Philosophy Now Forum

The following answers to this central philosophical question each win a random book. Sorry if your answer doesn’t appear: we received enough to fill twelve pages…

http://philosophynow.org/issues/59/What ... ng_Of_Life

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..................................................................................................................What Is The Meaning Of Life?





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................................................................................To work towards self-consciousness in every moment.




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To know to live to know!

There is none, except in the personal. Otherwise you would not be holding this contest after millennia of civilization with over 100 billion of us trying to answer it. It is all just continuing to continue, generation after generation, until we are no more. There are no awards ceremonies at the end to celebrate any triumph of mankind. Just vacuous cold space at the end, with no one to observe whatever it is we created during our time as a species, if indeed those creations persist themselves.

Anyways, not the clever philosophical explanation anyone is looking for, but deep down, you know it's the closest thing you'll get regarding the truth of the matter. The rest is, as Peter Wessel Zapffe would say, distraction.

I am an atheist but prefer to define myself more accurately as an apatheist which is a sub set of atheism. And the reason for
that is this : as I get older and hopefully wiser as well I realise that having fixed opinions on that that can not be objectively
determined is just a waste of time and energy. Now I like debating but that is just to provide my brain with the intellectual
stimulation it needs on a regular basis. But that is not the same as forcing it to a conclusion that has to be arrived at regard
less of what it actually is. Ground apes sometimes feel they have a right to know. Well sorry to disappoint but such hubris is
entirely misplaced for we have no such right at all though of course it is incredibly fortuitous that we have evolved with the
ability to investigate the physical world. How ever it is all actually an entirely random series of events that has allowed this
to happen. Now I certainly hope we do learn as much as we can but nothing is set in stone even if we are the most complex
life form ever to have existed in this or any other Universe for that matter. The single greatest truth one shall learn in their
life is that nothing truly matters. For death is the ultimate destination so less you are a masochist or a sadist it will actually
matter not for there will be precisely zero suffering and for all of eternity too. So what exactly is there to be afraid of then
And I see this so clearly now that I just take it as a given. As it makes me as free as it is possible to be while still being alive
But once I die then I will be truly free as will you and every one else as well. Even if you are actually a masochist or a sadist

You suffer and then you die. End of.

There are three possibilities:

1. There is none. We are here randomly.

2. "Meaning" is what we invent. All "meaning" is a delusion that people impose imaginatively, in order to avoid facing #1. We think we "discover" it, but it is not really there. It's a fake.

3. Meaning exists. We are a purposive creation of an intentional Creator, and He establishes our real meaning. So it is there to be discovered.

There are no other ways to play this. All suppositions of human-centered meaning, no matter how elaborately and evasively worded (as in "we create meaning," "we produce meaning," "we generate meaning," etc.) are simply different versions of #2.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:You suffer and then you die. End of.

If you did not smile along the way you might as well end it now.

Maybe you should eat some good red meat and enjoy yourself for a change?

Immanuel Can wrote:There are three possibilities:

1. There is none. We are here randomly.

2. "Meaning" is what we invent. All "meaning" is a delusion that people impose imaginatively, in order to avoid facing #1. We think we "discover" it, but it is not really there. It's a fake.

3. Meaning exists. We are a purposive creation of an intentional Creator, and He establishes our real meaning. So it is there to be discovered.

There are no other ways to play this. All suppositions of human-centered meaning, no matter how elaborately and evasively worded (as in "we create meaning," "we produce meaning," "we generate meaning," etc.) are simply different versions of #2.

3. contains an non-evident proposition and a non sequitur. Grats.

1. The second sentence is redundant, and probably incorrect; not connected with the first.

2. Is compatible with reason. Except that you think it a fake what humans decide, and have not, and cannot offer an alternative. By your own rubric 3, would just be a particularly poor version of 2, except that 3. cannot satisfy basic rules of knowledge.

A shortened version of 2.; "We decide our own purpose" is, at least, authentic.

First step is to notice the humans around you. How they act, think, even their words. Simple chimpanzees. Most of the people are far off, rooted in the basic realms, philosophy no deeper than your average mountain dew drinking basement dweller.

GreatandWiseTrixie wrote:First step is to notice the humans around you. How they act, think, even their words. Simple chimpanzees. Most of the people are far off, rooted in the basic realms, philosophy no deeper than your average mountain dew drinking basement dweller.

The big problem with anthropophobia, is that you invariably have to include your self in your own hate; it is self loathing.

Maybe you should stick to the thread? What is the Meaning of Life?

Bill Wiltrack wrote:.

To work towards self-consciousness in every moment.[/size]

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For most, this is a thing that is achieved in infancy.
I think there might have to be a little more in it for most of us.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

GreatandWiseTrixie wrote:First step is to notice the humans around you. How they act, think, even their words. Simple chimpanzees. Most of the people are far off, rooted in the basic realms, philosophy no deeper than your average mountain dew drinking basement dweller.

The big problem with anthropophobia, is that you invariably have to include your self in your own hate; it is self loathing.

Maybe you should stick to the thread? What is the Meaning of Life?

I provided a better meaning than many who posted. Someone posted something along the lines of "life is about enjoying it, and eating red meat."

What is this, the stone ages, land of the trogolydtes? Next thing they are gonna post about their daily exploits, burning down villages and raping children.

The first step is to get in touch with chimpanzee culture, and see how human culture is just another form of it with extra baggage (words to help cloak the chimpanzee dance.) Myself I am more like a monkey than a chimpanzee, not all humans are chimpanzees but most are. The wiser ones are monkeys, apes, and bonobos, but bonobos are too passive in my opinion. If you can't even acknoledge your own base animal nature, how do you expect to get to any other kind of deep truth?

GreatandWiseTrixie wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

GreatandWiseTrixie wrote:First step is to notice the humans around you. How they act, think, even their words. Simple chimpanzees. Most of the people are far off, rooted in the basic realms, philosophy no deeper than your average mountain dew drinking basement dweller.

The big problem with anthropophobia, is that you invariably have to include your self in your own hate; it is self loathing.

Maybe you should stick to the thread? What is the Meaning of Life?

I provided a better meaning than many who posted. Someone posted something along the lines of "life is about enjoying it, and eating red meat."

What is this, the stone ages, land of the trogolydtes? Next thing they are gonna post about their daily exploits, burning down villages and raping children.

The first step is to get in touch with chimpanzee culture, and see how human culture is just another form of it with extra baggage (words to help cloak the chimpanzee dance.) Myself I am more like a monkey than a chimpanzee, not all humans are chimpanzees but most are. The wiser ones are monkeys, apes, and bonobos, but bonobos are too passive in my opinion. If you can't even acknoledge your own base animal nature, how do you expect to get to any other kind of deep truth?

Yawn!
Haven't you got anything interesting to say? You keep on about chimps like a scratched record.

I thought it was 42...

-Imp