of mans characteristics is that he is a social animal and interacting with other people is a necessary part of his existence.
8.
Can we get anything out of these statements? A necessary part of a fundamental set of statements is that they are complete and consistent. That is, can we generate all that we want from them and are none of them contradictory. These are probably not but lets work with them for a while.
So now back to our discussion of the higher meaning of life. Is there some reason for the existence of mankind? Is there a reason for my existence?
On the first question I dont think we can do much better than Aristotles statement of God being the first cause. Mankind exists and he is the result of evolution over millions of years in the kingdom of life. As to the second question, I think you were created because of all mankind. You are the result of the process of life. If a frog could think it would propose that the meaning of its existence was propagation of the species. Maybe individual humans are there only to ensure the propagation of the species homo sapiens. If we are just a part of the evolutionary milieu then that is all there is.
That is a dismal thought. Arent we more special than that? Looking at the statements above, is number 4, Man is a sentient life form, sufficient to make man special. If it does then that suggest there is more to us. Why would evolution produce a thinking being if there was no purpose in it other than continuation of the species? Could we not have been as successful in the world as a very clever ape? Does our ability to reason contribute to our ability to adapt and thrive on the world in a critical way? That is an open question that I dont think has been answered yet.
If we are an exception to the evolutionary path of life, why should we be? It does suggest that there is a higher purpose to our existence, but what could it be. It does suggest that there is some force in the universe that is, in very subtle ways, directing the evolution of life. I dont want to call it intelligent design as that leads to all sorts of other philosophic problems, but what is happening here.
Maybe this is just hubris on our part. Maybe we are just a spec in the evolutionary process of the universe, but a lot of brilliant people have thought about this for the last few thousand years and have not come up with a better theory than some higher being creating all this. This higher force does not have to be a God. It could be some yet undiscovered physical effect that permeates the entire universe.
Maybe it is not obvious but there is another problem here, is the universe infinite in size and time. I have spent some time thinking about infinity and after reading John D. Barrows book, The Infinite Book(3) , I can see there are a number of new problems that come up. One cant be flippant about saying the universe is infinite. If the universe is infinite, then probably the universe is God.
We are getting ourselves all bogged down here. There are too many big questions that we cannot answer. Maybe it is, as several people have suggested, nothing that we can answer so just accept it and go about your life.
On the personal side of the meaning of life, I suspect these questions are a matter for psychologists to talk about. These are matters that you feel about and help you live your very human life. They are not existential questions to be discussed in philosophy.
I know I have not finished talking about all the questions involved but I will offer this bit of thought on the questions. I would welcome all of your ideas. Maybe the one person with the answer is out there. We will see.
-----
(1) Giuseppe Peano 27 August 1858 20 April 1932) an Italian mathematician
(2)1. 0 is a natural number.
2. For every natural number x, x = x. That is, equality is reflexive.
3. For all natural numbers x and y, if x = y, then y = x. That is, equality is symmetric.
4. For all natural numbers x, y and z, if x = y and y = z, then x = z. That is, equality is transitive.
5. For all a and b, if b is a natural number and a = b, then a is also a natural number. That is, the natural numbers are closed under equality.
6. For every natural number n, S(n) is a natural number. That is, the natural numbers are closed under S.
7. For all natural numbers m and n, if S(m) = S(n), then m = n. That is, S is an injection.
8. For every natural number n, S(n) = 0 is false. That is, there is no natural number whose successor is 0.
(3) John D. Barrow, The Infinite Book, Pantheon Books, New York, 2005
Comments (88)
I for one love a set of well-defined and descriptive criterion one can agree or unpack numerically!
1.) What is the universe? The thing we see when we go outside at night and look up, invoking the vastness of the stars and other planetary heavenly bodies, or that which is inside ourselves that lets us acknowledge the former?
2.) What is life? Being able to breath, and have said breaths and various Co2/oxygen levels recorded by scientific instrument?
3.) What is man? Why is a monkey not the true man, perhaps we performed some sort of sorcery on the original human and turned him into monkey while doing the same to change our own appearance?
Furthermore, if "that universe" is simply that which is all encompassing by the senses it quickly loses it's literal physical definition and becomes all that simply is or can ever be, here or not..
4.) Assuming you and I, and those traditionally regarded as human are "man", sentient of what? Perhaps we are sentient to that which really matters not and other beings, that we call ghosts are the true sentient beings, only visiting us ever so seldom and by accident.
5.) If you are a man who posted this particular stipulation, redundancy and purposelessness is in fact one of your certain characteristics. Though that only would apply to you.
6.) Reasonability is subjective. It is reasonable for a drunk mentally ill homeless man to jump in front of a train, or attempt to connect a banana to a wall socket. Perhaps you mean, relatively, long term provable, productive reasoning that creates efficiency in what is required? Required by whom?
7.) I've left my baby alone for a few minutes without it randomly bursting into flames so no, social interaction is not "Required" for existence.
8.) You can squeeze blood out of a penny, apparently. Though I haven't had any luck.
--
Ooh, what a delightful thread! Do continue, OP. :yum:
I think these kinds of questions have really only been meaningful since maybe the mid-19th century. It would not have occured to anyone, or hardly anyone, that this was a question before that time. Subjects understood themselves in a social role, demarcated by their social class and their religion. Those background factors were assumed by everyone to be true - not only in the Christian West, but in other cultures also. The meaning of life was understood in those terms, and it was simply given, there was hardly the conceptual space to contemplate it. Of course, that may not be true of some exceptional individuals - Giordano Bruno comes to mind, but then his questioning of the accepted 'meta-narrative' so upset the establishment that he was burned at the stake. But to nearly anyone, if you were to ask them 'what is the meaning of life?', I think they would find it very hard to understand and respond, as their meaning was simply a given. They would not know what you were on about.
I think that with the dissolution of the geocentric cosmology and the advent of the scientific revolution there was a corresponding epochal shift in consciousness. The idea that human life might be the consequence of causes that could be understood through science was shockingly novel. As also was the discovery of the real vastness of the Universe and the age of the Earth. It thrust human culture into a completely different context - cf Pascal's 'the appalling vastness of space'. The idea that life could have arisen by chance alone, that there was no afterlife or any inherent reason for existence - these realisations were shattering. That is what gave rise to a great deal of art, literature and philosophy in the 20th Century - importantly, existentialism, from which the sense of 'existential crisis' arose.
I mention this to provide what I consider important historical context. Of course there is plenty more to say, but I'm sure there will be plenty of others to say it. :wink:
It is not necessary to know the meaning of life. Because our knowledge is finite it may not even be possible to know the "ultimate" meaning of life. There may not even be an "ultimate" meaning of life.
There may also be many different meanings of life. The answer to the question is subjective and different people may each have an answer which is different.
This reminds me of MacIntyre's premise in "After Virtue." He makes a parallel to the sci-fi novel "A Canticle for Leibowitz," where, after the apocalypse, mankind has recovered the language of science, but not the content. Students learn the periodic table, but have no real conception of atomic theory. People make appeals to neutrinos, but have only the faintest ideas about how they fit into a larger theory of physics, and absolutely no idea how the idea was originally empirically grounded.
MacIntyre's point is that this is essentially how we use moral language today. Moral language was developed in a framework where it was essentially universally agreed that man had a purpose: the cultivation of virtue, the contemplation of the Good (God), both fulfilled in the concepts of theosis/diefication.
The old Greek proverb: "count no man happy until he has died," is incoherent in the modern context. Happiness and the good life are disconnected from the original idea of "the Good Life." That is, the term "Good Life," as employed by Saint Augustine wasn't about "being happy and finding meaning," but rather about living the (morally) good life. Meaning and purpose are assumed in "the Good." I mean, it's even hard to make the distinction with our current lexicon.
I don't know if MacIntyre's thesis holds up all the way, because I haven't finished the book, but it seems highly plausible in at least some respects (namely the thesis that emotivism/relativism only make sense in our historical context and aren't universal). I don't think Augustine or Aristotle would understand emotivism. "Well of course people disagree about what is good, that's a direct consequence of their lacking virtue," I would imagine would be the response.
