What Life Meaning Is The Most Valuable?

[Risto]

Physicists generally agree that life doesn't have a purpose, the universe doesn't care what we do, if you will. This allows us to choose our own meaning or not choose a meaning at all. I'm not sure if a sane life is possible without a meaning. Maybe it's another discussion. If everyone can choose their own meaning, what is the best meaning to choose? Surely, not all meanings are equally valuable/meaningful?

[PoeticUniverse]

The lone benefit is experience, but I suppose you wish to know what to choose to experience, not that we really 'choose' or 'do', for the cosmos does us.

[Bill Wiltrack]

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What Life Meaning Is The Most Valuable?

That there is no meaning.

Life is meaningless...








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[Arising_uk]

Physicists generally agree that life doesn't have a purpose, the universe doesn't care what we do, if you will. ...

I won't, as the universe has no 'care'. Physicists pretty much don't say this, they just tell you how things appear to work.

This allows us to choose our own meaning or not choose a meaning at all. ...

Don't think this does but agree that we are free to choose what has meaning to us and not choosing one is a choice.

I'm not sure if a sane life is possible without a meaning. ...

One could just have a purpose?

Maybe it's another discussion. If everyone can choose their own meaning, what is the best meaning to choose? Surely, not all meanings are equally valuable/meaningful?

Up to you I think.

[Arising_uk]

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Life is meaningless...[/size].

To whom?

[Bill Wiltrack]

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To whom? - To you.

Because you are dead.

Once you are dead you never were.

You were born, you lived, you died. Like the rest of us you never knew why.

For us, Life is meaningless...

THAT is the most valuable meaning.






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[Arising_uk]

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To whom? - To you.

Not to me, as this 'Life' thing you talk about doesn't exist as an entity this is a hangover from your theism. There are only living things and they have purposes, now this living thing can also make meanings so can have both purpose and meaning if it so wishes or not.

Because you are dead.

Apparently not.

Once you are dead you never were.

Untrue, as to be dead one had to have been and as long as one has descendents one has objectively lived.

You were born, you lived, you died. Like the rest of us you never knew why.

I keep telling you, this is a hangover from your theism, you really need to lose the rest of the baggage, stop asking why and make a why.

For us, Life is meaningless...

What exactly do you mean by this?

THAT is the most valuable meaning..

Not really as it's a reification of an abstract object, i.e. 'Life'. Is it that you consider your living a meaningless event?

[Bill Wiltrack]

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Your grandfather. Your great grand father...what were their meanings? Ultimately?




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[Arising_uk]

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Your grandfather. Your great grand father...what were their meanings? Ultimately?
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This is why you are not suited to Philosophy as one, you are unable to answer sentences with a question mark(which by-the-by is what tags you as a gnu) and two, from what you've asserted you cannot assert this. That is, how are you talking about the never were? And if you are then you are proving my point.

Since I can assert that they were I'd say, 'I have no idea what their meanings were, such things would be up to them.'.
p.s.
You ignored my other grandfather and great grandfather.

[Bill Wiltrack]

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Don't take it personally. I'm just saying, philosophically, once we are dead no one knows anything about you. About any meaning in your life.

We are all dead. No one knows...or cares.


There is no value or meaning in anything we are; anything we do.


...sorry if that bursts your bubble. You exist in a world that occasionally produces adult males. I happen to be one of those males.

Don't compare yourself.




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[PoeticUniverse]

Bill, I agree that there is no meaning, and perhaps the situation couldn't be any worse, except if some kind of proposed 'meaning' was imposed as some kind of a contest, such as that Life is a Test and blah, blah, blah, so perhaps the situation couldn't be any better, either, or it's just that I can't think of any.

[Obvious Leo]

Does life have a meaning or does life have a purpose are two entirely different questions. The notion of a life with a purpose is grounded in the theistic myth that we exist at the whim of an omniscient being who created us for some sort of inscrutable purpose of his own. Thus we are forever compelled to try and determine this purpose and then hope like hell that we've guessed right and that our invisible best friend will be pleased with our efforts. This is the universe of the sadistic puppetmaster who pulls the strings on his toys and then laughs like hell when they fall over and hurt themselves or each other. However if we sack this malevolent arsehole from our thoughts we then find ourselves in a universe which has created itself and such a universe is a far more hospitable environment for a self in pursuit of an examined life. Such a universe brought us into existence without the slightest hint of purpose because such a universe is simply a blind automaton that didn't know what it was doing. It still makes no sense to think that the self thus created can confect a purpose for itself from thin air but there is a light at the end of the tunnel for such a person in a self-creating universe. This is a being who can stamp an indelible mark on the future because he is both actor and acted upon in the eternal cosmic drama. Our man is a PLAYER but he has no puppetmaster pulling his strings so he gets to sink or swim entirely as a consequence of his own endeavours. He can either leave the world in a better state than he found it or in a worse state than he found it and whatever the outcome might be he is in some small way responsible. This is not a life of purpose because the notion of purpose denotes some ultimate goal external to himself but it is a life of meaning and the beautiful thing about it is that he is entirely free to define this meaning for himself. This bloke is his own boss.

