What doth life?

[Tuddrussell]

Are we just fleshy blips in some meaningless stew of cosmic oblivion? Or is it vice re-versa?

 

[MorkandMindy]

Please define 'meaning'

It is the core of your statement and I really need to know what it means,

cheers, M of M&M

 

[theWaris1]

Please define 'meaning'

It is the core of your statement and I really need to know what it means,

cheers, M of M&M

I believe the issue was less meaning, meaningless or just void of meaning altogether.

One time I fell into the stew and I was overwhelmed with the aroma and begin to see things from a whole new perspective.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

fallacy of composition...

The parts that make up the vehicle are lighter than the vehicle, therefore the vehicle is lighter than the vehicle.

The pixels that make up this sentence have no meaning, therefore this sentence has no meaning.

The atoms that make up my body have no purpose, therefore I have no purpose.

 

[Tuddrussell]

Please define 'meaning'

Meaning is the present participle of mean.

 

[MorkandMindy]

Meaning is the present participle of mean.

That's just plain mean.


.

 

[Tuddrussell]

Yet technically correct, the best kind of correct.

 

[MorkandMindy]

Bah, I was hoping you were going to do the work.

Something has meaning in a context, the way it relates to one other thing or a whole bunch of other things.

So my life has meaning as a basis for the lives of my children and to those around me, and in relation to things I've created. My actions have meaning in terms of moving toward those goals and therefore have meaning within my life.

It is not meaningful to talk about my life having meaning outside my life span. What happens after it I can not control, it could work as I have intended or be entirely different, it might all be in vain, and my actions obviously can't have any consequences before my life span either .

So there.

 

[bricklayer]

Are we just fleshy blips in some meaningless stew of cosmic oblivion? Or is it vice re-versa?

Meaning or its privation, in the above context, derives from intent or purpose.

The nature of an act is triune having intent-affect-effect.

Interesting to me is the fact that, in the bible, the only times there are ever distinctions made between the "persons of the trinity" is when God acts.
There is only one true God of the bible. The God of the bible is one God.
When the God of the bible acts, the intent is always attributed to God the Father
the affect is always attributed to God the Holy Spirit
and the effect is always attributed to God the Son.
The only times there is ever a distinction made between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is when God acts, and it is always in the economy above.

 

[Tuddrussell]

Can I talk about whether your life has meaning then? I'm sure that'd be more fruitful than asking if my life has meaning, or if all life has meaning.

Here's an open unquenchable can of philosophical thirst worms for you: What doth MampersandM's life/s? Is/are he/she/it/they just a/two fleshy blip/s in some meaningless stew of cosmic oblivion? Or is it vice re-versa?

 

[MorkandMindy]

Can I talk about whether your life has meaning then? I'm sure that'd be more fruitful than asking if my life has meaning, or if all life has meaning.

Here's an open unquenchable can of philosophical thirst worms for you: What doth MampersandM's life/s? Is/are he/she/it/they just a/two fleshy blip/s in some meaningless stew of cosmic oblivion? Or is it vice re-versa?

First bit - M&M's actions have meaning within M&M's life and can't have any meaning outside of it.

Second bit - the Universe very likely does have meaning outside of it's self in that it is obviously a possible Universe and may well spawn child Universes, as well as the meaning inside itself.

 

[Tuddrussell]

First bit - M&M's actions have meaning within M&M's life and can't have any meaning outside of it.

You don't get to talk about it, you're biased. You'll ruin our data!

Second bit - the Universe very likely does have meaning outside of it's self in that it is obviously a possible Universe and may well spawn child Universes, as well as the meaning inside itself.

The meaning of the universe is thus: Everything. There may be other universes, but those are whole other everythings totally divorced form our everything.

Simple, but what DOTH it?

 

[Tuddrussell]

The question of whether things have meaning is a wrong question, of course things have meaning. If they did not, then they wouldn't be things in the first place.

A less wrong question is: what meaning do these things have? The least wrong answer, from my perspectuve, is whatever they wish to have or reasonably appear to have.

The least wrong question is: What doth things? That is the most basic ontological question.

My question, is specifically: What doth LIFE?

 

[quatona]

Meaning is the present participle of mean.

So when something means something to me there is meaning. The answer to the OP is "no", then.

 

[Tuddrussell]

No doth life? That doesn't make any sense... Or do you mean that we are not the blips as described?

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

Things like meaning, and significance, and value...these are things we attribute to other things so that it's easier to live our lives. So given that meaning is wholly subjective, the meaning of our lives is really whatever we ascribe to it. There is no objective 'point' for our existence. There is no 'reason' why we're here. Biologically, the point of my existence is as part of a rather complicated statistical analysis of genotypic modifiers of survival. Beyond this, I couldn't really say any more, because natural selection doesn't have any sentience, so it can't really ascribe meaning to anything either. For me personally, I'm fine with my life having no purpose.

Oh. And maybe you don't understand what vice versa means, and the appropriate context of its usage?

 

[Tuddrussell]

Oh. And maybe you don't understand what vice versa means, and the appropriate context of its usage?

It's a quote from Xavier: Renegade Angel.

 

[quatona]

No doth life? That doesn't make any sense... Or do you mean that we are not the blips as described?

No, I mean the answer to your question

Are we just fleshy blips in some meaningless stew of cosmic oblivion?

is no.

 

[Eudaimonist]

Are we just fleshy blips in some meaningless stew of cosmic oblivion?

I'm going to have to quote scripture:

Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They have trod earth's fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread. —H. P. Lovecraft


Iä! Iä!

Mark

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Meaning is part of human existence. Even the experience of the nihilist who believes there is no meaning is a form of meaningful experience. We all have some form or other of meaning, like knowing we are in a room, in a city, doing such and such etc.

For me one of the major problems about meaning is not the question as to whether there is any, because there is at least some, but rather the issue of what function does the experience of meaning serve from the evolutionary perspective? In theory we could all be robotic brains processing information on an unconscious level and have the same behavoural output, the same survival chances etc, but it seems that in practice that is not the case because we seem to have evolved conscious experience rather than a robotic "zombie" one. We know what difference having a meaning does to us existentially, it grounds our understanding and sense of purpose - but the whole question as to why in theory we are better of having conscious life remains unresolved.

Maybe this life where conscious experiece makes sense is one of an infinite variety in other universes where it does not, and the apparent necessity of a functional order to perception is just an illusion.