Lots of threads deal in some way with this topic.

Including -

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14165/fear-of-death/


I'm an atheist who enjoys life and has many types of meaning to engage with. I don't believe that humans have access to capital 'T' truth or 'ultimate reality' or that this is even a thing. For me meaning and values are human made. They don't come from outside us, encountered mysteriously, like some form of enlightenment. They come through history and culture and community and through kingship and friendship and experience.

I am not at the vanguard of theoretical physics, like most people, so the origin of the universe is not my subject - and nor do I much care. That said, I don't think anyone can demonstrate that there was ever 'nothing'. The need to invent a magic man as maker of all things seems to be one of our many meaning making stories. It helps some people to settle their generalised anxiety, even if it simultaneously fails to actually explain anything. Gods have no explanatory power. Goddidit is not an answer.

Experiences have their own powerful meanings - as sex, food, death, art, politics, conversation, relationships and work will soon demonstrate. But it's true that some people seem incapable of experiencing pleasure in life and some people's disadvantage is a huge barrier to experience. There's almost too much meaning and value out there to choose from, so for me the problem is the opposite of yours. It never occurred to me that we need eternity or gods to provide any significance.

I've never understood why the mere fact of being created by God confers any meaning on this universe, whether It created it or not.

There's another issue that is raised by the second question in the post:-

Then what do our experiences mean? We all have one fleeting moment after another and then we simply die. — jasonm

The implication is that meaning must be enduring - preferably life-long if not permanent. I don't buy this. There are some things in my life that I would call meaningful and have endured. There are other things that haven't. But that doesn't make them meaningless. I'm glad they happened, I shall treasure them as long as I have a memory. Moments that people treasure are part of life. That they are moments does not detract from their meaningfulness.

At least, that's true by my understanding of meaningfulness. In a sentence, something is meaningful if it is intrinsically valuable. That is, I don't feel any need to find any further justification for it. The arts provide many examples, but so do the sciences and even philosophy; one can find other examples everywhere in life. There's no problem with finding it, if one is looking for it - but not too hard because that spoils the effect. Asking whether something is meaningful is a good way of wrecking it as well.

Asking "what's the meaning of Life?" is as incoherent as asking "what's the meaning of Grammar?" It seems to me that only individual lives, like particular word-uses, can have meaning, and that meanings are as finite and mortal as their bearers.

No creator does not mean no creation.
No purpose does not mean meaninglessness.

:100:

One theory is that humans take the world as a stage for heroism. I'd frame the existential angst of my youth, in retrospect, for the fear that there was no genuinely heroic role to enact. We were all going to die and most people were sentimentally refusing to face it. Unless I could pile up something permanent, it was all futile. Now I see that the hopelessness and futility and risk and creativity is part of what makes living heroic. It might be comfortable in videogame created by God (maybe I'd still choose a good version of this), but it's not heroic. Only the damned are grand.

Jasonm,

What do you mean by “mean”? It can signify various things.

Under one definition, meaning is created when two people agree on the significance of a sign or symbol. For instance, the meaning of a red traffic light is to stop and wait until it turns green before proceeding. Notice, in this case mean doesn’t inhere in the red light itself; it is only our agreement that creates the meaning of a red traffic light.

With this definition, there can be no meaning to my life if I haven’t already agreed on what the meaning is.

Meaning is also used to mean purpose, but the two concepts are distinct. The meaning of the red traffic light is to stop; the purpose is to regulate traffic and prevent accidents.

So, what do you mean by “meaning of life”?

Instead of defining meaning, another way to address the question is to give a few sample answers, not answers you necessarily want to defend, just answers that give a hint as to what you mean by the “meaning of life”. For instance, the meaning of life is to love; the meaning of life is to attain salvation and spend eternity with Jesus; etc.

Then why does this world even exist? You would assume that no God and no purpose implies no universe, nothing. No creator implies nothingness. Therefore, our world and our lives just sort of "dangle" without any rationale or justification. Life and the universe are then just some sort of anomaly. In other words, Occam's Razor dictates that without a God, nothing should exist, and yet here we are alive, in existence, discussing this very issue.. Something therefore seems wrong with this notion... — jasonm

The world exists because there is a fundamental universal entity, principle or phenomenon with rules/or that is a rule, that involves change/transformation.

This is energy. Energy is not energy unless it does work. If energy is the only existant, then it can only "work on itself". Ie. Change the nature or characteristics of itself.

If this is a rule, then existence absolutely must exist/happen because:

energy =matter (e=mc2). And with both objects (matter-unfree/locked up energy) and actions (free energy) the universe can continue to "do stuff" and so does stuff.

