What do people mean by meaning (in life)?
I see this shit alot, but I don't get it.
Is it the same thing as purpose? I thought any philosophical view gives you a purpose, either to fuck, be at peace, try to find the truths of the world etc. etc.
Maybe I'm retarded but please try to explain it to me.
When you're born, you're told you're put on here for a specific reason, whether it be out of destiny, because the deity you love and fear decided to, because it was your calling, or because you had a duty to love your fellow man, take over the world, etc. and as you grow, you're slowly stripped of your illusions and your beliefs begin to be taken away from you.
My interpretation is that meaning is purpose. Think of the phrase,
>what is the meaning of this?
A car has meaning. We gave it meaning. A car's meaning is to transport something from point A to point B. What's our meaning? What's our purpose? WHY were we born? To do WHAT?
So they can be used interchangeably?
According to this chart (please don't laugh) meaning is associated with religion and politics, so what makes those things have meaning as oppose to Buddhism and absurdism?
My question really is what is the difference between the two words since they obviously can't be used completely interchangeably
I don't know too much about Buddhism and Absurdism, but try and compare the two to religion and politics.
Religion typically asks that you worship a higher entity, essentially instilling a type of meaning (you were BORN to WORSHIP this god), and politics is commonly associated with how people OUGHT to function in a society (you SHOULD follow this political ideology because it will prove to give you the most meaning). Both definitions are flawed, because they assume that the first party (religious/political) know what the second party want (salvation/happiness/success).
Meaning doesn't have a clear definition. Try and see meaning as "that which makes life worth living".
Now, on the other hand, Buddhism is (atleast i think it is) commonly associated with the loss of desire, and thus, you lack the incentive to search for a meaning. Absurdism is (again, im not qualified to speak on this but) acknowledging that there is no meaning in life, and continuing to pursue one anyway.
Remember that your argument has to do with that chart says, not what is. No one has the right answers to it all, user.
Sure they can.
Thanks, also does anyone have something like this chart but that's actually good?
What are you looking for user?
I'm really quite new to this shit, and only decided to look into it since I wanted to have a belief to base my life on, instead of the weird mindless internet surfing and doing the bare minimum of my responsibilities bore that my life is right now.
The problem is any belief I could think of I found could disproved in one way or another.
I read up a little about Descartes, but his whole cogito ergo sum seems like bullshit because thinking doesn't require a thinker, since thoughts can be individual (right?)
It seems like the only way to choose a belief is by intuition (what feels right), but then again an "evil demon" could make you think an artificial intuition, so once again the belief can not be certain.
So there's my autistic rant, this is literally my first day on this board so please point out anything I'm saying that's wrong or retarted etc. etc.
A "beginner's guide to philosophy" or any help at all would mean alot, thanks.
What do you MEAN by MEANING.
What do you mean by "red"?
what
You're on the right track with Descartes, but his point isn't that "you" the "agent" must exist. Is that whatever *you* is that is capable of having a thought must exist. You are having an experience right now, so that experience exists. Whether or not it goes with an "experiencer". And more specifically, you know that that particular experience *itself* is true. Not that when you see a red cup that you know there's really a red cup, but hat when you see red, you know that redness itself exists, since it's one of the few things that is directly real to you.
Why not just go take a philosphy class at a reputable school? Many professors if you just email them that you're poor and curios would even just let you sit in on some classes for free.
If you're looking for a transcendental meaning, you're probably going to have to take drugs to feel any kind of spiritualism. If you're looking for a political philosophy, just start reading the greats. Maybe start with the Greek meme philosophers.
If I can't see red, you can't explain it to me. You have to know what it is. Can you explain "logic" to someone who doesn't understand why 1+1=2? No. "Meaning" can't be defined. You have to just know what they *mean*.
So you're saying experience is the only thing that we know exists?
I'm sure that's not your only belief though (that we experience), so could you explain your beliefs and why you believe them? I'm really curious.
I'm kind of getting what you're saying but could you elaborate a little?