And overall, I think the ancients and medievals had decent reasons for thinking that cultivating virtue and conquering vice went along with meaning, in part because being free to do what ones thinks is truly good seems to be a prerequisite for a meaningful life, even if it can't define it by itself.
It's soundly reasonable to conclude that there is no "reason for the existence of mankind" but mankind's reasons.
Likewise, it's also soundly reasonable to conclude that there is no reason for "your existence" but your reasons.
All of the extant evidence, contrary to the anxieties of our fragile self-esteem, strongly suggests we are merely different from other natural beings, not "more special" than any them.
Your question is premised on an pathetic fallacy, George. "Evolution" is a blind process biologically perpetuated by the "continuation of the species".
H. sapiens were merely that for about 1.8 million years and they're still apes, just a bit more clever for the last two hundred millenia.
If the "ability to reason" were indispensible to the "ability to adapt and thrive", then living things could not have ever evolved. We our species would not exist. I assume by "in a critical way" you are referring to culture: no doubt cultural developments human competence at reasoning are accumulated artifacts of (varied degrees of) human aptitude for reasoning, which emerged only very recently in human evolution, and possibly as a mere exaptation or spandrel.
I'd really appreciate some compelling evidence supporting the proposition that h. sapiens are an "exception" or any more improbable on "the evolutionary path of life" than any other multicellular species. We're not, and that's a brute fact.
addendum to ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/861707
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/864393
Caleb Scharf writes a lot of information theoretic interpretations of evolution (and just about everything else really.) One neat idea he has is that of "core algorithms," or "corgs," which he likens to chords in music in that you can make the same chords many different ways. "Heavier than air flight," would be an example. The idea is that there are certain features that can evolve that are very handy, features like flippers, wings, sight, echolocation, etc.
This is a framework for understanding convergent evolution. You can think of evolution as a terraced deep scan of a shifting solution space, and there are peaks around these corgs such that it becomes likely that they will be actualized by some species over enough iterations.
You see many corgs being realized through extremely diverse lineages. Different types of flight get reproduced in different lineages, e.g. the humming bird, unlike other aves, has mastered insects' ability to fly without traveling forwards. Human beings have hit on heavier than air flight with both fixed and rotary wing aircraft, echolocation, sonar, etc., all in a short time. That alone in unique.
Obviously, being vastly more intelligent than other animals has (at least temporarily) been a tremendous reproductive advantage. Humans are clearly special in the sense that culture and technology have allowed us to plow through corgs at a very fast rate. Language, while not totally sui generis, is also fairly unique and enabled this.
And I think it does bring up some decent questions. First, why wasn't this solution hit on earlier? It is very effective.
Second, it doesn't seem completely improbable that man, or some sort of self-modified post-human or synthetic lifeform born of man might make it off this rock. But if that's possible, someone else should have done it first, so where are the ETs? Surely someone else can at least figure out how to use radio broadcasting. That is, the Fermi Paradox would suggest we are sort of special.
We
My Indian Philosophy lecturer, Arvind Sharma, noted that when people die in the West, they say he's given up the ghost, while in India, they say he's given up the body.
Agree with your reading of McIntyre, although must confess After Virtue is on my 'must get around to finishing this' list. Interesting that he converted to Catholicism from having been a convinced Marxist. He believes A-T (Aristotelian Thomism) is the only coherent philosophical system in Western culture. I can see why he says that. The point about pre-modern philosophy and religion generally is that it is set against the background of belief in life eternal (or release from Sa?s?ra), compared to which the joys and tribulations of worldly life are fleeting and transient. Naturalism is, of course, inimical to such concerns. According to it, we're simply another species (in fact for some on the extreme end of the green left, we ourselves are merely a pestilence.)
I'd think a lot of the right factors had to come together. Off the top of my head:
1. Warm blooded for faster and more stable brain performance.
2. A highly social species that could greatly capitalize on language and culture.
3. Bipedal locomotion that freed up forelimbs for carrying things.
4. Hands suitable for tool use.
Those four factors alone would weed out a large majority of all animal species that have ever lived on Earth.
:up: :100:
Thats because theyre generally in line with the naturalized epistemology attitude. Fine as far as it goes but the Buddha is designated lokuttara meaning world-transcending which I dont think can be limited to that framework. But then Metzinger, Stephen Bachelor et al perform a valuable service presenting Buddhist principles to the secular audience. All as part of a bigger picture.
{See https://inquiringmind.com/article/3102_20_bodhi-facing-the-great-divide/ for a modern traditionalist analysis)
Yes, The Problem of the Soul is good.
Quoting Wayfarer
It looks to me like the article got the following part right:
Picked especially for you. :grin:
And here I thought you where trying to be nice :rofl:
How could it be "soundly reasonable" that the reason for your existence is your reasons? The intent for a thing is prior in time to the existence of the thing, and in general the cause of a thing is prior in time to the existence of that thing. Therefore the reason for the existence of a thing, as the cause of existence of the thing, is prior in time to the existence of the thing. One's own reasons are an attribute of the individual, therefore dependent on the individual and not prior in time to the individual. It is impossible that your reasons are the reasons for your existence.
Now the supposedly "soundly reasonable" proposition is even more soundly refuted. And the preceding proposition which is also supposedly "soundly reasonable" suffers the same problem.
I don't know about "soundly" but, if we have an external "reason" then it may have been "programed" into us and take the form of our own "reasons".
That's a good point, but you need to be careful with semantics. If the reasons are external, and preprogrammed, it would be incorrect to call them "one's own" reasons. I think that the "reasons" in the form in which they are attributed to the individual, would be distinctly different from the "reasons" which were prior to the individual, so we could not say that these are "the same reasons" in a different form. They would be distinctly different reasons. And if they are by any means "the same reasons", then we cannot attribute them to the individual.
Subjectively they would be your own. From the viewpoint of fellow humans, they would be your own.
Quoting 180 Proof
I don't see that. Can you explain?
We could all be puppets playing out a role given to us. But while we live in a world of puppets, we all remain real to each other, and so do our motivations, our "reason".
Not sure it that is less confusing, or more.
It seems to me that in many ancient and medieval ethical systems it would be both. There is on the one hand man's telos, which is internal to man (plural), but determined prior to any individual man. On the other hand, there is free man's own reasons for doing what he does, being who he is etc. The whole reason ethics is difficult is that these two [I]can[/i] vary from one another in practice. Man can fail to fulfill his telos and fail to flourish, through his own [I]choices.[/I]
The ideal situation is where man's free choice synchs up to mankind's telos. But there is a wrinkle here in that these thinkers were generally not free will libertarians. However, neither were they modern fatalists. Rather, they embrace a certain sort of "classical fatalism." "Character is destiny," Heraclitus says. They embrace the concepts of "fate" and "divine providence," and elucidate the ways in which man is a slave to circumstance, desire, and instinct, and yet allow that man, both individually and as a society, can manage to become more or less free / self-determining. Part of fulfilling man's telos is precisely becoming more self-determining and more "one's self," rather than being a mere effect of external causes. (Modern existentialism recapitulates part of this, while missing crucial elements)
This is why an overflowing love is important in Plato and the Patristics. To hate something to be controlled by it. To be indifferent to something is still to be defined by what one is not. Only love, the identification of the self in the other, allows one to avoid being determined by what is external to personal identity. This translates into a "love of fate," that must accompany the entity that will not be mere effect.
Plato's early-mid works are instructive here. The Phaedo and Republic goes into how man becomes more self-determining by overcoming desire, instinct, and circumstance, a view we also see particularly well elucidated by Saint Paul in Romans 7. For both Paul and Plato, Logos plays an essential role in the resurrection of the "slave to sin," to true personhood. However, in Plato there is also more of a recognition of the ways in which we enable each other's freedom, and in how society can enhance or fail to enhance to fulfillment of man's telos (the Apology and Crito get at this social dimension).
I think the social view moves towards a climax in Eusebius, who has a proto-Hegelian view of how history can act as an engine spurring man on towards the greater fulfillment of human purpose at the world-historical scale. With the medievals, you also start to see the acknowledgement that, while human telos has certain unchanging elements, it is also shaped by the social-historical conditions man finds himself in.