And the stuff it did lead, through evolution (constant change due to persistence of change that continues over changes that don't/are dead ends), to more arrangements and interactions (new stuff). Emergent phenomena. Because nothing can stay the same as before (energy must do work) therefore emergence of novel existants is the only way forward.

Because the first stuff is simple. A single rule or premise. Then the only thing it can do is to complexify. More variations, more interactions, more options thus more complex and sophisticated interactions/systems - dynamics and relationships.

This emergent sophistication is what we call life, agency and awareness. Humans are great at obeying the law of change. Because imagination is a great way to conceive of, do and implement stuff (exert/manifest change).

Imagination is fast, spontaneous, effective and reformulatory in nature - the human equivalent of the "creative force" at work. New thoughts, new ideas, new songs, poetry, fictions, books, films, new emergent phenomena/existants.

We are just doing what energy has always done. Create from itself: reproduction, natural selection, invention, reinvention, change, culture, evolution, "improvement" of the changeable nature of energy.

Onwards and upwards.

Entropy - or the tendency of energy to become more chaotic and disordered, requires the creation of more and more variables for which to "disorder" or jumble up. More and more existants. More and more change. More and more things.

First it was elements, then that stabilised in place of more and more molecules and compounds (combinations of elements) then that stabilised in place of more and more replicators (combinations of compounds) then that stabilised in place of more and more genes/dna (combinations of replicators) , then that stabilised in place of more and more speciation (combinations of genes and dna) , and then that stabilised in place of more and more awareness and agency (combinations of the best/workable aspects of all species - through trial and error) , and thats how humans evolved.

Now it is our mental space and inventions that occupy the subject of energy to encourage change. Every more rapid and fast paced.

The next level will likely be what we create - artificial entities and their products and inventions.

All of it is energy doing what it does best. Change. Creation.

Cobblers.

You are making the cosmological argument again, with all its implicit logical flaws, but replacing god with a vacillation between energy and law, as if the existence of either of those were any better understood than the existence of the world.

And you dress this in the language of pseudo-science.

Doing philosophy is not making up just-so stories. While science may tell us how things are, it says nothing about why things are. And the reason for that is that the why is not something found in the world, but consists in what we do in the world. Meaning isn't found, it is constructed by us.

Doing philosophy is not making up just-so stories. — Banno

@Benj96 @Gnomon @Wayfarer et al

And the reason for that is that the why is not something found in the world, but consists in what we do in the world. Meaning isn't found, it is constructed by us. — Banno

:up:

The search for meaning is meaningful. The feeling of emptiness is a feeling of inadequacy to the task of being human.

It would be kind of these constructors of meaning to share with us inadequate philosophers the meaning they have constructed, but perhaps they have none to spare, or perhaps it is a fragile substance that cannot be transferred from one mind to another.

The best I can offer is a word, 'love', and a method, poverty. A life full of meaning is one that is given to others. Whatever you do for another will enrich your life with meaning, and whatever you do for yourself will impoverish its meaning.

And therefore in truth I reject this constructed meaning as mere glamour; the fools gold of fame, fortune and temporary self-satisfaction. Speak a kind word, because there is no meaning in unkind words.

Doing philosophy is not making up just-so stories — Banno

And the reason for that is that the why is not something found in the world, but consists in what we do in the world. — Banno

So making a best attempt rational story/explanation isn't doing something in the world? You contradict yourself a bit here.

Ultimately if the "Why" everything is the way it is cannot be found out there - in the real world, then the only place left for it to reside is in our minds.

And the only way minds tend to agree on what the "Why" is through debate and reasoning.

I offered my description as I understand, as thousands of people before me have and equally thousands after will do again. They are all stories or reasonings or "whys" we offer to one another regarding the nature of things.

Whether my logic meets the criterion for your logic (accordance) depends on whether we reason identically or in opposition.

with all its implicit logical flaws, — Banno

If they are implicit, pray tell what they are. WHAT. from your personal reasoning or logical paradigm, are the flaws in the explanation I gave can you and why?

Its not enough to say something is flawed and leave it at that whilst offering zero alternative.

No one tend to blindly go oh okay sure without an explanation of your own backing up the errors in need of correction.

Doing philosophy is not making up just-so stories.
— Banno
@Benj96 Gnomon @Wayfarer et al — 180 Proof

I don't understand how "just-so" stories are any worse than "just No" stories without a beginning, with no reasoning nor conclusion found at all, endlessly aimless and unresolved, no answer ever satisfying enough, never sufficient, never absolute.

