Is finding your own meaning in life self-contradictory or not?

For all things philosophical.

Moderators: AMod, iMod

Celebritydiscodave2
Posts: 200
Joined: Tue Oct 10, 2017 6:52 pm

Re: Is finding your own meaning in life self-contradictory or not?

Post by Celebritydiscodave2 »

gaffo wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 5:00 am
Atla wrote: Fri Dec 15, 2017 8:40 am After realizing that life is inherently meaningless, most people resolve the problem by finding meaning in their own lives
they do?

didn't know this. thanks for the education!

.............

as for me, my life has no meaning (guess i need all those folks your are talking about to come over here and talk to me and tell me how my life has meaning).

I'm glad to be alive (here today gone tomorrow), though my life has no meaning..............
You have to date come across as an individual too naive to know what that meaning is, but taking it that it`s impossible to live a life without effecting others, which of course it is, then it is also quite impossible to live a meaningless life, and no matter how sincere one is in this mission. You are switched off to the notion of there being any meaning, that`s all that`s going on/not going on here. Could be you are low on serotonin? What you mean to say is that your life feels as though it has no meaning. This is a medical issue not a philosophical one.

There is meaning, and then there is the sense of meaning, two different commodities, but the sense of meaning found in one`s life is exactly the same commodity as that sense of meaning found in one`s own life, for meaning can only ever be experienced through one. If one can find no meaning in the big picture one is no more likely to in a restricted one.
Metazoan
Posts: 96
Joined: Sat Nov 10, 2007 11:23 am

Re: Is finding your own meaning in life self-contradictory or not?

Post by Metazoan »

Hi Atla,
Atla wrote:I exercise a sort of denial, but in a rather unusual way. I view the world from two different perspectives all the time. I arrived at this method to get rid of most of the existential dread / emotional horrors. It doesn't fully work for meaning yet, but I think it will. Works well enough for everything else. It is a cognitive split so this kind of denial requires no intensity, effort.
What I see is in complete agreement with my current paradigm of existence and it embraces GR,SR,QM, etc. much more comfortably than when I was a 'materialist'. My discomfort doesn't come so much from what I see as from what I 'see' as a result of the new paradigm. This distress is no doubt caused by the dissonance raised by my wetware being wired completely backwards with regard to my new view. For me no denial is possible.
Atla wrote:One perspective is the normal everyday experience, with all its illusions taken for granted. I spend most of my life here. I try to view and feel and experience things as "normally" as possible here. Here I make myself believe that things matter, things are meaningful, we exist, values exist, morals exist, things are separate etc.

The other perspective is my abstract "objective" understanding of reality where I see things as I think they actually "are". Of course I am aware that everything in the everyday experience is illusory, not quite the way it seems, and many things don't exist at all, are made up. But it no longer causes me much existential dread because most of these horrors are processed on a pury abstract level and I deliberately no longer try to "feel" any of that.
I make no attempt to separate the two. It is that my meaning of the word meaning has changed. Moral choices have become so much more challenging because the consequences have become so much more 'real'. There is so much more comfort in rules and now a much bigger motive for risk aversion and the consequential avoidance.
Atla wrote:I had to make this "split" in cognition, because trying to incorporate the underlying horrible truths into my everyday life sent me towards the 1. option too. That just didn't work. Now however I feel fairly good. It's impossible to unsee that hair but maybe you can try such a workaround too?
I greatly feel what you are saying, however I am not trying to cope by building blinkers; I have been asleep too long already. Having said that I am not suggesting you do the same at all. Yes, I am probably making a very big rod for my own back; it is just that the model fits far too neatly in my mind to have any chance of shifting it now.
Atla wrote:What I mean in this topic is that, of course in my "objective" abstract worldview, I fully realize that everything is meaningless. But in my everyday view, the one through which I live most of my life, I can just forget about that and try to "make up my own meaning". What I don't understand is, if I can make myself experience any other bullshit in my everyday mode, why can't I do it with a sense of meaning.
I can only repeat what I said earlier. It looks to me that you see the value through assigning meaning. That is, if something has no meaning it has no value.