So individual man's reasons are not identical with the the global telos of man. This is precisely because man is not free, and being enslaved to desire, ignorance, and circumstance , man lacks the knowledge and means of fulfilling his purpose. Even modern existentialists seem to recognize the need for some level of self-determination to make life meaningful, although they deny the global telos.
The shift to emotivism is important here. For the existenialist, moral freedom can't be the crowing achievement of man because moral freedom is simply reducible to desire. Due to their focus on the individual, they often lack the same focus on social freedom as well, but not always. Without these, the idea of a telos for mankind does indeed become incoherent and reduce to a single "internal" purpose defined only by the the individual.
Interesting, but not totally surprising. There is this whole huge area of Catholic philosophy that sits sort of free floating from the rest of academic philosophy. It tends to be far more focused on ancient/ medieval philosophy, but unlike secular academic philosophy re ancient/medieval philosophy, it is also intent on updating these for modern times.
This camp does produce a lot of good philosophy. E.g., Nathan Lyons "Signs in the Dust," is the best theory of pansemiosis I've found, and is far more grounded in the natural sciences and much less "heavily continental," than anything else I've seen attempt this sort of thing. Sokolowski's "Phenomenology of the Human Person," a blend of Aristotle and Husserl, that also takes the natural sciences and modern linguistics seriously is another example. It's one of the better articulations of a "(more) direct realism."
Unfortunately, the conversation between these camps seems to mostly go one way ("After Virtue" being an exception), without much back and forth.
People have different ideas on what life is, and how they want to live their life. But then, there are parts of life which all humans share.
They get born with no choice of their own. They live, and get old. Some die young, and some die old, but eventually and ultimately they all die. This is the common form of life all humans share.
Can life be reflected without reflecting death? Unlikely.
In that case, "one's own reasons" would not actually be one's own reasons, but simply the reasons of the puppet master, as in my explanation.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I agree, and I think that this is why the concept of "free will" was developed, as you describe, to fulfill the need produced by that gap between the prior telos and the individual's telos. The concept of free will allows that the individual's telos is in some way free from the prior telos.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
This might appear to be the "ideal", but it would require having some access to, or some principles relating to, that prior telos, what you call "mankind's telos". But we have no access to that telos, so it's just a pie in the sky "what God wants". Then there is no way of knowing what constitutes "synching up", and individual human beings (following their own telos) will try to make their own determinations as to what constitutes the prior telos, making affirmations about whether or not a particular telos is in synch with the prior, based on nothing real.
Because the supposed "ideal" is left impotent in this way, it cannot be the true ideal. It's a fiction which cannot be obtained, and furthermore, we have no way of even knowing if we are coming close, or even headed in the right direction. Therefore this proposition cannot be accepted as a true representation of "the ideal".
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Based on what I said above, I would not accept this conclusion. Plato recognized the problem with this supposed "ideal", and exposed it in The Euthyphro. So Plato's designation of "love" as important is based on something other than an appeal to the prior telos, "mankind's telos", just like his designation of "just", "good", et.. Plato makes an extensive analysis of human emotions, feelings, terms described as virtues and vices, good and bad, and their relations with pleasure and pain, and makes suggestions based on this analysis of human beings within the context of human society. So he provides guidance for the telos of the individual from an analysis of the human being, within the condition of human society, and he does not pretend to access that prior telos which you call "mankind's telos".
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
This idea, (that of an Ideal telos), what you call "mankind's telos" was propagated by the Church as God's intention, what is wanted by God. But this was a pretense developed by the Church in an effort to keep the subjects in line, and it strayed from the earlier teachings derived from Plato, which promoted the free will to decide as the highest faculty. Fundamental to the development of Christianity is the freedom of the individual to willfully join the movement. The turn around which involved telling people that they must conform to the will of God, was the beginning of the decline. St Thomas in particular obscured this principle by describing the will as subject to the intellect, but ultimately he had to admit that the free will is higher in the absolute sense. However, varying interpretations will lead some to believe that the will must be subject to the intellect.
What you describe as human beings recognizing the prior telos, "mankind's telos" as changing, evolving with the evolution of human society, is simply a recognition that this "ideal telos", the intent of God is faulty as a principle for the telos of individual human beings. The supposed "ideal telos" changes with changes in the societal context, and is therefore a reflection of the society, posterior, rather than the true prior telos.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
The confusion represented in your conclusion here, is just a reflection of the fault in your premise. The fault is in trying to base the telos of the individual in some sort of "ideal" prior telos. The prior telos cannot be accessed by us, even if it is real, so we must base all the principles for the telos of the individual in the real needs of the real individual, here and now, and this is what must shape society. That's what Marx pointed to.
If everything one is, is given to one from someone else, does that not also give one the right to claim any of that as oneself?
Genetically you are half of your father and half of your mother (plus a little mutation), yet you are yourself.
By free will we give to ourselves something other than what was given to us.
And your free will was not given to you? Do you know that your will is not governed by something greater?
If free will is the one thing that is your own, does that not reinforce the argument that your own reasons are the purpose of your life?
You've lost me again. Free will is given to us. Through the use of free will we give ourselves something which was not given to us, we create for ourselves. There is something here prior, and something posterior. The reasons for our existence are prior to our existence, and the cause of us having free will. But our own reasons, as created by our free will, are posterior.
If our our creator intended for us to have free will and make our own purpose then us making our own purpose is also us fulfilling the creators purpose.
You can be fulfilling a primary purpose by only following your own self-made purpose, as long as they align.
Interesting points. As human beings our ability to use language be it verbally or non-verbally to communicate and impact the overall thought of our species enables us to develop on a social and technological level beyond our limited 80 or so year lifespan. This means us humans can communicate ideas and knowledge to future generations and this is indeed special. So perhaps the meaning of life is to add to the sum of this knowledge.
As to whether life is guided by a higher power such as a god, well this idea can be dismissed by atheists and cannot be proven by theists, but there do appear tell tale signs of intelligence in the universe with human beings manifesting it best, as far as we know. This could have been by chance and the chances of not just us but life itself manifesting in an otherwise lifeless universe appeared to be slim yet here we are.
Also worth noting that there are a lot of laws in the universe, intelligent laws that keep planets steady in their orbit or even atoms. These laws would in my opinion point to a higher level intellect that created this universe.
This whole post goes to MacIntyre's thesis. The assumption that, if man has a telos, it must be defined in terms of some sort of divine command theory and exist as separate from culture, and the assumption that it is impossible to observe any such telos are fundementally at odds with ancient conceptions of the concept. A core point in the Euthypro is indeed that such a foundation for "the Good," is wholly inadequate, but this is just shooting down one simplistic avenue of thought.
Conceptions of divine command theory obviously go back to the ancient world, but they weren't popular until the Reformation, and they became popular precisely because of modern redefinitions or morality (and were more popular in Protestantism in any event). The more common formulation is that God has authority precisely because God is good, and what goodness is entails this sort of authority.
The mistake is to assume that, if mankind has any sort of telos, it must be defined by divine command, or that it can float free of the communities in which men live. In the ancient world, the community is prior to the individual.
Consider Timothy Chappelle's formulation of Platonic virtue ethics: "Good agency in the truest and fullest sense presupposes the contemplation of the Form of the Good."
A key term that differentiates this from modern morality is "good agency," versus "right action." Good stands in place of ought/right, and a more holistic agency in the place of individual acts. Contemplation of the good is presupposed, but not any unified standard. In more modern views (e.g. Kant), we might think in terms "rules" that "any rational agent," can agree too (and indeed, recent ethics threads on the board assume this indeed must be what morality is).
This just doesn't make sense in the earlier context. If there were horses with intelligence on par with men we should still think that being a good horse is different from being a good man. Likewise, living as a "good knight," differs from living as a "good nun," or "good scholar," even if they are all untied in what is true more generally of the good life and "the Good."
The perfection of virtue doesn't sit outside the sphere of intersubjectivity and history. It does involve the contemplation of a good that transcends these, but can't be reduced to it.