Conclusion or mystery, making a choice/determination or living in skepticism of everything, either can be accepted as equally reasonable way of living and philosophising.

In fact the description I offered would have the implication that the story can never stay "just-so". It must evolve/change, be forgotten or redefined, but that isn't to say the "ability to change" isn't a constant, a stable, consistent property and thus the reason for my conclusion based story. Or "just-so" story. The constancy of change. Oxymoronic right?

a vacillation between energy and law, as if the existence of either of those were any better understood — Banno

Not well understood? Because that's what energy is. it's "definition" and it's "action" are synonymous. It "is" the existant that "does".

Unlike me for example: I "am" a human that "does" the laundry. Two separate existant things that aren't simultaneous nor identical in nature. My doing and being can be separated.

I am not doing laundry for the entirety of my human existence, nor does me being human depend on doing laundry, nor am I the same as laundry.

Energy is/does identically. A single phenomenon that can be divided into "is" (being pent up in the form of matter) and does (not being pent up, pushing it's pent up parts around).

It's premise and conclusion or the reason why and the because is entirely self contained/circular. It is because it can and it can because it is.
It is a unique existant in that sense. And a fundamental one.

In the following metaphor we have 2 philosophies analogised as geometry:

The Circular argument can be seen as irrational and unsatisfying from the point of view of an A to B linear argument. Where's the beginning? What's the reason. Where is the "Why?"

The linear argument however is faced with it's own dilemma, an infinity (endless regress in search of a base "why" ).

The circular argument solves this by looping the line into itself, still infinite, but not in an endless regressive style but a more self satisfying one revolving around a fixed reason/point/axis or purpose. In that sense, all the reasons and whys required are contained and sufficient.

So we can think linearly. Or circularly. Or choose to practise both methods in balance/harmony for their individual strengths and weaknesses.

That's up to us.

But thought obeys geometry of the physical dimensions in which it occupies, that is not up to us. So we must choose what stories to tell. And the reason why.

What story do you want to tell yourself about reality Banno? A "just-so" (circular) story or a "just-no" (linear) story?

The circular argument solves this by looping the line into itself, still infinite, but not in an endless regressive style but a more self satisfying one revolving around a fixed reason/point/axis or purpose. — Benj96

Also a neat little side note: the circumpunct - a circle with a dot in the center, is an old glyph that has been used around the world in various contexts to refer to monism - the absolute (Pythagoreans), to consciousness as well as in many religions. I believe this is based on circular argument and it's importance/ persistence in human philosophical and spiritual pursuits thoughout the eons.

Then again it may not be connected at all. Just a curious find.

I don't understand how "just-so" stories are any worse than "just No" stories without a beginning, — Benj96

"Just-no" stories are honest? They admit "I don't know".

Because that's what energy is. — Benj96

All you have done is replace notions of spirt with energy, making a pseudo-physics.

All you have done is replace notions of spirt with energy, making a pseudo-physics. — Banno

Energy isn't pseudo physics. It's the base of physics.

"Just-no" stories are honest? They admit "I don't know". — Banno

Just-so stories are also honest. For the converse reason that we also do know things. We understand logic/reasoning. It is how we bind phenomena together/make sensible relationships.
How to rationalise things in a way that reflects what they do/ are expected to do.

You say "just no" stories are honest as it admits one doesn't know. What if someone else does know? Or cones to know in the future? You'd just say they're being dishonest because your "just no" story is more honest.

Essentially then, "Just no" approach (the linear argument that must always have a previous cause in a chronological cause-effect chain) says there can't be ever be an answer.
A fundamental. An origin.

Because if there was, that answer would be "just so" - cause without a previous cause. Or a self fulfilling cycle. A finite and self sustaining, self verifying, self proving answer. A circular argument.

Whether you accept any given "story" or explanation as an answer is up to each indivudual and their personal criterion for what seems logical, rational, moral or acceptable for whatever personal bias they have. What they are expecting the answer to be.

But denying the quality/validity of answers because they are not what you expected them to be, or because they don't answer you the way you wanted them to answer you, is ironically also circular.

Ones prejudice dictating the answer they receive

Perhaps. But the use to which you put it in your theory does no work.

Look, Ben, you attempted to argue that the universe exists because energy exists. But all this does is move the question on step further back - instead of asking why the universe exists, we ask why energy exists...

Physics can't provide an answer to questions of meaning, of purpose, because such questions are not about physics. They are about intent. it's a different type of question, with different language and presumptions.

, we ask why energy exists... — Banno

That's fine we can discuss this now if you'd like. I also have thought about that a lot. Why energy exists.