Acceptance is about finding your own core values and living by them. That was the reason I raised the subject of 'ACT'.

Maybe if I ask: why do you value meaning such that you wish to be able to make it up? What, specifically, does or would it add to your life?

If you say "meaning" I will be very disappointed ;-)

If there is no access to objective meaning, surely creating it is option 2.

All the years I have lurked here I have not seen any demonstration of how to prove or gain access to an objective anything.

Not that there is anything wrong with option 2, and yet I do get the feeling it leads to groups of people doing very unpleasant things to other groups of people to a greater degree than option 3. (Notwithstanding my position as a hard determinist and seeing no way to change anything one iota.)
Atla wrote:Western philosophers ususally don't see materialism and idealism as dualistic, which imho is a final symptom of 2500 years of Western insanity.
I see materialism as dualistic and idealism not so. I guess this makes me half mad.

I don't really have a problem with western philosophy, it is just that the more I read the more I feel that it is like someone with a mad relative in the attic and they try to hide this by weaving word games out of fog and putting untold effort into not getting to the point.

But then, as I said, I am not a philosopher and do not have anything invested in there being a point. Trouble is, I walk around here and can't help noticing the subtle lack of clothes. Not that I claim to be any different, just uncomfortable.

M.
Atla
Posts: 6670
Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2017 8:27 am

Re: Is finding your own meaning in life self-contradictory or not?

Post by Atla »

Metazoan wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 5:52 pm Hi Atla,
Atla wrote:I exercise a sort of denial, but in a rather unusual way. I view the world from two different perspectives all the time. I arrived at this method to get rid of most of the existential dread / emotional horrors. It doesn't fully work for meaning yet, but I think it will. Works well enough for everything else. It is a cognitive split so this kind of denial requires no intensity, effort.
What I see is in complete agreement with my current paradigm of existence and it embraces GR,SR,QM, etc. much more comfortably than when I was a 'materialist'. My discomfort doesn't come so much from what I see as from what I 'see' as a result of the new paradigm. This distress is no doubt caused by the dissonance raised by my wetware being wired completely backwards with regard to my new view. For me no denial is possible.
Atla wrote:One perspective is the normal everyday experience, with all its illusions taken for granted. I spend most of my life here. I try to view and feel and experience things as "normally" as possible here. Here I make myself believe that things matter, things are meaningful, we exist, values exist, morals exist, things are separate etc.

The other perspective is my abstract "objective" understanding of reality where I see things as I think they actually "are". Of course I am aware that everything in the everyday experience is illusory, not quite the way it seems, and many things don't exist at all, are made up. But it no longer causes me much existential dread because most of these horrors are processed on a pury abstract level and I deliberately no longer try to "feel" any of that.
I make no attempt to separate the two. It is that my meaning of the word meaning has changed. Moral choices have become so much more challenging because the consequences have become so much more 'real'. There is so much more comfort in rules and now a much bigger motive for risk aversion and the consequential avoidance.
Atla wrote:I had to make this "split" in cognition, because trying to incorporate the underlying horrible truths into my everyday life sent me towards the 1. option too. That just didn't work. Now however I feel fairly good. It's impossible to unsee that hair but maybe you can try such a workaround too?
I greatly feel what you are saying, however I am not trying to cope by building blinkers; I have been asleep too long already. Having said that I am not suggesting you do the same at all. Yes, I am probably making a very big rod for my own back; it is just that the model fits far too neatly in my mind to have any chance of shifting it now.
Atla wrote:What I mean in this topic is that, of course in my "objective" abstract worldview, I fully realize that everything is meaningless. But in my everyday view, the one through which I live most of my life, I can just forget about that and try to "make up my own meaning". What I don't understand is, if I can make myself experience any other bullshit in my everyday mode, why can't I do it with a sense of meaning.
I can only repeat what I said earlier. It looks to me that you see the value through assigning meaning. That is, if something has no meaning it has no value.