[I]On the other hand, if a man has seriously devoted himself to the love of learning and to true wisdom, if he has exercised these aspects of himself above all, then there is absolutely no way that his thoughts can fail to be immortal and divine, should truth come within his grasp.And to the extent that human nature can partake of immortality, he can in no way fail to achieve this: constantly caring for his divine part as he does, keeping well-ordered the guiding spirit that lives within him, he must indeed be supremely happy. (Timaeus 90a-c) [/I]
Plato definetly ties the good life back to things that are higher and prior to many. I tend to agree with Chappelle that Platonic virtue ethics is generally compatible with Aristotlean virtue ethics, which is why a synthesis of the two was so successful for so long.
I'd also say that any claims to the "Church" having had a unified purpose driving its moral philosophy is going to end up being overly reductive. Claims that the Church's ethical teaching reduces to Machiavellian social control have the same flavor as claims like: "they only let us vote so that we don't realize we're slaves to capitalism," etc.
Thanks for those tips. I've been delving into some the neo-Thomists. They both look excellent books but I have no more space in the backlog presently. In any case, I'm very much in agreement that classical philosophy conceives of the telos of mankind in cosmic, rather than social, terms.
The meaning of philosophy scrub's lives is to answer the question "What is the meaning of life?". :chin:
This is exactly the problem I was talking about. It's nothing but a vicious circle. There is nothing there to provide any principles for judgement as to what is good or bad in human actions. God has authority because God is good, and what goodness is, is that God has authority. Anytime someone says "God wants X and God is the authority therefore we must do X", this is just a human judgement, not a judgement from God, and we have no way of knowing what God really thinks about X.
There is a disconnect, a gap, between the human judgement of "good", and any true divine judgement of "good" which cannot be bridged because we appear to have no way to ask God. Therefore it is a mistake to base "good" in the authority of God because this denies us of the capacity to determine what is "good".
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I don't see how you bring in "the community" as a source of telos. We know that individuals have their own very distinct intentions, and God is often assumed to have intention in a similar way. But what justifies a claim that a community has any sort of intention or telos. A community is a group of individuals who work together on agreement toward common goals which have been stipulated by various individuals, and are sometimes voted on. The source of the goals is the individuals, not the community. It is true that goals are adopted and passed on from generation to generation through the form of "the community", but the goals are passed from individual to individual, in the same way that a father might pass a goal to a son. "The community" is never a source of goals, nor can any telos be said to be proper to the community, they are the goals of the members of the community..
The quote "Good agency in the truest and fullest sense presupposes the contemplation of the Form of the Good." does not imply a community at all. It implies an individual in contemplation of "Good".
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
This is simply one proposal, and I do not see any reason to accept it as "what morality is". Remember Plato's Republic, and the cave allegory in particular. Only the philosopher gets a glimpse at "the good", while the vast majority suffer from the mistake of thinking that the shadows on the wall are real things. This majority consists of "rational agents" but the philosopher is unable to convince the majority of them, upon return to the cave, because they are victims of that habit. In fact, Plato often implied that "the good" is not what the majority would agree to. The vast majority of men are like children who want candy, totally ignorant of what is truly good for them. We cannot say that these men are not rational agents, but they would never agree on "the good" like you or Kant would suggest. Their ideas and thoughts are directed toward supporting their childish wants, and the term we use for this is "to rationalize". They are still rational agents, but are hopeless in the sense of agreeing to the good.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
This is where you and I seem to disagree, the role of "intersubjectivity". If it is the individual who engages in the contemplation of good, then it must be the individual who determines what is good. Therefore the individual leads the community in demonstrating what is good, not vise versa. If the average person is unable to understand the complexities of "the good", as indicated in Plato\s Republic, and only the philosopher who contemplates good, can even get a glimpse of understanding, then this person who contemplates good needs some power of authority over the community, as having the rightful capacity to lead it. Where could this person turn, to obtain that authority other than to God?
Plato is not the only source for that idea. The parable of the burning house from the Lotus Sutra concerns a wealthy man with a magnificent house full of valuable toys. The house catches fire, and the man wants to save his three beloved children who are inside, playing with the toys and unaware of the danger. He entices them to leave the burning house by offering even better toys outside. Once they are safe, he gives them the ultimate treasure, a precious carriage (representing the Mahayana teaching). The parable teaches that the Buddha skillfully leads people to enlightenment, using various means to guide them from the cycle of suffering to ultimate liberation.
I believe the issue here is the force of habit. "Habit" was first described by Aristotle, as a sort of property (in Latin, "to have") of an active being. When a being has the propensity to act in a specific way, we say that it has a habit. And the habit is a way of avoiding the need for conscious decision making, and employment of the will, for every little act which the being makes.
Aquinas analyzed "habit" quite extensively, questioning amongst other things, where does the habit reside. He determined that the habit must be a property of the potential to act, not the act itself, therefore it is proper to the material or bodily aspect of the being. This is a difficult principle to understand because properties are generally formal, actual, so to assign a property to potential is to say that the potential already has inherent within it, some sort of form, which is not evident as "formal" in the description of the act. I conclude that this is why the habitual act is often contrary to what is "reasonable" as decided by the agent who acts.
The difficulty becomes more apparent when Aquinas considers habits of the intellect. We observe that the activities of the intellect follow patterns of habit, so we need to assume a material aspect to account for the residence of these habits. This results in a very complex Thomistic structure of appetites. The lower appetites (of the senses) are divided in two, concupiscible and irascible, meaning roughly inclined toward and inclined away from an apprehended particular. The intellect however, specifically the will, being inclined toward the general notion of "good", cannot be divided into concupiscible and irascible in that way. However, in the way that the will directs us toward "good" in the general sense, and it exercises will power over the concupiscible and irascible appetites of the senses, there is still a resemblance of that division within the intellectual appetite (will).
A thorough reading of Aquinas' exposé is recommended because it is very well thought out, and revealing of the underlying complexities in the activities of living creatures. Modern, science based descriptions, tend to be deterministically modeled, and these models ignore the role of the free will in the creation, evolution, and destruction of habits. We tend to think of the being as having in-grown, internal inclinations and avoidances consisting of structures like defense mechanisms and control structures. These are understood to interact with the environment in a deterministic (scientific) way, effecting change on both sides. However, this type of modeling, by removing the role of choice by the agent, is an over-simplification which ignores a hugely important, and greatly complicating aspect of the activities of life. It takes the pre-existence of the internal mechanisms for granted, and neglects the role of choice, selection by the being as agent, in the interaction between internal structure and external conditions.
In light of this need, the need to include the role of choice by the being, as agent, on the effects of internal mechanisms, principles of Lamarckian theory become a requirement for a better understanding of the process of evolution. As Aquinas explained, habits must have a real material base. And the habit comes into existence as than effect of choice. And choice may also be active in the maintenance or removal of the habit. Therefore choice of the being as agent, must have a real effect on the evolving material bodies. And of course this is very evident in the role of choice by the being, in reproduction, within Darwinian evolutionary theory.
The relevant point now is that something more than simple "guidance" is required to lead individual human beings toward the good. It becomes obvious that the person to be guided must possess the will to be guided. We can call this inspiration, passion, spirit, ambition, or something like that. Therefore the first step to "guidance" is not an act of guidance at all, but kind of an inversion of this. It is to instill this special quality within the person to be guided, the inspiration required, as the wealthy man did for the children with the offer of toys in your parable. And that is to empower the individual as a real "self", a spirited and ambitious person who will make the break from one's past in order to better the future. This is to make the person a leader rather than a follower. As it turns out, to guide a person in this sense, is not to show them the way, but to inspire them to find the way.
Which as I read it means accepting absolute responsibility for the consequences of your thoughts and deeds, which raises philosophical questions. Raising the additional philosophical question of subjectivity and interpretation.
:rofl:
Does it mean anything at all? I don't mean life, I mean the question itself.
What's being asked? How best to live? That isn't the same question, though, is it? Is it being asked what the purpose of life is? Why we're here? What will happen to us? What God has planned for us? Why, or if, we matter?
How best to live might be determined, or at least the ancients thought so, in some cases at least without reference to "the meaning of life" as we understand the question, if we do. So, the best way to live is to obtain tranquility, or happiness. The other questions can't be with any certainty, I think. Maybe the ancients were wiser than we are.