Physics can't provide an answer to questions of meaning — Banno

Of course they can. Meaning is how we understand the physical world.
What's the meaning of speed? Physics: "it means the distance travelled per unit time." Thanks physics!

I think you're conflating meaning with subjective feelings and emotions and the notion of purpose/intent. That's only one side of meaning.

There is objective meaning too. Otherwise we couldn't use language to communicate any of the natural sciences.

Physics can't provide an answer to questions of meaning, of purpose, because such questions are not about physics. They are about intent. it's a different type of question, with different language and presumptions. — Banno

You're right physics can't answer the emotional, purpose and self identity aspects of meaning.

Yet I believe the origin, prime mover, first substance, must be able to satisfy both the emergence of the objective meaning of the world (the purview of physics) as well as the subjective meaning of the world (consciousness and it's content).

Therefore the most rational way to approach the qualities or behaviour of such a primary existant that gives rise to all of these things, is from a combination of descriptors for physics and descriptors for the mind, observation/perception etc.

As both exist as a direct result of it. And have to have a relationship/overlap with one another. The physical world and the mind can't originate and exist completely in isolation if one another.
There is interaction and there is conversion between the two.

So an academic discipline that can unify concepts from physics and metaphysics is what I believe must be better than either individually in their natural restrictions/bias by definition. Their individual dogmas.

I think you're conflating meaning with subjective feelings and emotions. — Benj96

Rather I am trying to have you see the difference between saying how something is and saying how it ought be. Physics is about how things are. It is silent as to what we might do about it.

There's a whole aspect of life, concerning our actions and our responses to how things are, that is left out of mere physics.

And what of it?

I didn't explain what anything ought to be. What I have described thus far is what I believe it "is". And what I believe it "is" is what you think I'm saying it "ought to be" because you believe it "isn't".

That's a fairly rational axis. If we don't agree. Then you perceive me to be suggesting fiction, whilst I believe I am suggesting fact/reason and vice versa.

What I have been trying to explain exhaustively all this time, is that if one wants to pursue a fundamental of reality. A singular thing. A "monad". One explanatory reason or concept.

Then it stands to reason that getting yourself worked up into a know over classifications of argument is not going to help you. Because a physics argument by itself is not going to explain a spiritual one, a metaphysical one, an economic one, etc.
Not are any of those goï g to explain the physics one.

These categories of approach to reality deny one another to selectively pursue their own methodology.

I'm trying to highlight that it's probably more sensible to unify things if you want a unified answer. Not discriminate and dissect them.

So I ask you Banno, to really exercise your "unifying" abilities, and play the "match-making game".

What are all the similarities between entities or concepts in physics, concepts in metaphysics, concepts in religion/spirituality, concepts in psychology, in economics. Literally pick any topic you want to make analogies between.

Because we get it. These disciplines are not the same. Everyone knows they are categorically different. That horse is well flogged to death. So why don't we for arguments sake do an exercise in proper comparison, find the compromise, the middle man, the center between the biases.

I believe I am suggesting fact/reason. — Benj96

I didn't just make assertions. i pointed out that

You are making the cosmological argument again, with all its implicit logical flaws, but replacing god with a vacillation between energy and law, as if the existence of either of those were any better understood than the existence of the world. — Banno

The cosmological argument is that the world depends on something else for it's creation, usually a theistic god. The argument has been shown wanting. You make the same argument, replacing god with energy; you claimed that the world is dependent on energy, or on rules, or on some combination - exactly which is left ambiguous. And you add, in treating this as answer to the OP, the non sequitur that this somehow gives us a meaning for life.

Meh. I'll leave you to it. Enjoy.

All of it is energy doing what it does best. Change. Creation. — Benj96

Yeah, in the largest scope and longest run, "energy" (as you describe it, Ben) seems quite meaningless and purposeless since it cannot not do what it's doing.

exactly which is left ambiguous — Banno

It's not left ambiguous you just gave up as outlined below:

Meh. I'll leave you to it. Enjoy. — Banno

Even though I offered to discuss it further specifically regarding energy as a fundamental see below:

That's fine we can discuss this now if you'd like. I also have thought about that a lot. Why energy exists. — Benj96

And yet you don't seem to be bothered. That's up to you. But I hadn't given up or exhausted my means of explaining the point of view.

You just decided you don't want to hear them.
All the best in that case. Enjoy your philosophisings

Yeah, in the largest scope and longest run, "energy" (as you describe it, Ben) seems quite meaningless and purposeless since it cannot not do what it's doing. — 180 Proof

Well it creates dichotomies doesn't it?
You can't have one side of something without the opposite.

