Screwdrivers make useless teapots.

Until you set out to do something, yes, everything is futile.

But as soon as you decide to do something...

One possible meaning is 'absurd', in which case the statement is just a less elegant restatement of Camus' famous observation of life's absurdity which, seemingly paradoxically, can be a magnificently life-affirming statement. — andrewk

So I could say back to them "Life is not futile, but it is absurd". Because life is useful to me if I am to enjoy living. Is that circular though?

Another meaning is something like Keynes's observation that 'In the long run we are all dead'. When Keynes says it, he's making an important point about economics, that while we do need to focus on long term as well as short term goals, there is a diminishing utility as that long term gets further away. But some nihilists adopt this to mean that there's no point in doing anything here and now - which begs the question 'what do you mean by no point?'. To me there's plenty of point. If I can create pleasure or remove harm from somebody else or for myself, that is all the point I need. — andrewk

Yes, I have made a thread on this "why do you need to live for ever in order for life to be meaningful". When I hear 'In the long run we are all dead' it sounds so intuitively true that because we die, nothing matters. But then when you ask "why do you need to live for ever in order for life to be meaningful" it suddenly becomes clear how absurd it is to think like that. Nevertheless, I STILL THINK LIKE THAT! lol, I just can't get away from it. Maybe it has something to do with copying the same reasoning of smaller process that occur in shorter periods of time like say a person who is bugging you. You can say to yourself "oh well, they will only be around for a few more minutes, therefore it is not that bad".

Screwdrivers make useless teapots.

Until you set out to do something, yes, everything is futile.

But as soon as you decide to do something... — Banno

Cool post. Is not that something that you set out to do ultimately futile though? Seeing as it was futile before as a default state, then you begin your endeavour to obtain a goal within that state of futility.

With the unicorn example, what's at issue is whether a particular sort of creature exists, where we're talking about something external to one's mind.

When we're talking about usefulness or value or assessments of whether something smells good or bad, etc., we're talking about something that isn't at all external to one's mind. We're talking about something that solely occurs as an individual's present/conscious mental phenomenon at a particular time. — Terrapin Station

So if there was no mind to think of unicorns, how would they think about them? AFAIK unicorns are imaginary and imagination is a product of the mind. The analogy is no different as it's purpose was to point out the ridiculousness of believable ideas that can be justified by the self alone.

Anyway, you really didn't respond to any of the issues I raised about self-justification and circularity which I was hoping you would.

As pointed out a number of times it depends on what you are talking about. — Jeremiah

That is a pretty simple statement, so vague it has many interpretations.

Futility is a limitation in terms of something else. Fighting a one-man revolution is an exercise in futility, for example. Trying to bring back the dead is futile. Proving God's existence on pure reason alone is an exercise in futility, despite what some super-sophisticated theologians might pretend to know.

Not everything is futile so long as it's described within a context that makes action worthwhile.

But if we're talking about the state of the world, where it's going, where we are going as a species, what we're doing and why we're doing it in the first place, all within a broad, existential cosmic context, then I would say it's pretty obvious that we spend a great deal of effort fighting the unstoppable force of entropy. That surely is futility. — darthbarracuda

I see this trend in many others areas of philosophy. A categorical distinction between words that describe simple, practical, dependant and finite processes (such as Fighting a one-man revolution, Trying to bring back the dead, Proving God's existence on pure reason, which you so elegantly laid out for us) and there is the other class which is defined in terms of absolute, universal, "cosmic".

It seems you can have non-futile actions if a futile universe. What sense does it even make to call a universe futile though? If it has no purpose, then it is futile. I doubt we can find out the answer to that so the best we can do is imagine both states where it is futile and where it isn't and decide what the differences are.

so vague it has many interpretations. — intrapersona

Only if you are purposely being obtuse. Let's get realistic here, the base concept is not that hard to grasp.

Philosophy has become the act of taking the simple and making it sound far more complicated than it is.

Philosophy has become the act of taking the simple and making it sound far more complicated than it is. — Jeremiah

You really have a bad habit of saying simple things while thinking that they are easily understood. This is a forum and sentences can have multiple meanings, that is why we go in to detail and flesh out what it is we are trying to say.

