Does life only have meaning if you give it meaning?

[TwoByFour]

Originally Posted by Phil75230

First, about most posts after the OP: I honestly don't see the relevance to this topic of neurons, the laws thermodynamics, conservation of energy, etc.; the brain's neuron configuration, behavior, etc. can either believe there is a meaning to life or not.

Let me help you understand:

This is the Philosophy forum, not the "what do you think" forum. The difference is, the tools of philosophy are used to analyze the topic at hand. The "what do you think" approach does not involve anything more than stating one's opinion; there is no analysis expected.

Philosophy is a deliberative practice - it requires careful reading of the argument(s) and applying the tools of the craft to dissect the logic. Logic is paramount. A key part of logic is understanding what exactly is the nature of the hypothesis and then presenting your points within that context in a rational construction.

To that end, ConeyGirl and I immediately homed in on the OP's term: "life" and used that as our pivot point. After all, how can you discuss the meaning of life without knowing what life is? ConeyGirl thinks life is more than meets the eye and believes there is some validation to that in physics. I countered that, using physics since ConeyGirl introduced that concept. As you can see, philosophy requires very careful reading and careful deliberation.

Hope that helps.

[Matt Marcinkiewicz]

Originally Posted by VGravitas

Earlier this year, I read an article about existential depression and gifted individuals. Here's an excerpt from the article:






This article really made me wonder: does life have meaning only if we give it meaning? Why or why not?

Life has no meaning regardless of whether or not we attempt to give it one. Yes, in a sense, one can say it has meaning if (and only if, if you wish for this qualifier of a qualifier) we give it one, but our 7+ billion disparate meanings don't qualify as "meaning" on a level we can all agree upon. And even if all 7+ billion of us agree upon a single "meaning", we're but one species, and a species-wide consensus, or even unanimous verdict, does not equal truth, in the epistemologically purest sense of the term, which is to say, universal truth. Physical laws appear to be universal truth (given all which has been observed and extrapolated to this point). "Meaning" is a human construct, and the manifestation of that construct is dependent on the individual. In other words, ultimately meaningless.

Of course, the potential pitfall of my above argument is that physical "law" cannot be said to be universal truth, given that it is dependent on humans' empirical observations and also on humans' computations/reasoning, and given what I said about human unanimous conclusions not equaling universal truth. Well, I'm willing to live with the implication, that physics is not universal truth. One might imagine a species for whom physics at the quantum level is not only not counterintuitive but downright commonsensical. Even then one would still run into the core epistemological problem of dependence on a not-neutral observer...but the exact nature of the bias that would exist would depend on the specifications of the species in question. I could ask you to produce me an AI for whom Newtonian physics is a breeze but quantum physics is a mystery. I could also ask you to produce me the reverse, or some variation thereof. The possibilities are endless. Just because we have happened to have had these conceptual abilities X and Y and these limitations Z and theta, well, that's evolutionary luck. Doesn't mean any other combination of abilities and limitations couldn't theoretically exist.

But for meaning there is a different issue, namely that of the subjective. Hume said it back in the 18th century and still far too many people are unaware that he did: one cannot derive an ought from an is. Physics, whatever its measurement-related "margin of error", ultimately must be limited because of its dependence in some sense upon "us" (until the creation of some cognitively "perfect" artificial intelligence, that is), the discoverers and developers, well, the concept of meaning is forever doomed to a much greater variance. A fascist and a communist might both claim materialism--they might both agree that physics is all there is. Their conclusions about how to best go about living are entirely different, and for forever irreconcilable reasons. No individual reason is "better" than another. These differences can only be settled by virtue of opinion...that's how it's always been and how it will be until our species is someday mercifully extinguished.

[cloven]

Came across this quote recently, I'd written it down in one of my old journals, don't know who said it though:
“Life is not a meaning; it's an opportunity for meaningful experiences.”-Unknown