Was I wrong to suggest there is no "objective" meaning in life on this thread?
https://www.quora.com/What-is-an-evolutionary-logotherapist/answer/David-Moore-408?comment_id=486628640&comment_type=2
My reply is under Ian (not my name BTW just something there) but I felt like the post was mistaking what humans do with that being purpose. Like us making meaning is what we do but that doesn't necessarily imply a purpose right?
I was saying that big picture there is no purpose, purpose is what we project onto reality (reminds me of Buddhism in a sense) but then he took that to mean that I wasn't saying anything, couldn't understand anything, and...well you can see for yourself.
My thoughts were that there being no objective purpose doesn't mean that relative meaning doesn't exist. But that we cannot mistake our assigning purpose to things with object purpose being a thing. I dunno, it felt like a strawman of what I was saying.
The idea reminds me of the two truths doctrine in Buddhism and there being relative reality and ultimate reality and both are true. Relatively meaning exists, letters, etc, stuff like that but outside our heads it doesn't.
I feel like the truth is more nuanced. Also I think he's misunderstanding evolution as the words imply that it's like a ladder when it's not.
My reply is under Ian (not my name BTW just something there) but I felt like the post was mistaking what humans do with that being purpose. Like us making meaning is what we do but that doesn't necessarily imply a purpose right?
I was saying that big picture there is no purpose, purpose is what we project onto reality (reminds me of Buddhism in a sense) but then he took that to mean that I wasn't saying anything, couldn't understand anything, and...well you can see for yourself.
My thoughts were that there being no objective purpose doesn't mean that relative meaning doesn't exist. But that we cannot mistake our assigning purpose to things with object purpose being a thing. I dunno, it felt like a strawman of what I was saying.
The idea reminds me of the two truths doctrine in Buddhism and there being relative reality and ultimate reality and both are true. Relatively meaning exists, letters, etc, stuff like that but outside our heads it doesn't.
I feel like the truth is more nuanced. Also I think he's misunderstanding evolution as the words imply that it's like a ladder when it's not.
Comments (68)
From a theistic point of view though were a product of gods creative energy and there must be a reason why were here.
I think life is a big test and were here to test ourselves.
It can be whatever you want to be because there is no purpose to it. But I'm mostly referring to the argument I made in the link.
Look at the issue instead in terms of whether it is something we decide or something we discover. We don't discover the big picture, but we might decide it, by choosing what counts as being important and what doesn't.
So it's not that the big picture has no purpose, but that we attribute, rather than discover, the big picture.
We don't discover life's meaning, so much as create it.
It's not something we find, so much as something we do.
Or more technically, we might benefit by dropping "objective" and "subjective" and instead thinking about meaning in terms of the direction of our intent. See Anscombe.
But people look at it, or shall I say, frame it as larger than even that.
It's about "permanent" and "impermanent". What people consider or also frame as (whether incorrect or not) "fact" vs. "opinion."
Where the phrase "cut the fat from the meat" comes from. People want to validate and vindicate their life and life choices and know they didn't utterly and foolishly waste their time making stupid decisions and falling for mirage-like illusions just because everyone around them, perhaps even the world, did as well.
Water boils at 100 degrees and freezes at 0. That's something we can rely on as a bedrock of reality. Or can we? Most would agree it's better than nothing. Compare that to someone in their older years with a partner they discovered they never really knew and in fact outright despite thinking "if only I would have listened to that nice guy I met at work who was shy but liked me who I looked up and is now is a millionaire (or not even that, perhaps he's relatively poor but lives a happy life with children)". Realizing what poor impulsive decisions we all make when young. There has to be something, whether not a 1 or 0, an absolute, but something that is wiser and something that is foolish as far as choices we can make in our everyday lives. And it does, at least in some methodologies of thinking, boil down to such binary forms of classification.
Like I know we create it but if you read the link he seems to think we search for it.
But again I'm looking more for if my assessment was correct in my arguing against him (per the link)/
The fact that we make meaning doesn't mean it's our purpose, it's just what we do. It would be like arguing the purpose of gravity. Purpose can be something that we do but just because we do something does not make it our purpose.
Purpose exists in our heads and we project it onto the world because that's how we understand things, cause and effect. He seems to argue that because that is what we do that makes it our purpose yet that is easily proven false through the various philosophies that argue otherwise (Buddhism being one that comes to mind).
Meaning making is what we do, but just because we do it does not make it our purpose. Eating is what we do but our purpose is not to eat, rather you can argue eating serves a purpose (even that is debatable).
