• niki wonoto
    24
    There is no meaning of life. We just exist, and die. And life goes on, and on, and on. For million, billion of years, etc etc etc.

    We are just a speck of dust in the vast universe, in the grand scheme of things.

    Of course, 90% (or 99%?) of people (human beings) will always try to find or give 'meaning/purpose' in their own insignificant lives, because the reason is simple: it's survival instinct. Human beings (people) will (usually) try to keep living, keep surviving, no matter what. It's evolutionary. It's in human nature.
    Even if it means people (humans) will create anything as their toxic positivity & optimism bias, especially in today's world/era.
    But it all still doesn't make it true.
    It's just delusions, illusions, fantasy, wishful-thinking, & human's futile hope, wishes, imaginations, dreams, expectations, theories, etc etc etc
    But it's not the harsh reality/truth/facts, because people don't want to hear the harsh reality/truth/fact. People only want to hear good things only (most people), even if it's in their own denial, ignorance, blind faith, naivety, simple-mindedness, & stupidity.

    There is no meaning of life.
  • Tobias
    1k
    But it all still doesn't make it true.
    It's just delusions, illusions, fantasy, wishful-thinking, & human's futile hope, wishes, imaginations, dreams, expectations, theories, etc etc etc
    niki wonoto

    What makes you assertions anymore true than theirs? Give a bit more of an argument otherwise it is just a silly rant.
  • NOS4A2
    9k


    You’ve supplied meaning to life with those remarks. However slight the significance might sound, you’ve still deemed life worthy enough of your attention and meaning. The difference is yours is not as aesthetically pleasing as other accounts. Yours is thick on the metaphor while loose with the truth.
  • Judaka
    1.7k

    Truth is a quality given to "correct reference", it's "the right answer", and what's "right" is determined by the logic of the sentence and the words being used. If the "right answer" is specific and measurable, and based on stable concepts, for example, "How many planets are there in our solar system?" Then "truth" can appear transcendent, and there it embodies the qualities that we think the word should have, of being objective and authoritative.

    "Meaning" is neither specific nor measurable, it's context-dependent, and there are many valid arguments that can be made for what something "means". There is no authoritative "truth" to something's meaning because the logic of "What something means" precludes any definitive answer. Perhaps it's that which you've identified, and it's thus the self-assuredness with which others claim life has meaning that you find foolish.

    To say definitively that there's no meaning to life is just as lacking in authority as definitively saying that there is a meaning to life. As it stands, you've just repeated the error. The only thing we can say definitively is that there's no definitive answer to the question of life's meaning.
  • unenlightened
    9.1k
    Meaning is a three way relation. for example, reality means 'harsh' to
    @niki wonoto, or the salmon run means "breakfast" to a hungry bear. The form, in general, is that X means Y to Z.

    but I suspect that when you say 'life', you are speaking personally, such that your formula is:– @niki wonoto means "nothing" to @niki wonoto.

    Which is only to be expected, because meaning is shared, whereas your meaning relates only to yourself. What this shows, and what you claim, therefore is a simple truth, that self-concern, without relation to others is meaningless and ultimately futile. X means nothing to X.

    Whereas I can report to you that self-concern can derive meaning when it is derived from concern for another who is concerned for you.

    X means something to Z.
    AND
    Z means something to X.

    Gives the basis on which

    X means something to X.

    This is the relationship of love, whereby, if @niki wonoto cares about some other who cares about @niki wonoto, then he would no longer find his own life meaningless.

  • Corvus
    3k
    There is no meaning of life.niki wonoto

    Meaning of life is to be searched / created by each individual to suit their own desire, purpose and taste in life. :)
  • universeness
    6.3k
    I think @niki wonoto likes to spark but does not stick around to take part in fighting the resultant flames. A pure provocateur, would be my bet.
  • Pussycat
    379
    Dont be silly, even if theres no meaning in life, one can easily create one with the technique of (auto) suggestion, u can read all about it in the news.
  • javi2541997
    5.6k
    Meaning of life is to be searched / created by each individual to suit their own desire,Corvus

    Dont be silly, even if theres no meaning in life, one can easily createPussycat

    Exactly. Good points both of you.
  • Corvus
    3k
    Read somewhere, meaning of life is to find / create meaning of life. :cool:
  • Pantagruel
    3.4k
    There is no meaning of life. We just exist, and die. And life goes on, and on, and on. For million, billion of years, etc etc etc.niki wonoto

    Translation: I have failed to find meaning, therefore no one else can find meaning either.