When you make broad statements like "Let's get realistic here, the base concept is not that hard to grasp." You have entirely left out what concept however base it is that is not that hard to grasp.

In fact that statement really doesn't say anything about anything apart from "this is easy".

The next statement "Philosophy has become the act of taking the simple and making it sound far more complicated than it is." is a quote i have heard many times and doesn't really contribute anything to what has been said.

If you want to make good conversations then you have to address SPECIFICALLY what someone has said and not just make brief statements that could exist on there own without any context to this thread.

If you want to make good conversations — intrapersona

Or I can just move on and find someone that doesn't need everything explained to them.

This thread was resolved by m-theory on the fourth post.

Futile relative to what?

Suppose I decide to pursue one of two goals.
To spin gold from straw
Or
To get a glass of water from the tap

Obviously one of these goals is less futile than the other. — m-theory

Is not that something that you set out to do ultimately futile though? — intrapersona

An act is futile iff it will not produce a useful result; if it is without purpose. But purposes are not things we find floating around the place; they are things we decide to do. Something can only be futile in relation to a given purpose.

So "ultimately futile" is a senseless expression, in that it is an attempt to make use of the notion of futility without a purpose.

Is everything futile? Yes, if you set no goals.

It seems you can have non-futile actions if a futile universe. What sense does it even make to call a universe futile though? If it has no purpose, then it is futile. I doubt we can find out the answer to that so the best we can do is imagine both states where it is futile and where it isn't and decide what the differences are. — intrapersona

I wouldn't say the universe itself is futile. Maybe it could be argued that it has a knack at creating futility. Or in a more absurdist light, the universe is programmed to maximize irony. Ha!

Actions, processes, goals, those sorts of things are futile, again in terms of a limiting context.

So if there was no mind to think of unicorns, how would they think about them? AFAIK unicorns are imaginary and imagination is a product of the mind. The analogy is no different as it's purpose was to point out the ridiculousness of believable ideas that can be justified by the self alone. — intrapersona

Some things are only mental phenoma though. Those things include values, assessments (of things like usefulness), etc.

Re "self-justification and circularity," when we're talking about something like values and assessments of usefulness, we're not talking about truth claims. We're talking about how someone feels about something.

Someone said this to me today that "when you break it all down everything is futile".

Instinctively I said yes but is there not some leeway in terms of perspective?

Is this argument purely about processes we observe and participate in in life or are all processes ends in themselves and are therefore unable to be termed futile as futility is a human construct design to determine the value of any given thing. — intrapersona

I think many of us are raised in the context of religion. If not in the context of religion proper (God created the world and will eventually judge), then in terms of moral, intellectual, and technological Progress. As for so many others, God went and died on me as I read some books and did some passionate thinking. Perhaps one still believes in progress, but there's no apparent stopping point for this progress, so there's a new open-endedness. Then of course there one's own abandonment of personal immortality. This is probably the real source of the interest in futility.

I'd say that the fantasy is to escape death culturally if not biologically. If only we can write the great American novel or a work of philosophy that men will not willingly drop down the memory hole, THEN our essence, particular and yet somehow universalized in language while retaining that particularity, will survive at least as long as humanity does. Pretty grandiose, yes? And maybe this motive in individuals has served us well as a species. The problem of course is that we now see ourselves as relative microbes in a vast darkness that will eventually obliterate us. We have to learn to affirm total death, an erasure of the most hard-won and precious truths and works that personality as mask is made of. So I read "everything as futile" in terms of "immortality is impossible." It's the death of God reverberating.

But then our itch for ultimate meaning is, in my view, really much smaller than our itch for present tense satisfaction and our concern with the nearer future. Our concern "fades out" as we look further into the future. This squares with the increasing uncertainty of the future as we move away from the present. If we stress the function of consciousness as a path-finder or decision maker, it more or less wastes its computational resources worrying about not-yet-likely possibilities in the context the likely possibilities of the near future. Humans are not disembodied intelligence, though philosophers impressively push decontextualized thinking to extremes. We might even look to see whether apparently non-local concerns don't function symbolically as signs of virtue or authority among local concerns. For example, perhaps an individual embraces the pain of ultimate futility for the pleasure of escaping all authority and responsibility in the long run --in other words for the thrill of the "unbearable lightness of being."