I think a more significant question (or challenge) is Do you have the courage to live thrive despite Life having no discernible or agreed upon meaning?
Quoting Ciceronianus
:up:
For myself, I have always been a doubter. This is unexpected as I attended a private religious high school and college. I should be steeped in religious thinking. Some of the people who have commented on my post are very knowledgeable in theology. I can hold my own in discussions on theology. However, the older I get though the more I have trouble accepting the various dogmas that religion presents. It all seems created somehow. It is as if someone took a few facts and built an entire structure of thought from them.
So, how does this relate to your question? The reason I pursue questions of the meaning of life is that I need something to hang my way of life on. If my life is going to be of value, there has to be meaning in it. I think we are all trying to grab onto meaning so that we can feel confident that we are on the right path. However, it is possible to determine from observation what a proper way of life is. This can happen even without a God. This could be why so many religions focus on a common set of behaviors for mankind. The only question then is Is there an afterlife? A few decades ago, I came up with a statement that I still think is true. It is impossible for a sentient being to conceive of not being. This statement does not mean there is an afterlife or not, it is just about how sentient beings think. You will immediately say, we all know we are going to die, but nearly every religion offers the hope of some kind of afterlife.
I have probably wandered into territory that you did not intend and I hope I did not offend you but I do think these thoughts do relate to The Meaning of Life.
You generate a lot more questions with this.
These are not givens. They are expressing assumptions - values and a set of preferences. It may be that it is better to be indifferent.
Whose definition of 'quality' do we use as a basis to make this assessment?
Quoting George Fisher
This is surely the job of philosophy - to examine one's flawed ideas and presuppositions, many of which might be unreasonable or harmful. Just because one has principles does not mean they are the right ones. I suspect philosophical inquiry should often be discomforting.
Quoting George Fisher
Various dogmas or various religions? There are hundreds.
Quoting George Fisher
This sounds like putting the cart before the horse, or is this just the words you have used? Sounds like you have a way of life and are now seeking, perhaps, some ad hoc justification for some value system?
Quoting George Fisher
I think perhaps the best way is to give up on 'proper' ways of life since this sounds the religion you say you have moved on from.
How do we determine from observation what the proper way of life is?
Quoting George Fisher
The problem with belief in gods is that they do not provide the anchor some think they do. Beliefs in gods do not provide objective ways to live. Since all religions, their sects and individual believers make subjective choices about how they interpret god's will, we can really say that religious meaning is pluralistic and far from certain. Even within the one religion, moral positions vary considerably. It is created like any other meaning, an expression of personal preferences.
The more I read and the more I live the more I am convinced of that. Or perhaps it is survivorship bias.
Another thing that might be mentioned is the idea of the Axial Age.
The Axial Age, a term coined by the philosopher Karl Jaspers, refers to a pivotal period in human history, roughly between 800 and 200 BCE. This era was remarkable for its profound and simultaneous intellectual, philosophical, and religious transformations across various civilizations, including those in Greece, Persia, India, and China.
During the Axial Age, there was a significant shift in thought patterns, moving away from mythological frameworks towards more rational and abstract reasoning. This period saw the rise of some of the world's most enduring philosophies and religions: in Greece, the emergence of classical philosophy with figures like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; in Persia, the rise of Zoroastrianism; in India, the development of Buddhism and Jainism, as well as critical developments in Hinduism; and in China, the foundational teachings of Confucianism and Taoism.
The Axial Age is considered crucial in the history of humanity as it laid the foundational structures of thought and belief systems that continue to shape cultures and societies around the world.
Most of what is considered ancient wisdom is rooted in this period. And it endures.
On the other hand, where is this generation's Leibniz, Descartes, Caesar, Bohr, Peano? We had Stephen Hawking, and look how that turned out. Some might argue that we simply don't know about them yet, because often geniuses are recognised posthumously, but I think that is only true to a certain extent. We have thousands of genius experts in all sorts of fields across the world, Biochemistry, Aerospace Engineering, Philosophy, Quantum Physics, Robotics; and yet if you were to ask a history question to most of those forementioned...
Yes, i think there definitely is a "survivorship bias". Consider that only the best really got preserved. Most ancient Greek principles, from the Ionians, the Eleatics, the atomists etc., were preserved only through the criticism of it, in Plato and Aristotle. So really, what was preserved was the dismissal of the ancient ideas, the refutations found in Plato and Aristotle which demonstrated the faults. Then skepticism, as demonstrated by Socrates, became very important because it was necessary to rid the mind of the ancient foundations which were being demonstrated as faulty. We ought not downplay the importance of this movement, to rid the mind of ancient ideas which were being refuted (the downfall of Alexandria for example).
Perhaps. But I think that "what is the meaning of life?" is a question which wasn't asked antiquity in the sense it's asked now because it arises in the modern sense due to the "triumph" of Christianity, which effectively (though not immediately) extinguished the ancient world. With Christianity (and perhaps monotheism in general) came the belief that we're made for a particular purpose, associated with God/Christ. Thus, the old Baltimore Catechism of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, on which I was raised, provided a simple answer:
[i] Q. Why did God make you?
A. God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him for ever in heaven.[/i]
[i]Q. What must we do to save our souls?
A. To save our souls, we must worship God by faith, hope, and charity; that is, we must believe in Him, hope in
Him, and love Him with all our heart.[/i]
There you have it. The meaning of life is clear. What happens, though, when that God no longer serves, as began to be the case for many from roughly the 17th century and continues for many now? There must be some other "meaning of life" to take its place, and so we seek an answer to the question,
This of course relates to the history Europe and where Christianity and monotheism extended, not to the East, of which I know very little.
:up:
A good bulk of the Hebrew Bible is written and *nearly* completed in this period. We see the spread and transformation of monotheism in this period away from more anthropomorphized conceptions of God to more abstract ones. Judaism is really born in this period, although the history of the Israelites surely extends further back. And from Judaism comes Jesus who will repeatedly quote texts and reference ideas and events from this period to present his worldview.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
The synthesis of Semitic religion and Greek philosophy provided the foundation of Western civilization (even despite the objection 'what has Athens to do with Jerusalem?')
Quoting Ciceronianus
We know better now. Or so it is thought. Maybe the problem is that society has its religious roots. After all the great bulk of them were addressed to an early agrarian and semi-nomadic peoples, replete with images of sheep and wheat fields. And the meaning of sacrifice, which was universal in those ancient cultures, which the Crucifiction was supposed to put an end to by being the final sacrifice, but which means nothing to a consumerist culture.
incidentally, and mentioned previously, an excellent series from Princeton on ancient wisdom for modern readers.
(...Or maybe, if I am the only person in the universe, then they are worth EVERYTHING! Who the hell knows?)
So, for me, it all comes down to the Big Bang. This, as a theory, makes sense to me. We can actually measure distances in space, and therefore, we know that celestial bodies are moving away from us. If we simply rewind, then everything in this universe at one point was in the same place at the same time. This means that if just one atom that was present then, was not present right now, then the universe, as we know it, would not exist. Now, considering how many atoms just one person consists of, then it makes sense to me HOW MUCH JUST ONE SINGLE PERSON MATTERS. Of course, you could say, well, does it matter if the universe exists or not? But, I would say that most people would answer: yes.
Why can't it matter to the people inside it? Am I just being dense or something? I can't figure out why it only has to matter to someone/thing outside of it. Just the same as the world matters to us, if the world is in the universe, doesn't that matter too? I'm sure I'm probably missing something really obvious here, but right now, I can't for the life of me figure out what it is. Lol
Oh dear. And what does "conceptualise" mean?
Ive been trying to think if I believe this to be true or not. I think Im right in saying that you mean we cannot experience ALL of the universe. That got me wondering if we can experience ALL of anything. To test out this idea, I was trying to think of an example of something people seem to experience, and for some strange reason, skydiving popped into my head. Okay so, can someone experience ALL of skydiving? Most people would assume that if they got in a plane, it flew up into the sky and they jumped out of it, then they had experienced skydiving. However, did they experience ALL of skydiving? I would say no because they would have had a different experience than someone else. In fact, they would have had a different experience than another time they did, or will do, skydiving themselves. Each time their experience would be different, to a greater or lesser degree.