    It places rather a high valuation on your personal abilities and experiences. Perhaps there are people who have had significantly different experiences than yours. Perhaps quite a few.
  • Vera Mont
    4.2k
    Why would life - the essential property that distinguishes passive matter from energy-consuming matter that knows itself - need any more meaning than that? Why is life not sufficient in itself?
  • universeness
    6.3k
    Why is life not sufficient in itself?Vera Mont

    Searching for an answer to your question could bring meaning to a life!
  • Ciceronianus
    3k
    There is no meaning of life.niki wonoto

    Well, if that's so, there's nothing to be concerned about. Tu ne quaesieris as Horace says:

    no one’s allowed to know his fate,
    Not you, not me: don’t ask, don’t hunt for answers
    In tea leaves or palms. Be patient with whatever comes.
    This could be our last winter, it could be many
    More, pounding the Tuscan Sea on these rocks:
    Do what you must, be wise, cut your vines
    And forget about hope. Time goes running, even
    As we talk. Take the present, the future’s no one’s affair.
  • Vera Mont
    4.2k
    Searching for an answer to your question could bring meaning to a life!universeness

    What for? Life is its own meaning, its own purpose, its own narrative. The search for some artificial meaning is a huge waste of life... and lives. I mean, look at the result when lots of people find their "meaning" in a god or cause or national aspiration! Or when one loud enough asshole finds his own meaning in manipulation and domination of others.
  • Patterner
    896
    Anybody/thing capable of understanding the concept is free to choose the meaning of their own life.
  • Corvus
    3k
    Some people are content with just living, and some seek the meaning of life. Each to their own.
    Meaning of life doesn't have to be something grandiose or drastically dramatic.

    Anything, no matter how trivial, one finds happy doing, makes them absorbed, totally oblivious of life and the world could be good enough meaning of life.
  • Angelo Cannata
    354

    You wrote that 90 or 99% of people will carry on looking for a meaning. As a consequence, you should agree that, by posing your question, you have automatically put yourself in this group. Then you wrote that people find toxic answers. If this phenomenon is so widespread, we should at least suspect that the question itself is toxic. It is not difficult to find reasons for this: for example, the question is reductive: it tries, surreptitiously, to reduce life to something else, to a meaning. Besides, that meaning is already supposed to be better than life, because the question itself implies that life without a meaning is not a good thing. Thus we can see that your question is really toxic, because it contains the ready made assumption that life is not a good thing, unless it finds some meaning as its justification. Such a toxic question needs, of course, to be thrown away and we need to keep ourselves vigilant to avoid any other surreptitious coming back of it under different masks.
    Once we have gained this step, a better question could be: what are the best ways to approach life, to connect ourselves with life, to have an as much as possible good and fruitful relationship with life?
  • Corvus
    3k
    Questions on the meaning of life have been asked millions of times from ancient times by the Stoics, philosophers of Religion and Existentialism, and it is a perfectly good philosophy topic.

    It is natural and human thing to do for mature adult people to ask such questions at some point in their lives, have thoughts or debates on the topic without having to feel stress, guilt or negativity.

    Seeking the meaning of life is not replacing life with meanings, but trying to find what makes life happy and worthwhile.
  • Vera Mont
    4.2k
    Seeking the meaning of life is not replacing life with meanings, but trying to find what makes life happy and worthwhile.Corvus

    Then it's the wrong question.
    "Meaning" is necessary for a conveyance or container: it exists for its content - the information it delivers. What does the skull and crossbones label mean? It's a warning that the bottle contains poisonous material. What does 'onomatopoeia' mean? The formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named. What does a red and blue marine flag mean? This ship is directing its course to starboard. What does life mean? That something is not inanimate or dead. That's what the word 'life' means. The property of aliveness itself cannot be interpreted as information. We are not mere symbols to convey a message to some external intelligence.