The problem is that we are taking something WE use to understand reality and try to apply it to everything when it doesn't work. He even gets evolution wrong by implying it's some sort of ladder.
He seems very opposed to things being an "accident".
Even if there is an ultimate "purpose", we cannot know it because we do not have an ultimate perspective a god's eye view from nowhere from which to perceive / conceive of the whole of reality; we are partial (i.e. ephemeral, proximal) beings for whom 'ultimates' (e.g. purpose with a capital "P") are merely illusions (i.e. "projections" ~Feuerbach, or "hollow idols" ~Niezsche, or "nostalgias" ~Camus ...)
We do not *know* there is no objective meaning to life, there's just no good evidence for such a thing at this time.
The OP is right though that that doesn't entail everything being meaningless let alone impacting epistemology. You can decide on your own meaning. And you can value this life for what it is.
I have a hard time articulating my thoughts and everything just comes out at once, even though I know the point I'm trying to make.
My main point was that just because we do something doesn't necessarily make it a purpose and that even the language I use is just purposeless lines and pixels without me or someone else there to give them meaning.
In the exchange with him I feel like the word purpose was doing some heavy lifting and from his response he seemed defensive at the notion of things happening by accident, which if you know evolution they kinda do.
I just feel like he misunderstands the terms he uses
Quoting Mijin
Well that was what I found odd about his reply to me, purpose not existing in the objective sense doesn't mean that we don't know anything or such. Though you could argue whether we know reality itself if all we have is our senses and models of it but I don't think that's what he's going for.
There's a gap in his argument regarding 'man's search for meaning is the man's purpose'. I am also not satisfied with that.
What I find is that, "purpose" is often confused with "essence", as in the essence of man is wisdom, for example. Philosophically, I haven't found a strong argument for purpose (I'm not widely versed, so I could have missed it). But I always find the explanation for the 'meaning' of existence, which is not the same as purpose.
Search for Aristotle passages and see if he wrote about "purpose" or "essence". What does humans embody? What is it to be human?
Yeah to me that just didn't track and his reply to me just sorta felt like a strawman.
I'm also not really sold on how he thinks we make meaning:
Even his concluding remark isn't convincing that making meaning is our purpose:
This was the link: https://www.amazon.com.au/Evolution-Everything-How-Ideas-Emerge/dp/0062296019
That said all that doesn't sound like purpose, it's just what we do. Heck existentialism was about how to deal with meaning in a meaningless universe. Camus had the best take on it and likely would have denied his arguments.
In fact I'd go further to say that we aren't searching for meaning so much as looking for a way to make it work.
The use of the word "maturing" here is suspect. It is because according to historical accounts, maturity of the mind, similar to the conception of "modernity", does not differ among people thousands of years ago.
In fact, dating as far back as 200,000 years ago, one discovery that researchers have found is that, compassion and helpfulness have been around since the cave man era. There were evidence that members of a tribe had carried their wounded members to safety, not left them to die out in the field.
I couldn't quite follow what was going on in the linked thread, but he may have been alluding to "pre-supposition" arguments.
Pre-sup has become really popular in the context of philosophical / theological debates. The debater basically argues that the other person cannot say anything because they have no foundation of knowledge.
I could write a lot about why I think these arguments are flawed (frankly they remind me a lot of sovereign citizens, trying to define themselves into victory), but it would be a hijack for this thread.
I'm just making you aware that that might be where the person in the Quora thread was going if you're not familiar with this phenomenon.
Any data on the cannibalism rates back then or not so much? Hey, never let good meat go to waste am I right. :monkey:
Personally, I'd prefer it if my life wasn't being used by someone or something else as pawn in whatever game they're playing. I decide for myself what to do with my time here.
A captain without a compass then. Going wherever the wind takes him. One would at least hope the fates are kind. Lest one crash into rocks. No?
To which I would reply, yes. Outside my head these words are not words, there is no comment, nothing like that.
It reminds me something of what Buddhism argues with not only the two truths doctrine but also:
And to me it just reads like someone who cannot step out of the human perspective and recognize that all this is mostly for our benefit. Purpose is how we understand the world and reality, without us there is no purpose.
It's sorta like relative and ultimate reality in Buddhism
More than likely though I'm talking to someone who doesn't really understand the concepts he talks about as evidenced here: https://qr.ae/pCGCmB
Well part of me thinks he comes of as a crazy sage who's seen some truth because he uses words like semantics and syntax and cites Wittgenstein a lot, but when I look at other stuff of his it doesn't seem like that. like his stuff seems deep only if you don't know better
The meaning of life, if it exists, is not thoughts or feelings. It must be something that we are not able to experience, perhaps because we are not cognitively well-developed. Life does not have any purpose per se. Any intelligent creature, however, is able to define a purpose for his/her/its life.