Okay so, you may say that perhaps skydiving is not a good example, or not a fair comparison, to the universe because the universe is a place, not an activity. So, lets apply this idea to a place. Can we experience ALL of a place? I suppose you could say that if there was a particular room you were in often, you could experience ALL of that room. But, well, if we are going to be really literal, then perhaps not because wouldnt your experience of that room depend on what was in it, or perhaps how it was decorated, wall colour, curtains, flooring etc? What if someone redecorated the room and put in new furniture? Then to experience ALL of that room, you would have to experience all of every possible way and form that room could exist in.
But if we are to be not so literal, and we say, okay, we could possibly experience all of that room as it is currently, is that simply because of the size of the room? Of course, the universe is unimaginably huge, so this would mean it is unimaginably difficult, or impossible, to experience ALL of it. But where do we draw the line? Are we saying that no one can experience anything bigger than a room? What about a house? Okay, we could experience a house. What about a garden? Or a park you walk through often, or a city you live in and travel across daily? I guess we could say that nobody experiences the world because it is impossible for anyone to visit and know every part of that, in a similar way to how we cannot go to, and know, every part of the universe. But somehow, it seems to now come down to, well, perhaps we can experience things and places even if we do not experience ALL of them.
Quoting AmadeusD
Quoting Ciceronianus
This idea of conceptualising the universe, and therefore, perhaps it cannot matter, also got me thinking. Now, I could well be wrong, but there seems to be examples of things people cannot experience the whole of, and can only conceptualise, but that appear to matter very much to them. People conceptualise Heaven and Hell and this matters a whole lot to them, so much so that peopleI think probably more in the pastchose to be burnt alive rather than renounce their belief in them. What about Platos World Of Forms? That mattered a lot to him, and to others. The environment also springs to mind. Many people are passionate about preserving the environment, and it matters a lot to them, and yet, they cannot experience all of it. It is just a concept.
From my point of view, I would definitely say that I have a relationship with the universe. I care about it, I want it to continue, I want it to be healthy, just as the environmentalists want our world to be healthy. I am also fascinated by it, as are many other people. It seems to matter to some enough to expend huge amounts of time and effort on discovering as much as they can about it. I imagine someone suddenly saying, "I know, let's get rid of the universe." If they were able to do that, I am sure there would be a fair few people who would answer, "Hold on a minute, let's not!" That would seem to indicate that the universe matters to those people.
But I am definitely open minded, and I absolutely love all the thinking that has come just from these ideas that I had never thought of before. If anyone can dissuade me from my perhaps foolish belief that I have a relationship with the universe, and that it matters to me, then I am open to that.
Quoting Beverley
Yes, but that is actually the same thing as 'we don't experience the Universe'. The universe is a single entity, which we do not experience in any sensuous way. I'm unsure whether noting that it's a statement about the 'whole' universe changes much, but ready to be corrected there.
Quoting Beverley
No one, ever, has experienced the universe. There aren't different experiences of it. So im unsure this analogy holds, though i saw/see where you're taking it. Onward...
Quoting Beverley
Different to the 'The Universe', the room only consists in it's actual dimensions. The universe, as an experience, to my mind, must contain all of manifold experience within it (at a given moment - which is partially why it's impossible). The experience of the room is extremely delineated in comparison - it has some extremely limitations in time and space that 'the universe' encompasses all of. You bring up a good point, and I've not much else to say ehre other than that i see a very bold, underlined distinction between a room, which is an extreme carve-out from 'the universe'. It isn't a different thing. It's one of the manifold experiences that must have been present to someone at that given moment to experience 'the universe'.
Quoting Beverley
I suppose this particular position (which i don't take) resists time as a meaningful dimension to experience. At any given moment (as above) one would need to experience the room, as it is, in its totality. However, the next moment is irrelevant. All 'other times' are another experience. So it seems someone a needless extension to my idea.
Quoting Beverley
I think they are misguided int eh same sense, but obviously on a much smaller scale. Though, we can at least grasp at information about our world. The universe is.. elusive, to say the least.
Quoting Beverley
Neither camp know what they're talking about, to my mind. You can say whatever you want, but actually having the capability of caring about hte universe is, imo, beyond the human capacity. We want our lives to continue, and this is apparently contingent on the Universe. If we could survive without hte universe i'm sure most people would want to know what that looks like/consists in.
Do you mean that the room only consists of its dimensions? Like the universe, wouldnt the room have to consist of its contents too? But anyway, take any object in that room; it consists of the total number of atoms that make that object. Therefore, I guess that again, you could say we cannot experience anything totally because we cannot directly experience atoms. As with the universe, we have problems with size.
Quoting AmadeusD
I have just had an odd thought
If everything around us changes constantly and this is why no two people can experience those things in the same way then strictly speaking, the universe is potentially the ONLY thing that we can experience. (I am basing this on the fact that energy cannot be created or destroyed, and E=MC^2 tells us that mass and energy are the same physical entity, then mass cannot be created or destroyed either. This would mean that, if we take the universe in its totality, then nothing in it changes, and if nothing in its totality changes, then this is the only thing we could all potentially experience in the same way.) But, if you were to say, nonetheless, we cannot experience the universe, then we are back to, then we cannot experience anything. This seems problematic to me.
I think the problem I have with this idea of not being able to experience the universe, and hence, it not mattering to us, (and I think I did not express this clearly before) is that, if the universe includes everything around us, then the rules that apply to the universe must also apply to everything around us. Therefore, if we cannot experience the universe, then we cannot experience anything. And if we cannot experience anything, then nothing matters. BUT something doesnt seem right here. Is there any way of untangling ourselves out of this?
*in.
It consists of plenty of stuff I didn't mention (per my understanding of these terms - could always have misapprehended!). But you can have the experience of being in a room, noting it's limitations. You cannot do this with the Universe. You cannot experience it's limits, and note that it is a Universe, in the way you can do for a Room. So, perhaps our discussion about 'all' is misleading. I don't intend, and hope I didn't come across as intending, that the requisite of 'experience' is to somehow empirically come across everything about the object.
My point is that you can empirically undergo the experience of being in a room, and know about it.
You can't do that for the Universe. We assume, or take for granted the opinions of experts. But I digress, somewhat.
Quoting Beverley
I have literally no idea what you're pushing for with this one - apologies.
Quoting Beverley
It is.
Quoting Beverley
Why? They are different things. An apple is within your grasp. The Universe is not. I'm unsure I can get a thread of thought out of this paragraph, tbh.
Quoting Beverley
I happen to arrive at this, whenever I have these thoughts.
I've just thought of an even bigger problem, quite a huge one actually. If we take the universe as a whole, then it would seem that nothing exists. But since things do appear to exist, if we cannot experience those things as a PART of the universe, then it would seem that we are not part of that universe.
For example, if we say that all positive energy is cancelled out by all negative energy (or gravity), then as a universe in its totality, there is no energy. And, as stated previously, if E=MC^2 and energy is equal to mass, then if there is no energy, then there is no mass either (which we may understand from matter and antimatter.)
I will try to explain the above a bit more clearly. So, as part of Einstein's theory of relativity which is what we base our understanding of the universe on E=MC^2 or, energy is equal to mass multiplied by the speed of light squared, tells us that energy and mass are equal to each other. But, when considering the universe in its totality, it would seem that all the positive energy is cancelled out by the negative energy, gravity. I seem to remember it being explained by Stephen Hawking as something like, if we are to pull two objects apart, then the energy that counters the energy we expend comes from the gravity between those two objects. If, in the universe as a whole, all the positive energy is cancelled out by all the negative energy, then the same applies to mass, or matter and antimatter. But this only applies when we take the universe as a whole.
And in what way is this supposed to differ from experiencing the world? Do you claim that thinking somehow removes us from the universe?
It seems to me that if we're part of the universe, we think, and conceptualise as you call it, as a living organism interacting with the rest of the universe, necessarily. It's what we do as parts of the universe. In other words, it's a function of our existence and is part of experiencing the rest of the universe.
Or perhaps you think that we're not part of the universe; we're somewhere else, thinking.
This doesn't strike me as anything like a problem.