Acceptance is about finding your own core values and living by them. That was the reason I raised the subject of 'ACT'.

Maybe if I ask: why do you value meaning such that you wish to be able to make it up? What, specifically, does or would it add to your life?

If you say "meaning" I will be very disappointed ;-)

If there is no access to objective meaning, surely creating it is option 2.

All the years I have lurked here I have not seen any demonstration of how to prove or gain access to an objective anything.

Not that there is anything wrong with option 2, and yet I do get the feeling it leads to groups of people doing very unpleasant things to other groups of people to a greater degree than option 3. (Notwithstanding my position as a hard determinist and seeing no way to change anything one iota.)
Atla wrote:Western philosophers ususally don't see materialism and idealism as dualistic, which imho is a final symptom of 2500 years of Western insanity.
I see materialism as dualistic and idealism not so. I guess this makes me half mad.

I don't really have a problem with western philosophy, it is just that the more I read the more I feel that it is like someone with a mad relative in the attic and they try to hide this by weaving word games out of fog and putting untold effort into not getting to the point.

But then, as I said, I am not a philosopher and do not have anything invested in there being a point. Trouble is, I walk around here and can't help noticing the subtle lack of clothes. Not that I claim to be any different, just uncomfortable.

M.
Creating objective meaning is, again, impossible, all I want to do is "create my own made up meaning". If I know that I'm just making it all up for myself, I don't think that's really philosophical suicide. I'm just playing a game.

It's not really that I value meaning all that much or whatever. I simply can't really enjoy a meaningless life. I can't even really function without it. It's sort of like the main driving force, fuel.

Being a hard determinist is not a problem for me in my double perspective. In my everyday life I just make up that I do have free will, even though that's not true. It's another game to play.

The way I understand idealism is that it says consciousness is fundamental as opposed to matter. So it is a view based on the consciousness-matter dualism.
Metazoan
Posts: 96
Joined: Sat Nov 10, 2007 11:23 am

Re: Is finding your own meaning in life self-contradictory or not?

Post by Metazoan »

Hi Atla,

I hear what you are saying and it pains me that I don't have a better answer for you. I can only repeat what I have already said in a different way and I think I will spare everyone that.

Ultimately I guess this simply means that you are human and doomed to tread the path(s) you see opening up before you.

One of my values is to do that in the best way I can. And one my guiding virtues is honesty, and that gets me into sooooo much trouble.

It is not so much about changing the world as changing the way you see it.

Now I am knitting fog so I will cast off and wish you luck.

M.
Celebritydiscodave2
Posts: 200
Joined: Tue Oct 10, 2017 6:52 pm

Re: Is finding your own meaning in life self-contradictory or not?

Post by Celebritydiscodave2 »

QUOTE Creating objective meaning is, again, impossible, all I want to do is "create my own made up meaning". If I know that I'm just making it all up for myself, I don't think that's really philosophical suicide. I'm just playing a game.

One discovers meaning, it cannot be created. Be mindful of that meaning the so called creation of others, for it likely does n`t exist. One cannot create made up meaning either, for that which is made up can have no meaning. All you have to do, begin your list now, is to make up a list of philosophical affirmations, and then to post them back to yourself for copy right. Once your list is weighty enough have your own book published. Here are a few examples from my own portfolio of social philosophical sentiments, but to be sure that yours are truly your own google them to check if anything comes up. Emotional obligation, confusement, come entanglement is to a fully pledged passionate relationship as a clear mind and free will is to a genuine and loving friendship.
Love, self-love and the need to be loved can play exactly the same tune for most of the time.
Self belief has no purpose in the moving of mountains.
gaffo
Posts: 4259
Joined: Mon Nov 27, 2017 3:15 am

Re: Is finding your own meaning in life self-contradictory or not?

