What Is The Meaning Of Life?

[Immanuel Can]

I think so. And I think it matters a whole lot, actually. If we are here by accident, then we're on our own...purposeless, without meaning, a cosmic accident adrift (ultimately) for no reason at all. And our humanness, too, is all incidental: our loves, our hates, our joys, our tears, our hopes, our trials...are all just contingent impressions, insubstantial happenings within the dice-shaker of an indifferent universe. Things could have been different, but weren't.

I'm fine with all that, really. That's probably why I've never bothered with religion.

Well, maybe the OP question isn't for you, then. And that's fine.

Some people do worry about it, and that's the incentive for a person who's an Atheist or Materialist to resort to unreality -- to imagining some "meaning" he or she knows isn't really available, and pinning hope to it, in defiance of the facts he/she secretly believes about the pointlessness of it all. That was the "intellectual suicide" Camus indicted.

[davidm]

I think so. And I think it matters a whole lot, actually. If we are here by accident, then we're on our own...purposeless, without meaning, a cosmic accident adrift (ultimately) for no reason at all. And our humanness, too, is all incidental: our loves, our hates, our joys, our tears, our hopes, our trials...are all just contingent impressions, insubstantial happenings within the dice-shaker of an indifferent universe. Things could have been different, but weren't.

I'm fine with all that, really. That's probably why I've never bothered with religion.

Yep, me too. I don't see what the big deal is. We're all here by accident and fleetingly, and then we perish. And ... so?

[Harbal]

I think so. And I think it matters a whole lot, actually. If we are here by accident, then we're on our own...purposeless, without meaning, a cosmic accident adrift (ultimately) for no reason at all. And our humanness, too, is all incidental: our loves, our hates, our joys, our tears, our hopes, our trials...are all just contingent impressions, insubstantial happenings within the dice-shaker of an indifferent universe. Things could have been different, but weren't.

I'm fine with all that, really. That's probably why I've never bothered with religion.

Well, maybe the OP question isn't for you, then. And that's fine.

Some people do worry about it, and that's the incentive for a person who's an Atheist or Materialist to resort to unreality -- to imagining some "meaning" he or she knows isn't really available, and pinning hope to it, in defiance of the facts he/she secretly believes about the pointlessness of it all. That was the "intellectual suicide" Camus indicted.

No need to worry about me, IC, I've been aware of the pointlessness of it all for a long time.

[davidm]

Some people do worry about it, and that's the incentive for a person who's an Atheist or Materialist to resort to unreality -- to imagining some "meaning" he or she knows isn't really available, and pinning hope to it, in defiance of the facts he/she secretly believes about the pointlessness of it all. That was the "intellectual suicide" Camus indicted.

Some people do worry about it, and that's the incentive for a person who's a theist or supernaturalist to resort to unreality -- to imagining some "meaning" he or she knows isn't really available, and pinning hope to a nonexistent god, in defiance of the facts he/she secretly believes about the pointlessness of it all. That was [ALSO] the "intellectual suicide" Camus indicted.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Meaning for a car is defined by its service to man. Without it, a car is just a collection of parts.

Meaning for Man as i understand it is defined by the process it serves. Without this process, man has no objective meaning. The problem is that we are largely ignorant of the process. This makes process theology a meaningful line of research. When we understand the process, we will understand the meaning of life.

Cars cannot conceive and so have no meaning.

[Immanuel Can]

Some people do worry about it, and that's the incentive for a person who's a theist or supernaturalist to resort to unreality -- to imagining some "meaning" he or she knows isn't really available, and pinning hope to a nonexistent god, in defiance of the facts he/she secretly believes about the pointlessness of it all. That was [ALSO] the "intellectual suicide" Camus indicted.

That is true too. One can commit intellectual suicide either by insisting on believing in meaning when there isn't any, or by refusing to see any meaning where there is one. In both cases, the "suicide" comes from destroying your relationship to reality, and thus depriving yourself to make authentic choices in view of what actually is.

