On the meaning of life
December 24th 2006 04:12
Rather, people seem to have (I think) three other meanings of meaning in mind.
Firstly, they want purpose. How should I direct myself, what should I do... And there is envisaged some sort of pyramid structure culminating in a single point -- you want the meaning of life -- you're not looking for a diffuse set of multiple intrinsic values.
And people want to be able to cut away the inessential in light of that point. Every activity in life should be geared towards something, should make sense in terms of something (and so should the whole?).
Secondly, they want coherence and understanding. They want a belief framework that unites the disparate elements.
Religion puts everything in its place -- this is its prime attraction.
And the most popular substitute for God is science.
Thirdly, they want a solution to the sensation of meaninglessness. They want the emotions that come from purpose and coherence, even if they think that most other emotions are vanity. They want the intuition, the feeling, that their activites, their lives, are important and not time-wasting -- which in turn often implies connection to a larger whole, since nothing is intelligibly important in terms of itself.
This third category is a restriction on existentialist freedom. For while you can give your life purpose by arbitrarily choosing, some purposes just plain aren't meaningful -- it would be unsatisfying to dedicate yourself to counting the blades of grass in Hyde Park, or staring at blank wall.
***
So this, I think, is essentially what people desire from meaning, from the meaning of life -- purpose, coherence, emotional satisfaction.
But whether they should desire this is a different matter.
I'm ignorant of when people first asked the question, wanting to know if life had a meaning, or assuming that it did. But in the old days, you asked after the good life, not the meaning of one.
It's very possible that other cultures, other times, don't understand the question, don't feel the desire, don't grasp the concepts, don't see why anyone would want to unite them under the one heading.
***
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article The answer to life, the universe, and everything.
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Comment by Oblivion
I have to say I am surprised, I never thought you would bring up the one daunting question that continues to plague mankind. I didn’t think you had it in you. I will make this comment short, since you basically hit the bull-eye on the concept…( I could go on for ages about this).
I want to play ’devil’s advocate’ and suggest something. Something that I ran into and read a while back. It suggests something along the lines of this: Perhaps this question…”What is the Meaning of Life?”… is not really a question in the first place. It may look like a question, sound like a question, and fool the mind into thinking that it is a question…but it is in fact a psuedoquestion. The task of finding an answer is doomed at an epistemological stage. In absolute terms, it cannot be answered because there is an infinity of answers in its wake. And let’s also think about how we cognitively interpret the answer… it traces back to the vary foundation of who we are--which is our beliefs or in other words our axioms. “That which to be assumed.” Things we view as common sense…like causality. Since axioms (according to the person that suggested this) are un-provable assumptions and vary in multitudes, we are generally stuck in a bind with a question to which we think there is a sort of “pyramid structure culminating to a single point.”
But who really knows? I lean towards Monty Python’s answer: “Well, it’s nothing very special. Try to be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.” Long live Monty Python!
Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays (whichever you prefer)
Comment by Anonymous
Comment by Anonymous
Comment by Anonymous
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Your command of Monty Python is commendable.
I'm very sympathetic to the view that "What is the meaning of life?" is a bullshit, nonsensical, pseudoquestion. (And this is the obvious interpretation of what Hitchhiker's is getting at with the 42 stuff.) It may be comparable to an argument over the colour of Santa's underwear (a question where there is no fact of the matter) or to a discussion about a round square (where there is no sense to the question).
But I also think that the issue is linked to "How are you?". When people ask about the meaning of life, even if it's a cry from the heart, and devoid of intention, like a grunt, there's still a reason they make the grunt. Hence, I focused on what people want, not what they mean.
I don't quite understand the argument you give for why the question is a pseudoquestion (will ponder on it further). But it's similar to what I'm told the logical positivists said (which is also an argument that I don't quite understand). Basically, something like: you can talk about the meaning of everything WITHIN life, but when you talk about the meaning of life itself, you're pushing the word "meaning" (or "purpose") beyond it's proper scope. It's like asking what came before the start. Everything can make sense in terms of a whole, but there's nothing for the whole itself to make sense in terms of.