I don't think that's true, that it's not thoughts or feelings since those things are where we get the notion of a meaning for life. There isn't anything saying it's something we are not able to experience.
Quoting 180 Proof
That is not what matters most.
I would think not crazy but prone to generalization and using arguments by jumping to conclusions, unsupported claims like like everyone is a philosopher and historical accounts that have been proven inconclusive or just outright inaccurate.
Lol. Though cannibalism happened, there were some evidence that some tribes did it against enemies. As a victorious behavior.
At the same time, there were evidence that within tribes, there were medical procedures done to save their limbs or life. Instruments or tools were found in their possession.
Some populations or tribes actually survives for many decades or hundreds of years due to the concept of hygiene and cleanliness.
So, while cannibalism is an horrific act, it wasn't practiced commonly.
Yeah, I was never really good at telling when people online are bullshitting or not. That or I'm so easily impressed I just accept it because they have pictures and big words so they must know
It is correct. You cannot explain the meaning of life using thought and feeling. Otherwise, you need to explain it using thoughts and feelings to me. As I said, if there is such a thing as the meaning of life, then we are not able to experience it since we are not cognitively evolved well, similar to animals that didn't evolve in order to have thoughts, but feelings only.
If so, then what else matters most?
Your preference then is that you have a preference, which is no more or less difficult to acheive whether you accept a teleological model or a causal one.
That is, the flip side of the coin of "asking for the "purpose" of life is asking for the outcome that the existence of life is intended to achieve" is "asking for the "cause" of life is asking for the origin that the existence of life is supposed to have originated from."
The reason it might matter to know the origin under a causal model is to know where you're going to end up given the chain of causes that will follow, just as we might want to know our final destination so that we can know what events will lead up to the final teleos under a teleological model.
In either event the determinism or fatalism is disrupted by free will. So, what you want is preference (i.e. free will), regardless of whether our existence is owed to random causes or a purposeful god.
Yeah, but you don't ask how we got upon the ship. It's a reasonable question with no reasonable answer. Either it's not just an ancient ship, but an eternal one, or else some fucker put us here. So, pick your poison: you believe in eternal ships tossing about at sea that never got here but were always here or you believe in a shipbuilder. Quoting 180 Proof
Yep, and we choose to spend it right here.
Cause and purpose mean different things. There must be a cause but there might not be a purpose.
There's always a purpose. Be it simple, as a mental invalid wishing to express whatever their decrepit brain desires, or not. I feel you mean, there's not always a "goal" or aspect and dynamic of "intelligent reasoning" that can distinguish between past (knowledge), present (circumstance), and outcome (vision). Perhaps that's what you mean. :smile:
I think that crystalizes the position well, but problems remain:
It doesn't remedy your problem of wanting control over your life because that would require something interfering with the causal chain.
It eliminates any way to explain the origin of the matter that existed at the time of the Big Bang because "origin" references a first cause which cannot be if "there must be a cause" for everything.
And, probably most importantly, your comment is a statement of a worldview, which might just be a foundational disagreement. I think many do believe the opposite, as in "There must be a purpose, but there might not be a cause." This is consistent with a theological position, arguing from positions of eternity, creation ex nihlio, and ultimate purpose.
In context the phrase the purpose of life doesnt mean what I want to do with my life.
Its implicitly the purpose of all human life, and suggests that humanity exists to achieve the intended outcome of some higher power, whether that power be Yahweh, the Hindu pantheon, or the Engineers from the Prometheus movie.
I was really just referring to cause and purpose in the context of human life. Humans havent always existed, and nor did we spontaneously and without cause come into existence at some point in the past.
My point is just that there is a semantic difference between the phrases the origin of human life and the purpose of human life. The former refers to the manner in which human life came into existence (and there must be an explanation of some kind) and the latter refers to the outcome that human life is intended to achieve (and there might not be such a thing).
:up:
That'd be an idle question the existential fact remains: we're (stranded) on a storm-tossed ship indefinitely
I won't be there to see it.
To a simple, non-eternal being, perhaps it does suggest that. What of it, though?
You can think that way if you'd like, or perhaps you could think another way and that might be fine, too.
To give you a straight answer, I am trying to re-frame your common sense observation under an alternate light that perhaps we as mortal beings are simply incapable of understanding life and eternity or what have you and so manifest this inability in various forms, particularly stories, faiths, religions, and the like.