So we can see something as "futile", "pointless" or "purposeless" because it always has an opposite exerting action against it.

Or we can see it as balanced. As a "justified" equation. That everything sorts itself out/self corrects and comes into balance eventually.

But that is a matter of perspective and personal choice right?
I suspect for every person that thinks the whole thing is pointless or futile. The nihilists. There are an equal amount of people who believe life and existence is full of meaning and purpose.

If I had to choose between the two, I prefer to operate in the optimistic, meaningful side. Because pointlessness seems like a good source of depression/suffering.

And why on earth would I want that for myself or other people. Thus I never try to actively convince people of pointlessness/futility or at least not to focus on that side of a dichotomy between nihilism and existentialism.

Sometimes people may interpret what I say as justification for feelings of pointlessness. But that is aside from my "intent".

My intent would be to elucidate through discussion fascinations, insights, and curiosities regarding existing. To imbue curiosity/passion for learning and wondering why, and if I'm lucky inherit a bit of wisdom for which to help others that are struggling with rectifying the "futility/pointlessness" side of the dichotomy.

I'm sure I'll meet resistance to persuasion along the way. Hence the need for discussion. Philosophising. I would love to hone my reasoning skills to overcome people's reasoning for promoting bad things. What greater purpose in life would I want?

Whatever "meaning" or "purpose" you find in X is the result of whatever you bring to X (e.g. just like logic or programming GIGO). Energy is used by us to make "meaning/purpose" but we are neither necessary nor inevitable with respect to energy; it exists whether or not we exist, and no matter what we make or do not make of it. "Meaning/purpose" are artifacts of adaptive embodied interests + discursive cognitions which are prior artifacts of local entropy gradients – energy long preceeds and absolutely encompasses ephemeral "meaning/purpose"-making blips in the void like us, Ben. :victory:

Meaning/purpose" are artifacts of adaptive embodied interests + discursive cognitions which are prior artifacts of local entropy gradients – energy long preceeds and absolutely encompasses ephemeral "meaning/purpose"-making blips in the void like us, Ben — 180 Proof

That indeed may all be true 180Proof.
And finally, in conclusion. How does that make you feel?
Do you suffer because of that rationalisation, or does it make life light, playful, free of serious burdens?

For me, whether we are here completely by accident, as a mere pointless blip in the universe with absolutely no impact, or we are here as the product of the universes process of self evaluation/self perception, and our philosophical abilities are the ability to appreciate the entirety from a tiny speck, for me they're neither here nor there.

For me, I enjoy the process whatever it is. Tiny pointless speck or not. What about you?


Why might 2 people have the same belief, but for one it makes them happy, and for the other it makes them sad. How would you explain that dynamic coming about?

That indeed may all be true 180Proof.
And finally, in conclusion. How does that make you feel? — Benj96

If existence (e.g. "energy") has a Meaning / Purpose that we haven't created, then we are nothing but prostrate slaves before that alien Meaning/Purpose. I think our freedom as individual and collective agencies consist in us having to create, or make, our lives as meaningful / purposeful for ourselves and each other as we are able to day to day. Existence is a blank page or canvas; how will we fill it – with poetry, theorems, blueprints, musical scores, epic hero journeys, doodles, painted scenes, family histories & photos, philosophical treatises, pastoral sermons, political speeches, love letters, pornography, fashion designs, ambitious plans for explorations of distant planets & moons, or make intricate orgami figures ... or leave it blank? Or just splatter our brains all over it ... Non serviam, my friend. Amor fati.

:death: :flower:

I think again as I discussed with Banno. There are different levels of meaning. There is the innate objective "meanings" or descriptions/associations/relationships between things that happens.

For example a big asteroid hitting the moon "means" a plume of moon dust will occur. These understandings are innate. Regardless of whether we say the asteroid is a rock or a simulation or a god etc - applied (subjective) meanings.

So we are slaves to the rules of physics. What physics "means" - what happens/will happen.

Just as we are slaves to climate change, we either fix it, or adapt to it. There is no other choice to live with it.

But we also create our own meaning of course: music poetry etc. This is not innate but personal and societal.

So we are in a way "Happy slaves" distracted from the servitude (obedience to universal laws) imposed on us by nature with all of our meaning making entertainment. Distracted to existential threat and the frailty of our bodies by a good song or an interesting film.

So long as we understand and obey universal laws, physics, we can make as much art, music, poetry, food and porn as we like and our continuity of existence will continue.

If we violate the masterplans/blueprint (universe set up), that violation is simultaneously our trajectory towards death/self destruction.

Energy creates and destroys. Physics is the understanding of how and whys of this ongoing process.