I take it your argument says something similar when it speaks of axioms.
Happy Jesus' arbitrarily-dated birthday to you!
Dear Anon,
I don't think you need to be self-conscious about spelling and punctuation. It's the idea that matters, not the expression. And please provide a link to your blog -- I'd be curious to read it.
You've made a few claims about philosophy in general (for instance, that it is more concerned with point-scoring than truth, that it is an attempt to gain power, that it fails in its bid at power). I'm going to leave these points unaddressed, unless you particularly want to discuss them. I'm more interested in clarifying the main ideas of this post and finding where you disagree.
So I'm going to restate the argument in brief, and will try to minimize jargon.
Basically, I'm talking about the question "What is the meaning of life?", and, in the first part of the post, I'm making a claim about what sort of answer people want from the question.
And I reckon people want three things:
-- (1) a single goal that they can shape their lives around (like "The meaning of life is to be happy" or "The meaning of life is to worship God", etc);
-- (2) answers to all the questions that bug them (in particular, questions about what is right and wrong);
-- (3) the feeling that what they're doing with their life is not meaningless.
At the end of the post, I suggest that it might not be realistic to want an answer to all these things.
What I'm saying might be nonsense. I personally don't think so, but if you have the time, please tell me which part of this summary (or of the post itself) you disagree with, or what doesn't make sense, or what's unclear, or what's jargon and not substance.
And, if you're serious about this discussion, do tell me what your own take is. What do you think people mean when they say, "What is the meaning of life?" What sort of answer are they looking for?
Comment by Damo
I have heard a lot of answers that make various amount of sense.
1-There is no meaning. Stuff Just happen. We eat we shit we die.
2-We are put on Earth to enjoy ourselve as much as we can. The Garden of Headen.
3-We are the folly of the Gods. They kill us for their sport. Stiff upper lip.
4-To understand the value of this life in such a way that we can better appreciate and enjoy the afterlife.
5-We are being tested for a time
6-If you have time to worry about the meaning of life you are not living it.
7-To feel, love and to know love.
8-To produce the next generation.
9-42
10-To seek the truth
Please tick the one you like or add one that better suits your meaning.
It is an important question even if rephrased as what is my purpose in life? Why am I here? Where am I going? How long have I got? (ref: Bladerunner)
it may be that this question is so huge that no one person can comprehend it in a lifetime. Perhaps this question existed when were living in caves and picking fleas off each other. Perhaps it existed before we invented words to ask the question. Perhaps the language we use cannot even begin to express what we are trying to ask ourselves. And if we found the answer but were unimpressed then what?
Comment by Norm
Consumption Malfunction
Equal and Opposite
Arses and Elbows
Footy Power
Death-Birth.
What's the opposite of Life?
Life-Work?
What is the meaning of work?
Maybe that's just it. The meaning of life is work.
Eggnogged, Norm.
Comment by The Voices in my Head
The Voices in my Head
Human beings were cursed with an evolutionary development in the brain stem. It causes us to think there is more than there is to life and its meaning.
There are no answers, as you and others have said, to this eternal, infernal question.
Yet, I comment and try. The circle continues.
Voices~
PS: Anon is quite an ass, isn't he? Don't answer that...it's rhetorical but at least there is an answer! *smile*
Comment by Lilla
From The Home Front
Enviro Warrior
Dream Herald
Esoteric Bookshop
Monty Python had it sussed,
Life 'aint so serious,
so did Pythagoras
the way is humorous...
but in choosing …
confusion..
creeps once again
into the night…
The Rolling Stones,
Sang it proud…
‘You can’t always get,
… what you want…
..but sometimes,
you just might get what you need!’
but we whine…
we pray,
.. and we bleed…
The Small Faces
Tried to sing it too…
“life is just a bowl of all-bran..
You wake up every mornin’…
And it’s there…
So live your life…
… as best as you can,
It’s all about,
Enjoy it,
There ain’t no one…
… can take it away.”