Or at the very least, that we have yet to reach such understanding as a species. Of course, the alternate "being incapable" is quite possible as well.
There does seem to be a clear theistic and non-theistic divide as far as this question is not only answered but processed. Which makes sense. Did we just evolve because after billions of years that's just what happened to have happened? Sure, that's plausible, I suppose. Not much evidence to the contrary. In my opinion, that would, unfortunately, seem to glorify war, violence, theft and everything we generally wish to avoid happening to us and those we care about as not just something people do but must do. That doesn't sit right with me, so I choose to believe something else.
There are many alternative possibilities as well. Perhaps we were made by a being that no longer exists. Perhaps we succeeded in our purpose, whatever it may have been, and now get to live unhindered by our past duties. It gets a bit hard to keep track of when you step over the logical edge like that and like most religions require, of course so generally isn't very productive in traditional philosophy.
Would you agree that if it were an absolute fact humanity simply evolved organically over millions of years, and the modern human is the most advanced and intelligent being in this and any universe, human life has in fact no real purpose? That is to say, no other purpose than that of a mosquito or a common cold germ? (That "purpose" being simply to propagate DNA)
It's not though, the meaning of life is both a thought and a feeling, that doesn't mean I can explain it as such. Plenty of books have also been written about the meaning of life so again you're just wrong.
Also it's not true the animals didn't evolve to have thoughts, plenty do. There is also nothing to suggest that the meaning of life is something we cannot experience because we are not cognitively evolved well.
The meaning of life is a human invention, nothing more. Hence why I said it's thoughts and feelings.
Quoting 180 Proof
Nothing.
It's not really a matter of that, there seems to be no purpose to life and as such we are able to make one. It looks to be that simple.
You're not really stepping over any logical edges with those "possibilities" (to be generous) since they end the same way, where we are now. That being there seems no purpose so we make one. Everything else you've said is mostly noise.
Being mortal doesn't really make one less capable of understanding life as being immortal, and whether we are able to or not remains to be seen. Maybe there is nothing to get after all, who really knows? Maybe it is just what one makes of it? Doesn't really seem to matter much which people go with.
Quoting 180 Proof
Well, yes, that's what I've been saying from the start.
Given the definition of the word "purpose", to say that "human life has no purpose" is just to say that "nothing and nobody is using human life to achieve some intended outcome".
This identifies the Principle of Sufficient Reason problem. We look for an explanation for everything in existence, and if we make an assertion that the thing always existed, then we're asserting it's just a brute fact (which is how some identify God). That is, if we say the universe has always existed, first consisting of primordial matter and later of more organized formations like humans, we are asserting a brute fact (the universe has just always been), but then you're disallowing that to apply to humans because you instinctively understand a human can't just suddenly occur from nowhere and that it cannot have always existed either. You are saying we need a sufficient reason to explain human existence but we don't need the same of the universe as a whole.
The problem is that what you say of humans in terms of that they must have come from something, you must also say of the universe. You can no more declare that humans are contingent upon causes due to something you identify as particular in humans that you are not also required to consistently apply to the universe wholly. If there is, you must identify what that is, but it cannot be the complexity of humans versus the complexity of the universe, as the laws of the universe as they must have existed in their primordial form arguably are significantly more complex than humans.
A way to resolve the PSR problem is to give a sufficient reason for the existence of humans and the universe, and there is nothing to require that the reason be a cause. The reason could be a purpose, meaning it makes as much sense logically to declare a first cause as the reason for our existence as it does a final purpose for our existence. That we have no way of knowing what the purpose is (or what the first cause was) is obvious, and both suffer an incoherence problem in trying to transcend the universe to explain the universe (i.e. looking for something outside the universe that caused the first cause or looking outside the universe for what gave the universe purpose). But these challenges are equal for either a teleological or a causal model.
This makes no sense.
"Humans exist because Martians intend to use us as food" is a non sequitur, whereas "humans exist because Martians created Adam and Eve in a lab and set them loose on Earth" isn't.
I think your reasoning stems from the fact that the word "reason" can be used to refer to both the "how" (e.g. "Martians created us in a lab") and the "why" (in the sense of motivation, e.g. "Martians intend to use us as food"), but to equate the two is to equivocate.
I really don't think I can add further, except commenting on your post. You mentioned that plenty of animals think. Could you please give me an example of an animal with the capacity to think? You also mentioned that the meaning of life is both a thought and a feeling, which, of course, does not mean anything at all.
Scientists have proven some chimpanzees "think about thinking", not to mention they use tools to solve problems. That, kind of warrants thinking, in a way.