The only question that really matters, then, is "Which is the reality?" Is there no God and no meaning, or is there a God and a meaning? The one thing we can know for certain is that if the wires are crossed -- say, as in "I think there's no God, but I believe in meaning," or "I believe in God but no meaning," then intellectual suicide has been committed.

[Harbal]

Is there no God and no meaning, or is there a God and a meaning?

I don't think there's any meaning either way.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Is there no God and no meaning, or is there a God and a meaning?

Or is there meaning and no God, as it appears?

Humans have invented meaning, your problem is that you think that meaning means god, when it just means meaning.

[davidm]

Some distinctions ought to made. It is only nihilism that posits that meaning, values and purpose do not exist in any form — subjective, objective or intersubjective. Absurdism says that there may be some kind of inherent meaning to reality, but humans are not equipped to find it — this intersection between the longing for meaning and our incapacity to find it is precisely what is “absurd.” Atheist existentialism affirms that there is no objective purpose or meaning to existence, but says that humans are fully equipped to supply their lives with their own subjective, personal meanings, and these meanings are good enough. Theistic existentialism holds that personal meanings are only valid if they line up (somehow) with knowledge of God.

I believe ICan has been conflating absurdism with nihilism, while ignoring the option of atheistic existentialism. I would regard myself as an atheistic existentialist, and ICan as a Christian existentialist.

[surreptitious57]

Classical nihilism references absolutely no meaning to any thing but positive nihilsm merely denies an objective meaning to existence
And it is the latter that I subscribe to although I do not describe myself as a positive nihilist as such because it sounds too oxymoronic
I could describe myself as an atheist existentialist instead but it means the same. There is no meaning to existence or to the universe

[Immanuel Can]

Is there no God and no meaning, or is there a God and a meaning?

I don't think there's any meaning either way.

That might be true, if your concept of god were Deistic or perhaps Gnostic, even. But unless I misunderstand, you aren't enthused about any particular concept of God. As for the Christian God (personal and not distant), there would, of course, be something He "meant" by creating. So there would be an objective meaning.

[Immanuel Can]

Humans have invented meaning,

If so, then it's merely an "invention" unrelated to objective reality, thus a comforting delusion...what Camus called a form of "intellectual suicide."

[Immanuel Can]

I believe ICan has been conflating absurdism with nihilism, while ignoring the option of atheistic existentialism. I would regard myself as an atheistic existentialist, and ICan as a Christian existentialist.

No, but "Atheistic Existentialism" has a serious flaw that may well propel it in the direction of Nihilism, and your summary almost exposes it. It's the question of whether or not there is an objective meaning -- whether people know what it is or not.

If there simply is no such thing, then AE issues in Nihilism by another name. The "making" of meaning is really the "faking" of meaning. There is nothing in reality itself that corresponds to the "meaning" that is being "made." It's a delusion, in other words.

But if there Is an ultimate meaning, then whether or not the AE'ist knows what it is, he or she is not actually "making" the meaning at all, but rather attempting to approximate or reach a pre-existing, objective meaning. And then, yes, AE is no longer Nihilism: but then it's also not what Existentialism claims either: it is not a "making" of any meaning. Rather, it's a weak form of fallibilist Objectivism.

[Immanuel Can]

There is no meaning to existence or to the universe

So your answer to the OP is "nothing"?

[davidm]

I believe ICan has been conflating absurdism with nihilism, while ignoring the option of atheistic existentialism. I would regard myself as an atheistic existentialist, and ICan as a Christian existentialist.

No, but "Atheistic Existentialism" has a serious flaw that may well propel it in the direction of Nihilism, and your summary almost exposes it. It's the question of whether or not there is an objective meaning -- whether people know what it is or not.

If there simply is no such thing, then AE issues in Nihilism by another name. The "making" of meaning is really the "faking" of meaning. There is nothing in reality itself that corresponds to the "meaning" that is being "made." It's a delusion, in other words.

But of course this is where I think you always go awry. You simply define "meaning" as extrinsic to oneself and objective. I reject this definition, as does the atheistic existentialist. I quoted and discussed Richard Rorty on this matter in another thread, but I don't think (I could be wrong) that you ever responded to that post.