Why would that 'seem that nothing exists'? I'm not following at all there. And, it follows, that I'm not following the next two deductions.
Quoting Beverley
I don't see how this is a coherent trail..
Quoting Beverley
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to say, but hte equation you've noted shows this is not the case. Energy is equal to Mass multiplied by the speed of light squared. Not Mass as it is. Very much either i'm missing something or this is totally wrong.
Quoting Beverley
Why? What negative energy? Im totally lost as to what you're really referring to..
Quoting Beverley
No idea how that's the case..?
Quoting Ciceronianus
We don't experience the world(is my personal response). My question would be how do you describe experiencing 'the world'?? Not possible, best i can tell.
Quoting Ciceronianus
Hmm. I don't think this is the case. We interact with an extremely, infinitesimally small sliver of the Universe (if that, tbh... ) but not the Universe.
I can't understand your position. How are you experiencing the Universe? Describe it for me. Happy to hear something new.
That simply seems to be the butterfly effect. Obviously, the oldest know object in a causal chain is going to be the most important one. Without the invention of the wheel, we would never have the internet. But is the wheel more important than the internet? No way, the transformation caused by the internet was unforeseen.
Im pretty sure this part is not wrong. Admittedly, we are all to some extent relying on theories in these discussions, but these theories are pretty well known and widely accepted, and E=MC^2 has been tested and proven to be accurate.
Basically, energy and mass are equivalent because energy can change into mass, and mass can change into energy. But in a closed system, such as the universe, there is a set amount of energy, (The Law of Conservation of Energy = energy cannot be created or destroyed) and hence, a set amount of mass tooor I suppose, to put it more accurately, whatever state the mass/energy is in, there is only a set amount of it.
The reason that there is C^2, or the speed of light squared, also in the equation is because energy travels at the speed of light, and the reason that this is squaredwhich makes it into an incredibly huge number is because a tiny amount of mass/matter can be transformed into huge amounts of energy. We see this when we split atoms, as huge amounts of energy are generated out of only a tiny amount of mass. But, as stated before, it doesnt matter how much mass, energy and speed combo we have, or at what stage the mass or energy is, because if we take the universe as a whole, there is always a set amount of mass/energy. Mass and energy are basically the same thing, just at different states.
We can understand how the amount of mass, or matter, in the universe is very small compared to the amount of energy when we consider that there are vast areas of space which are virtual vacuums, hence, why we call it 'space', whereas in just one star, enormous amounts of energy are converted. Stars are one example of where mass/matter is converted into energy btw (through the process of nuclear fusion.)
Quoting AmadeusD
Okay, it was late last night, and I didnt explain this properly at all; I was being lazy, and for that, I apologize. Hopefully, this will explain things a bit better:
If two objects are apart, then there is a store of gravitational potential energy in them, which wants to pull them together. (This is what keeps the planets in our solar system) If those two objects are then moved closer together, then the gravitational potential energy decreases negatively as the positive kinetic energy increases. The two are opposites, one positive energy, and one negative energy. Due to balancing of forces and chargesand other equilibriums we see in the structure of the universe it is believed that the total positive energy must equal the total negative energy. This would mean, if we take the universe in its totality, then the positive energy cancels out the negative energy, leaving overall zero energy .and mass.
Hopefully this makes more sense now????
Sure, i more-or-less understand how the equation works, but your explanation betrays your initial position. I'm unsure how to take that.. Mass and energy can be considered equal, but that's largely because of the below considerations...
Quoting Beverley
As best i can tell, all this speaks to is the distribution of energy, Matter is, from what I understand, just really dense energy. This is why an atom bomb works (i think you mentioned similar)
Quoting Beverley
I agree with this, as above, but you've been more precise and I thank you for that!!
Quoting Beverley
Certainly does. But I can't see how it relates to experiencing the total Universe. I see you parsing out different aspects of hte Universe which we can conceptualise and understand through certain observations.
I can't 'experience' the USA. I could 'experience' The Vatican. I can understand, and hold in my mind, its total limits, as it appears to me empirically. It's a boring thing to point out, i'd say, but I don't see how one can experience the Universe anymore than they can experience 'all possible pain'. It includes things you aren't able to experience (the pain of others - and that problem exists in both the 'possible pain' and 'the universe' scenarios).
I assumed you were referring to what philosophers have called "the external world" (those parts of the world we interact with everyday), not the entire world or the entire universe.
What I've been trying to demonstrate in different ways is that if you cannot accept that we can experience the universe without having to be everywhere all at once, then everything turns very odd and nothing seems to make sense, such as, in the same way as we cannot experience the entire universe, we cannot experience the entire of anything, or the fact that nothing appears to matter, or that, if we take the total of the universe, nothing exists.
But maybe there is a different way of looking at it whereby we can have our cake and eat it, as in, we can experience all of the universe, and it can all make sense too. (Or maybe not because, lets face it, nothing is ever certain, but I am up for trying if you are up for listening.)
I need to address this comment first though:
Quoting AmadeusD
As a very simplified example of how my comment relates to the apple you can grasp, it obeys the rule of the universe that, if someone is close enough to an apple, and there is an apple there, then it can be grasped. This applies anywhere in the universe. Just because you are not on the other side of the universe (if there is another side of it) and cannot grasp an apple there, or anything else that is there, it doesnt mean that the same rules dont apply. It is just a case of you being somewhere different that, at the moment, is too far away for you to go. The laws that we have discovered over centuries come from huge numbers of observations and experiments to find constants that we can observe here on earth, but that we can also deduct applying out there in space. Until a new idea is deemed to be universal, it is not accepted.
Bearing that in mind, this occurs to me: we can experience the universe here on earth, or at least, it is not impossible or, it is possibly not impossible. The reason is because we can see the laws of the universe playing out here on earth, and this allows us to know, or experience, what is happening out there as well. By experiencing these laws here on earth, we are actually experiencing the essence of the universe, the essence being the core of something or what makes that thing, that thing. If you experience something's essence, you have experienced something even more profound than just its surface features. Surely this means that you have experienced it very deeply. Maybe that is why the universe matters so much because it relates ultimately to everything we know and everything we are.
Quoting Beverley
(underlined is my edit) And i have disagreed, in the form of the below response..
Quoting Beverley
These simply don't follow from my assertion. I can't actually see how the any of these follow from each other. How would not experiencing the entire of anything mean nothing matters? That wasn't the position. The position was that we can't experience the Universe in it's entirety, and therefore is isn't even 'a thing' to us, and so cannot matter. That, to me, is not the same as what you're objecting to - though, i admit freely I f'd up in a previous post misusing that phrase so apologies.
It's quite hard to understand the other objections, in this light, to respond to - but I will try!
Quoting Beverley
I'm sorry, I'm really not seeing how this example has anything, whatsoever, to do with 'experiencing the Universe'. You have pointed out that an Apple can be grasped, if adequately proximal, everywhere in the universe. Barring some weirdness yet to be discovered, I agree with that - seems fairly clear.
This says nothing about my contention. Which is about experiencing the Universe, not an apple. The rules are not the same. They couldn't possibly be the same. Because we cannot 'grasp' the Universe, in any sense of the word. That said, let me try to illustrate why they are not even comparable, let alone the same:
The Apple is an object, graspable, in some sense. Some people can't grasp apples. Some can.
Absolutely no one, of any kind, can 'grasp' the Universe. It isn't possible. It's not even conceivable. It's not an object in the way an Apple is. How could we assume the same principles apply? Fwiw, I wouldn't say an apple 'matters'. Its functional, as far as humans are concerned imo. but that's a digression.
Quoting Beverley
To me, no it doesn't, and I can't grasp how your getting there.
Quoting Beverley
This one just has me scratching my head. Can't understand what you're trying to say because 'essence of the universe' is meaningless in and of itself. What are you saying with that phrase?
Quoting Beverley
Again, it doesn't matter. It can't matter (on my account). I have to say, quite a bit of this response seems to be a bit mystical. Is that how you are writing?