Dogs in a cage who witness other dogs being killed before them feel a sense of dread and panic, thus suggesting they can, at least in some sense, acknowledge time in the past, present, future dynamic like people do.
Why do they do tricks for treats. Is it really just the Pavlov reaction? Sure they might just do it just to do it, no different than the average non-philosopher works a job for the paycheck, not realizing he's keeping society afloat but simply that he gets money that can be exchanged for stuff he can shove into his mouth and not starve.
Why would Socrates (or whoever) go on and on about making such a big deal about this so-called "unxamined life?" Because people don't think in any reasonable capacity beyond the bare minimum to exist.
Also, elephants mourn their dead. You're making this quite easy. Surely you could do a bit of research?
Quoting MoK
It does mean something, it means the meaning of life is our invention, we created the concept.
Also as for animals that can think, crows for one. Pigs. Most primates, there are many others. Sounds like you don't see how not special humans are in that department.
Quoting Outlander
It just sounds like they think humans are the exception when recent research into animals has shown that we are not special in much of what we do.
Who is "they?"
And, to @MoK's credit, it's not like any animals are going around fat shaming or judging one another by their economic value or political views. Or are they? :chin: :snicker:
They do, well not for that but shame is a thing in social animals.
Correct. I think I should have said that animals are not as well-evolved as humans when it comes to thinking. Anyhow, this thread is about meaning rather than thinking, so my point about the meaning stands still.
Yes, we created the concept, but we don't know what it refers to!
Yeah we do, again hundreds of books have been written on it.
I don't know. This is your thread, not mine. It is up to you to explain what meaning refers to in a couple of sentences, a paragraph, etc. Saying that there are books on this topic does not resolve the problem.
He's saying (perhaps his understanding of) the idea is so elementary it's found in innumerable places. He feels you are "talking past" his points. You should ask him specifically what it is he finds disagreement with as to your points, since, perhaps he misunderstands them as we can only word and describe things to the best of our ability, which per human development, varies based on age and many other factors.
I'm saying people know what the meaning of life means.
There is the possibility of misunderstanding. I, however, asked twice for a definition of the meaning of life, but he refused to provide one. Well, we cannot discuss the meaning of life if we don't know what it refers to.
And I am asking you for the third time if you could please provide a definition of the meaning of life or what the meaning of life refers to. This is your thread, and providing the definition of things that you use when people ask for them is necessary for any constructive discussion.
The meaning of life is literally what it says, you have the definition already. What that meaning is depends on who you ask.
Do you mean this?: The condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.
Think of it like having a favorite color. Everyone has one, and no one's favorite color is any more better or worse than that of another's.
He seems to be describing "life drive", what one wakes up for each morning. Everyone has something they favor over another thing, let that mean "meaning of life".
...and, cue renewing discussion!. Man, I love solving problems. They should pay me to be ambassador, of well, everyone, really. Imagine the peace that would bring.
Yes, we all have different preferences.
Quoting Outlander
Desires and emotions are life's forces, whereas thoughts are life's drive.
Quoting Outlander
I, too, love solving problems.
That's a description of what life is not the meaning of life.
So what is the meaning of life?
He's saying it is subjective, the "idea exists" the concept is what he is arguing, not the individual and specific actualization of said idea or concept. It's "whatever the person wants" or otherwise decides. So consider that as [s]free will[/s] (scratch that, let's not complicate things) but rather individual understanding and quasi-objective meaning in a world that for all we know may be as we understand it, or may be the opposite. This is a minor hang up.
What are you two even arguing about? I recall you made the claim "we cannot argue about the meaning if life if it is not defined." Which he seems to consider subjectivity as sufficient, and you, perhaps, seem to consider it fitting a universal textbook definition.These two beliefs are incompatible as far as one's preferred comfort zone and resulting reliance and grasp of concepts, but this does not in anyway make the larger argument possible. You must simply accept, in practical terms, his view of "there is no meaning of life but what we decide", similar to a piece of clay becoming a great piece of pottery in any respectable home, no matter what shape the potter wishes it to be, and he must accept, you do not consider this valid and therefore a fatal flaw in his argument. So we have two choices from that point. Either he can tailor his definition to yours, if not for fun, simply to further the discussion, or you can consider his premise flawed and no longer of any reasonable contribution or interest to continue.
It's all really quite simple.
I agree with most of the things that you said. The problem is that he didn't provide any definition for the meaning of life, so we cannot discuss whether the concept is subjective or objective.
That's pretty much what I mean, it's what you make of it. There is no overarching goal to life so you're free to do what you wish.