[Arising_uk]

. Don't take it personally. I'm just saying, philosophically, once we are dead no one knows anything about you. About any meaning in your life.

I don't take it personally Bill. I'm just pointing out the contradictions, inconsistencies and falsehoods in your thoughts. So you are wrong that when some of us are dead no-one knows anything about us, as those with descendants have people who knew something about them. Your original statement was once we were dead we never were but this is untrue to those with descendants. Might be true for those with none. Now you wish to change it to the meanings we had but this is a hangover from your theism as you wish for something more than just making a meaning in your life, you wish an external agent to provide or justify it for you. Me, I just wish to have them now and care little that those who follow me won't know what they were. Although this is only partly true as my immediate descendents will have an idea of what had meaning for me, whether they choose to follow that is again up to them.

We are all dead. No one knows...or cares.

You ignore the billions who follow the ancestor-worship path.

There is no value or meaning in anything we are; anything we do.

Of course there is Bill, it's that you still carry your theistic baggage and wish an external source to provide you meaning or value. Those of us unburdened with such a burden understand how to have meaning insect a world.

...sorry if that bursts your bubble. You exist in a world that occasionally produces adult males. I happen to be one of those males.

50% of the time Bill, so hardly occasionally.

You burst nothing Bill as I've always lived in a world where meaning, value and purpose are one's own to create.

Don't compare yourself. [/size].

There's nothing to compare with Bill.

[Risto]

He can either leave the world in a better state than he found it or in a worse state than he found it and whatever the outcome might be he is in some small way responsible. This is not a life of purpose because the notion of purpose denotes some ultimate goal external to himself but it is a life of meaning and the beautiful thing about it is that he is entirely free to define this meaning for himself. This bloke is his own boss.

I agree. Intuitively I would say that it is better or more valuable to choose a meaning of making the world a little bit better rather than destroy it. However, this is very difficult to argue for through reason. My personal argument would be something like this:

Premise #1: Every mentally sane person seeks pleasure and avoids pain.
Premise #2: A society were people cooperate brings pleasure and avoidance of pain the best way to most people.
Conclusion: Therefore, the most valuable thing to do with your time is to make the world better.

I would intuitively argue in favor of choosing the goal of helping others rather than any other life goal for individual's benefit for getting pleasure and avoiding pain, however, from the point of view of the individual, it'd probably be better to be selfish rather than cooperative if one can get by like that.

[Obvious Leo]

I would intuitively argue in favor of choosing the goal of helping others rather than any other life goal for individual's benefit for getting pleasure and avoiding pain, however, from the point of view of the individual, it'd probably be better to be selfish rather than cooperative if one can get by like that.

There is a notion which derives from evolutionary biology which I could loosely define as "selfish altruism". As a general principle it states that altruistic behaviour in higher-order species confers a selective advantage on the individual by conferring a survival advantage on the entire group. This notion of group selection remains hotly contested by the few remaining neo-Darwinists who make up the dinosaurs in the field but it is warmly embraced by the new evolutionary paradigm of autopoiesis which is rapidly gaining ascendancy in evolutionary theory. If we consider these conflicting paradigms in the context of our own species then the rubric of the "selfish gene" hypothesis looks decidedly dodgy in the modern age.

There is also an aspect of the human journey which sets us apart from our sentient brethren in the natural world. We have evolved the gift of a highly sophisticated language which allows us to communicate the content of our minds to a high order of precision as well as comprehend the minds of others. It is this facility which defines us in our humanity and allows us to ascribe a meaning to our journey which lies external to ourselves and this offers a richness and a nuance to the human experience which we simply dare not trivialise. When we perform altruistic acts in our daily lives it is we who gain the psychological benefit of such acts just as much as those who are the beneficiaries of such acts, a reward which we can simply describe as "feeling good about ourselves". This principle was put to me rather elegantly by a bloke I used to work with many years ago and he put it to me like this:

Doing the right thing is rather like pissing yourself in a dark suit. Nobody notices but you get a warm feeling inside.