    Just so.

    A particular life can be observed, examined, scrutinized, studied analyzed: it can be described. It can be influenced, modified, damaged, improved, enlarged, diminished, prolonged or curtailed.
    Valid questions might be: What is required to prolong my life? How can I spoil that man's life? Could this child's life be made happier? How might that woman's life be more rewarding?
  • chiknsld
    314
    There is no meaning of life. We just exist, and die. And life goes on, and on, and on. For million, billion of years, etc etc etc.

    We are just a speck of dust in the vast universe, in the grand scheme of things.

    Of course, 90% (or 99%?) of people (human beings) will always try to find or give 'meaning/purpose' in their own insignificant lives, because the reason is simple: it's survival instinct. Human beings (people) will (usually) try to keep living, keep surviving, no matter what. It's evolutionary. It's in human nature.
    Even if it means people (humans) will create anything as their toxic positivity & optimism bias, especially in today's world/era.
    But it all still doesn't make it true.
    It's just delusions, illusions, fantasy, wishful-thinking, & human's futile hope, wishes, imaginations, dreams, expectations, theories, etc etc etc
    But it's not the harsh reality/truth/facts, because people don't want to hear the harsh reality/truth/fact. People only want to hear good things only (most people), even if it's in their own denial, ignorance, blind faith, naivety, simple-mindedness, & stupidity.

    There is no meaning of life.
    niki wonoto

    You must discover what your purpose is, lest you live a life of waste and obtuse thinking. :smile:
  • wonderer1
    2.2k
    And life goes on, and on, and on. For million, billion of years, etc etc etc.niki wonoto

    Hoping for that gives purpose to some of us.
  • Corvus
    3k
    Then it's the wrong question.Vera Mont

    What does life mean? That something is not inanimate or dead. That's what the word 'life' means. The property of aliveness itself cannot be interpreted as information. We are not mere symbols to convey a message to some external intelligence.Vera Mont

    The OP seems well aware of what life means.  It seems clear what he seeks is the significance, purpose or meaningfulness of life.
  • Alkis Piskas
    2.1k
    There is no meaning in ... this topic.
  • Vera Mont
    4.2k
    The OP seems well aware of what life means. It seems clear what he seeks is the significance, purpose or meaningfulness of life.Corvus

    That's exactly the same thing. It assumes that life is no more than a means to something greater than itself.
  • javi2541997
    5.6k
    There is no meaning in ... this topic.Alkis Piskas

    Ha! :grin: What I am missing in this OP is the participation of the author. @niki wonoto seems to be absent from his own thread...
    I wish he had more exchanges with the users, or at least with @Corvus and @Vera Mont which are having interesting views on it.
  • Alkis Piskas
    2.1k
    What I am missing in this OP is the participation of the author. niki wonoto seems to be absent from his own thread...javi2541997
    @niki wonoto has "left the building"!
    ... But he forgot to take his topic with him! :grin:
  • LuckyR
    474
    Commenting on the "meaning" of life without describing from whose perspective the meaning would be given is only a half asked question. In other words it is unanswerable as asked. It just begets another question.
  • Nils Loc
    1.4k
    We all understand what may compel a person to say that life has no meaning. It all boils down to what seems to be pointless and gratuitous suffering. A life form must sustain costly and improbable structures of all kinds against the flow of entropy. No wonder folks get lost (and drown) in the sauce. So many things can go wrong and if we feel we can't adapt, we freak out.
  • Mikie
    6.6k
    There is no meaning of life.niki wonoto

    There is for me. But thank you for revealing your own psychological state.
  • Vera Mont
    4.2k
    Does a lion search for a meaning to his life? Does a dolphin? Why should they? They are themselves, integral and complete, in harmony with their environment.
    Only man has been diminished in his own eyes; made to feel insignificant and flawed. Told by 500 generations of prophets and philosophers that he is wanting, fallen short, fallen from a loftier position, and that the only way he can redeem himself is by dedicating his life to something greater than himself: a god, a liege lord, an empire, a noble cause, a brotherhood of warriors, monks or mobsters. His own little life is of no consequence: it is a conveyance merely, like a deed of sale or a summons, disposable once it's served purpose.
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