I dont think I was trying to compare and necessarily say that atoms closer to the time of the big bang are more important than atoms now. I think I was trying to say they would be equally important, as in, if we were to suddenly take you out of the universe, or make it so that you dont exist anymore in the universe, then the universe wouldnt exist because you constituted a part of it. That would make both the atoms that you are made up of, and those same atoms in whatever state they were in at the time of the big bang, equally important for the existence of the universe. I guess there is a difference with the wheel and internet example because the internet doesn't consist of what the wheel used to.
Objecting? I'm not objecting at all. We are not in a court of law! lol I don't see this as a competition or something. I am just expressing ideas, which clearly don't make any sense to you. Ooops, sorry for that. It is my fault for not speaking clearly. I just like to hear other people's ideas and views on things and to converse about it all. I see it as something we all benefit from by learning from each other. (Even though you probably didn't learn much from me because I have not been making sense, eeek!) All the more kudos to you for carrying on with the exchange.
An objection is just how philosophers discuss ideas. It's not a competition or anything. Its just a term used for when you 'push back' on a theory or position (sorry if that comes across condescending - the link will do a better job :) ) You've been pushing back quite adequately, to my mind, and that's a good thing! Objections are how we sort these things out.
Quoting Beverley
It is more likely that one of us is making an error somewhere either in our position, or our responses. I don't think you are being unclear, other than using words with fairly mysterious meaning. Keep in mind:
It is entirely possible to speak clearly, concisely, and be wrong.
You are selling yourself too short. You have brought up plenty of good points.
Do you think no one had any idea of how things would go on the moon, before people went to the moon?
Is there mostly an issue here, of you not knowing how the laws of the universe play out?
No, and no - that's a perplexing and genuinely odd response.
I can't see how either of these questions have anything to do with what i'm positing. Having an understanding of, let's say, gravitational laws that can be (pretty much accurately) extrapolated to other , particular and specific, parts of hte Universe which we can observe - has nothing to do with whether or not we can empirically have any grasp of the 'entire Universe'. Which is it plain and simply the case that we can't. I really don't understand what's going on in these objections... You can't experience a concept. Experience informs concepts with content - content you simply do not have to argue that your experience is of the Universe.
Under what notion are you suggesting we can experience the Universe? Gigantic eyes? ectoplasmic Universe-sized hands? Have you ever seen the Universe? Grasped it? Conceived of it's dimensions? Or are you necessarily restricted to an extremely, pathetically small sliver of potential experience which precludes you from anything in the above which might constitute 'experiencing'? Because I can't connect what either you or Beverley are saying to anything i've said - I thought it might be worth understanding what you actually contend challenges my contention
Under the notion that a fish experiences the universe through the water it swims in. You seem to place great significance on the idea of somehow experiencing the universe as a whole thing. I don't understand why. We are experiencing the universe as we can, right here and now.
For all I know, we are in one, of several possible types of multiverse. However, I don't see my inability to know the truth about such a situation to be a good reason to think that we aren't experiencing the universe.
Quoting wonderer1
This seems bizarre and untrue to me. It experiences the water it swims in, along with a number of other discreet elements of it's world (plankton, sharks, coral, whatever..). But, that's a digression and another thing to talk about. Is the idea here that anything within the Universe 'experiences the Universe'? I can't understand that, if so, and that might be the issue.
Again, I'm finding it really, really hard to connect these objections (that I don't out-right disagree with, though i have comments) with my contention so I'm refraining from responding in that vein. I understand this probably comes across as a smug "You just don't get it" which I don't intend at all. Here's an attempt to clarify: it seems to me as if you're both conflating these two
A. Experience of the entire universe (requires being everywhere all at once - which is plainly not open to humans)
B. Experiencing the universe in it's entirety (having any empirical concept of the total scale and dimension of the Universe as an object - which is plainly not open to humans)
It seems to me that both of your sets of objections have to do with (A.). I am not suggesting that (A.) is a problem (though, it is clearly impossible). I am arguing that the lack of (B.)'s possibility is the problem for us in so far as we cannot 'experience' the Universe. I am not seeing any objections playing with this notion, and rather all of them appear to be playing with (A.). Though, I should probably at this stage point out that the Universe mattering isn't something I'm particularly hung-up on. I don't think it does, or can, but that's not like an important follow-on from the above position. It was partly a throwaway and partly while, I do actually think that, It's never occurred to me that anyone would claim otherwise.
I would think that only parts of the universe with some sort of 'brain' and sensory organs could experience the universe.
The following might help convey my perspective somewhat:
Its sad to think of it as an error on anyones part because the way I see it is that we all turn to this philosophy forum in our free time for the pleasure it brings us to connect and explore the subject that we all love: philosophy. I am guessing that no one comes here to experience feeling bad in any way. And yet, I sometimes get the feeling that this is what happens: when there is too much conflict and feeling of you are wrong, and I am right then suddenly it becomes more of a power struggle than a joy.
I first became aware of what philosophy entails around two years ago, when I was asked to do a philosophy course for my first semester at university. I didnt have a clue what the subject entailed, but I soon discovered that I had been philosophizing for as long as I could remember and just hadnt been able to put a name to it. I was studying in Canada at the time, but still working online in the UK, so sometimes I would have to work at 4 am Canada time (which was midday UK time) and then get up and be in Uni for 8 am for a philosophy lecture and seminar. I didnt care though because I loved it so much that, despite having such little sleep, I was so energized by the discussions we had and the connections and friendships I made. I am trying to think if I ever felt like we were in a competition in the discussions and seminars, and I honestly do not remember feeling like that. We simply talked and laughed and told stories about our experiences, and related them to philosophical concepts. I am sure I probably didnt necessarily agree with everything everyone said, but it didnt matter somehow. I never really thought about it because I was so engaged and thinking in ways I had never thought before.
I think I was somehow trying to emulate that here. The problem is, when someone feels as if someone else is trying to compete, or show them up, or better them, then they automatically feel defensive, but then this makes the other person feel defensive in return, and this continues. I am seeing this often in discussions on philosophy forums, and I think it is a shame because, to me, that is not what philosophy is all about. To me, it is about the pleasure of discovery and connecting with other minds, so that we are not all alone in our own heads (Like Descartes was, I guess)
I think in these exchanges, I was trying to find a common ground, to see if we could work together to find a way to make the universe matter, because it just seems so depressing to think that it doesnt. But I do realize that not everyone sees eye to eye. I wasnt feeling my usual positive self yesterday, and I think it showed in my responses. Sorry for that.
Ive just realized how much I have written, and now Im worried that Ive gone totally off subject, and I am going to be in trouble for it! If so, and I did something bad, I am sorry, but somehow, here seems to be the best place to say this because these exchanges prompted me to express all of this.
It is so late again here (UK time), but one thing that is now making me smile is this:
Quoting AmadeusD
I have never thought of my writing like that, but I asked my husband today, Do you think I am mystical? and he replied, Never before in your life have you been mystical. Lol But he is from Yorkshire and the most down to earth person you could ever meet. I, on the other hand, live my life in the clouds, or floating around the universe mystically! But, now youve mentioned it, I think Ill keep that label for a while; I quite like the idea of being a little mystical!
Thank you so much for your positivity and encouragement. I was having a bit of a bad day yesterday, as we all sometimes do, and just a little positivity is what i so needed to hear. It is not even so much about agreeing with someone, it is just being able to appreciate someone else's point of view and seeing that it too has value. It is funny how we often do not realize how much just a few positive words can so greatly affect someone else. Thank you.
This may apply to you, abs explain your attitude. I dont get that feeling from many forum meme bets and certainly dont feel that myself.
Errors are inevitable. I have no idea why you would conceptualise that as combative tbh.
Quoting Beverley
I think that is misguided. We disagree. Theres nothing wrong witn that and no reason or need to forcecommon ground imo. I just cant grasp why this is an issue
Quoting Beverley
I cannot understand why you would apologise for discussing ideas. I find it quite bizarre that the fact were going back and forth is an obstacle. Thats what philosophy is.
And I agree with wonder - youve brought up good points that Ive had to address. Im having a good time and appreciate you interacting. Perhaps its high time you reassess your personal formulation. I dont think anyone sees you disagree as anything but good.
Quoting Beverley
Well there we go! Nothing wrong with that. But it will come up :)