There were many more,
Who took on the chore,
..of defining…
'the way…'
but, soon they all clamoured…
which way?
So, back to confusion,
Poor supplication,
Instead of trusting in each moment,
In the strength of each day…
Look what’s before you,
If it ignores you,
Don’t peek.
Run away…
…it’s not for you
..for to be true,
and truth to find…
You must learn…
To discern ..
…to ride the wind like bullseye..
Then ask yourself …
Can I let it all go…
..and happiness find?
If you answer no,
You have not learned,
… that in your mind…
It is yourself you still seek.
Comment by JoshZ
great post. The quote that you have there "I'm ignorant of when people first asked the question, wanting to know if life had a meaning, or assuming that it did. But in the old days, you asked after the good life, not the meaning of one."
Is brilliant. I might steal it.
JZ
Comment by Anonymous
Comment by Stanley
i just wanted to say thanks for giving me so much pleasure in reading your stuff!
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Dear Damo, will resist the temptation to respond to some of those potential answers. Each one would probably take a post. But wanted to respond to two of the other remarks you make.
"It is an important question even if rephrased as what is my purpose in life? Why am I here?" -- Say we discovered that there's a God, and that we were invented for a reason. Should we then follow that reason? Why should God's purpose be our purpose?
"Perhaps the language we use cannot even begin to express what we are trying to ask ourselves." -- This is a profound claim. I think so anyway... Wittgenstein says something similar when he remarks that to speak of absolute value in ethics is an attempt to go beyond language, but that this is a deep-seated tendency in the human mind, and he, for one, would not ridicule it...
Dear Eggnogged Norm,
You're quite right.
The opposite of life is not owning a plasma TV.
And the meaning of not owning a plasma TV is self-evident.
Regards,
Chocolated Adrian
Dear Voices, thanks for your thoughts.
Levinas said something obscure along the lines of: one becomes conscious of, or creates, the self by way of recognizing, defining oneself against, an other. So, in consciousness, one finds various other-directed ethical questions "always already" there.
It seems to me you raise a similar possibility. That the question of meaning is also always already there, and is somehow part-and-parcel of having a self at all.
Dear Lilla, thanks for your poem!
"Look what’s before you,
If it ignores you,
Don’t peek."
As opposed to beating your head against a wall, and screaming insanely, then beating some more?
"Then ask yourself …
Can I let it all go…
..and happiness find?"
But I wonder if there is more to life than happiness...
"It is yourself you still seek."
And I wonder if there is ever any self to be found.
Dear JZ, feel free to steal the quote, but I have to remark that the word "good" in it wasn't intended to mean "moral" (and I suspect you have interpreted it this way).
With apologies to the Anon who commented on lack of clarity before, "good life" probably is philosophers' jargon. It just means the desirable life, the life one that people should lead.
So all I was saying was that the Greeks asked "What should I do in my lifetime?" rather than "What is the meaning of life?"...
Dear Anon, please don't abuse my guests.
Dear Stanley, thank you for your Christmas present!
Comment by The Voices in my Head
The Voices in my Head
That is sweet that you asked Anon not to abuse your guests...
anon(person), (which can and should be taken two different ways),
I thought so...and now, I KNOW so. Who ELSE would be digging around, spewing verbal vomit on Christmas day?
Alone.
LMAO...and you tell ME to get a life??
Priceless.
This has really made my day.
I was considering leaving Orble...and now? God, I'm so glad I didn't.
Voices~
Comment by LaurenD
LaurenD
Comment by Anonymous
No matter the confrontations, I hope all of you end up having a good day.
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
There have been plenty of people, throughout history, willing to take a crack at the question of the purpose of life, what should I do with my time, what's valuable in life, etc. Far fewer people have been willing to talk about the "meaning" of life, but there are some professional philosophers who do so (though I haven't read any of their writings).
If you'd like to discuss the question more, by all means post your thoughts here. Other than that, the best I can do is refer you to the Wikipedia entry, though I don't know how meaningful it is.
Thanks for your comments, and thanks for balancing out the other Anon. I hope you have a great day as well.