Post by gaffo »

Celebritydiscodave2 wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 10:54 am
There is meaning, and then there is the sense of meaning, two different commodities, but the sense of meaning found in one`s life is exactly the same commodity as that sense of meaning found in one`s own life, for meaning can only ever be experienced through one. If one can find no meaning in the big picture one is no more likely to in a restricted one.
I that the need to fix a meaning to "life" is a bias of man.

i think there is no meaning to life.

we are,

there is no why to it.

.................

WHY are we? is a biased question.

we ARE, there is no WHY at all.

thanks for reply BTW.
Atla
Posts: 6670
Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2017 8:27 am

Re: Is finding your own meaning in life self-contradictory or not?

Post by Atla »

Just some quick update, I went on to test the idea from this comment, about being stuck in a cognitive loop of self-refutation:
Atla wrote: Sat Dec 16, 2017 10:28 pm Here is my best guess for what could be the problem: maybe I'm caught in a seemingly infinite cognitive loop.

Roughly speaking, I can make up anything and make myself believe in it, and that requires one "step".
For example I pretend that I really exist as a seperate self, I buy into this illusion for everyday purposes. I only have to do this once, it works pretty well.

This doesn't seem to work for meaning though. Maybe because if I do the first step, I get the error message in my head: "yeah well nice try but that does not compute, making up meaning is also meaningless".

Maybe I should keep going, second step: let's pretend that making up meaning is meaningful. Then comes the second error message saying that that too was a nice try, but meaningless.

And so on, repeat this ad infinitum until something "clicks" in my head maybe and I start to see things as meaningful?

But I really can't tell if this is the problem or not.
Well this method kinda seems to work for me! I can hallucinate "meaning" into things quite well now. It feels good.
User avatar
A_Seagull
Posts: 907
Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2014 11:09 pm

Re: Is finding your own meaning in life self-contradictory or not?

Post by A_Seagull »

If you want to know the meaning of life.... look it up in a dictionary.

If that process leaves you unsatisfied, it is probably because you believe some falsehood.
Atla
Posts: 6670
Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2017 8:27 am

Re: Is finding your own meaning in life self-contradictory or not?

Post by Atla »

A_Seagull wrote: Sun Jan 21, 2018 10:13 pm If you want to know the meaning of life.... look it up in a dictionary.

If that process leaves you unsatisfied, it is probably because you believe some falsehood.
?

If by meaning of life, you mean how we categorize things into alive and not alive, that's entirely not the subject of the topic.
User avatar
A_Seagull
Posts: 907
Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2014 11:09 pm

Re: Is finding your own meaning in life self-contradictory or not?

Post by A_Seagull »

Atla wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2018 7:54 am
A_Seagull wrote: Sun Jan 21, 2018 10:13 pm If you want to know the meaning of life.... look it up in a dictionary.

If that process leaves you unsatisfied, it is probably because you believe some falsehood.
?

If by meaning of life, you mean how we categorize things into alive and not alive, that's entirely not the subject of the topic.
No, I mean 'life' is a word, if you want to know its meaning... look it up in a dictionary.
Atla
Posts: 6670
Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2017 8:27 am

Re: Is finding your own meaning in life self-contradictory or not?

Post by Atla »

A_Seagull wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2018 10:45 am
Atla wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2018 7:54 am
A_Seagull wrote: Sun Jan 21, 2018 10:13 pm If you want to know the meaning of life.... look it up in a dictionary.

If that process leaves you unsatisfied, it is probably because you believe some falsehood.
?

If by meaning of life, you mean how we categorize things into alive and not alive, that's entirely not the subject of the topic.
No, I mean 'life' is a word, if you want to know its meaning... look it up in a dictionary.
Yeah as I said, "meaning" in that sense is not the subject here.
Also, the topic title is "in life" not "of life", I guess the two overlap, but aren't quite the same.
Post Reply