PLS HELP
Descartes model is based on misunderstanding of the human anomaly. It's not about "experience" it's about "action". The idea of experience is something passive, which makes it an absurdity. If there was something passive, we couldn't be talking about it right now, because it wouldn't be able to move us to commit the action of talking.
So it would be more accurate to say "there is action, therefore there is an actor". This brings up the question "what does it have to do with us?". Any human would say that there is an actor behind their actions, but most abandon empiricism and start adding assumptions that contradict their perception.
There is an actor, there is only one actor, and the actor itself does not undergo change. These are the empirical truths of human perception.
All you can be "certain" about in each moment is that you're having that precise experience.
Everything else is, as Karl Popper put it, "theory-laden"
I have beliefs about the nature of the universe. I think it's coextensive and has a certain nature. That is, that it exists outside of "myself", and that what I call my mind is a "part" of the universe. I think other minds exist in the universe. But I think they're also all aspects of one "mind" thing and that all aspects of the "physical world" have a mental correlate. That is, I'm a panpsychist.
Here's a short reason (not a proof). Science has no explanation for why pain is painful. Science can describe all the energy systems that create "pain" in other beings. But all it can ever do is explain that certain processes are correlated with pain. It doesn't tell us why those should be painful.
(Hint to science noobs. "Aversion" or something can't be the explanation. Aversion itself is the behavior that leads to the pain attribution in the first place.
Certain concepts are "irreducible". They can't be explained in language. They are fundamental to language. All language is actually like this. I can't really explain. Read Lao Tsu and Wittgenstein and study the tenants of Buddhism. Lots of this can't be explained. The point is that language is limited. You're trying to use language to tie itself down. You're convinced that your thoughts must be somehow the truest part of reality when they're actually just composite like everything else.
I'm kinda with you and I think you're on the right track, but you're favoring action unnecessarily.
Action / experience is a fundamental dichotomy. Mind permeates the universe. Either everything is always choosing to do what it's doing, or nothing is. In the sense people usually mean, there's no free will. When something startles you, you don't choose to jump, you just do. When you control yourself by thinking about not jumping, you don't choose that either. You do it for whatever reasons caused you to think about controlling yourself instead of whatever else was going on.
The mind that is the universe can be thought of as the one unchanging actor. It's also the constantly changing subject. We can't describe the nature of the universe using language. Language itself is one feature of the universe.
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I read up a little about Descartes, but his whole cogito ergo sum seems like bullshit because thinking doesn't require a thinker, since thoughts can be individual (right?)
Hell, it assumes the existence of a thought can be meaningfully distinguished from non-existence, which isn't necessarily the case. My apparent self certainly can't conceptualize this division in any meaningful way.
Personally I think they are talking about a narrative that is congruent with their actions.
So something like what religion gives people.
One of the problems with the modern scientific worldview is that it doesn't give people any meaning in their life; rather what it does, and this is something Nietzsche observed as well, rationality has an in-built ability to reduce everything to a system where subjectivity is completely annihilated.
Think about it, everyone who worked on the Manhattan Project literally didn't think about their consequences at all, until the products of their efforts was used to vaporize 150000 people in Japan.
didn't think about the consequences of their actions at all*
Thanks guys for all the answers, still trying to figure out what you mean but I'm sure I'll get there.
"why is there something instead of nothing?"
Purpose is what you do, meaning makes what you do matter.
It actually breaks down by failing to find or even imagine the link between the mind and the brain, between the intangible thoughts and the meat puppet.
This. Except no concept is truly irreducible. Not even formal, mathematical ones. This is a fatal flaw for any attempt at a serious philosophical construction, you would need to build it with words which you would have to define recursively ad infinitum. I'm pretty sure this is what Wittgenstein was making reference to with "Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent" Our constructions are merely tools to make life "easier" or "happier", you shouldn't take them seriously. Wittgenstein on his own book: "My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) - He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly."
>you would need to build it with words which you would have to define recursively ad infinitum
Explain