Philosophy Now Forum

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 5:20 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 4:58 pm

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 4:46 pm Meaning for a car is defined by its service to man. Without it, a car is just a collection of parts.

Meaning for Man as i understand it is defined by the process it serves. Without this process, man has no objective meaning. The problem is that we are largely ignorant of the process. This makes process theology a meaningful line of research. When we understand the process, we will understand the meaning of life.

That's the problem, essentially. You've hit it.

If we (mankind) are here by pure accident, then it's absurd to talk about us "having a purpose." Nobody "purposed" anything by our creation or by placing us here. So we can neither achieve nor miss our "purpose." And most certainly, we cannot be "authentic" to a purpose we quite simply don't have.

So we can talk about us "imagining" one, "inventing" one, or "desiring" one, and especially about us "deluding ourselves into thinking we have one"...but not of us actually "having" or "finding" our purpose, because there's nothing to "find," and nothing to be "had," if we're just a product of cosmic accident.

If you don't think we're a cosmic accident that's fine, you can live your life accordingly. I happen to think we are a cosmic accident and being badgered about it by the Nicks of this world gets right up my nose. He doesn't even know what he's advocating, it's all just a fuzzy, warm something that he thinks he's caught a glimpse of but can't make out the details. He doesn't even have his own words to describe his fantasy, it's all a cobbled together mess of utterings from long since dead characters.

Meno's Paradox and the Immortality of Soul: how will you know what you are looking for if you first don't already know it (and thus have no reason to go looking for it)? But why look for something you already have? This is the paradox raised in Plato's dialogue called the Meno. In answer to "Meno's Paradox," Plato suggests that before we were born we existed in another realm of being (the realm of the Forms). The shock of being born makes us forget what we knew in that realm. But when we are asked the right questions or have certain experiences, we remember or "recollect" innate (inborn) truths. So if we existed before our births, there is every reason to think that we will continue to exist after our deaths.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 5:35 pm
Some people are closer to remembering than others. They have a part in them, a seed of a soul, more mature. Those dead characters you refer to aid in remembering leading to recognition of the process Man serves and the meaning of life.

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 5:20 pm I happen to think we are a cosmic accident and being badgered about it by the Nicks of this world gets right up my nose.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 6:09 pm The consequence is that to apply terms like "meaning" and "purpose" to an essentially accidental existence becomes absurd.

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 6:18 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 6:09 pm The consequence is that to apply terms like "meaning" and "purpose" to an essentially accidental existence becomes absurd.

Why is inventing your own purpose absurd yet being given one by a "higher power" not absurd?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 6:57 pm

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 6:18 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 6:09 pm The consequence is that to apply terms like "meaning" and "purpose" to an essentially accidental existence becomes absurd.

Why is inventing your own purpose absurd yet being given one by a "higher power" not absurd?

Okay: before I respond to your response, perhaps we need to clear up a possible misunderstanding that could ensue. We use the word "purpose" two ways: one, the actual function or intention of a thing, and the other, merely the wish or desire of an agent. The first is primarily a noun, and the second is primarily a verb. But they're not quite the same concept. The second is a thing human beings happen do; but the first is a real thing that (if it exists) would exist even if human beings failed to know it. In other words, the first is objective, and the second is merely subjective.

So a person can decide what she will "purpose" (sense 2) to do in her life, without that implying that there is any ultimate "purpose" (sense 1) in her life, or that she has a destiny to which she must be "authentic," or a "meaning". Plenty of people make up things they want (or "purpose," sense 2) to do, or even imagine they have an ultimate "purpose" (sense 1): but the one thing they cannot have, if they are only here by cosmic accident, is a genuine type 1 purpose. Because, they don't actually exist for any reason, by definition of what an "accident" means.

So whatever they imagine, it's just a delusion. The deep truth is that there is no purpose, and their imaginary "purpose" is just a lullaby they're singing to themselves while they progress toward extinction.

Camus talks about the situation of such a self-deluded, purpose-imagining person as "intellectual suicide." They tell themselves they have purpose, because they're not courageous enough to be what he calls "the absurd hero," and to face up to the ultimate meaninglessness and purposeless of existence, he says.

And if there is no Creator, then Camus is right. Inventing a "purpose" or "meaning," is inauthentic, dishonest, and self-deluding, in that case, and will only form an illusionary barrier between the "condemned to be free" (Sartre) agent and the true reality he or she inhabits, limiting his or her ability to choose freely. It would be the opiate of the Atheist.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 7:17 pm
We can easily define subjective purposes for living which have nothing to do with objective universal purpose and the purpose of life and hence its meaning within this objective purpose. These speculations are an annoyance to some but really are at the core of both the attraction to philosophy and religion. Who am I? Why am I here? These are annoying questions. Just play with your remote and don't bother us. The modern philosophical solution.

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 7:36 pm

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 7:17 pm
We can easily define subjective purposes for living which have nothing to do with objective universal purpose and the purpose of life and hence its meaning within this objective purpose. These speculations are an annoyance to some but really are at the core of both the attraction to philosophy and religion. Who am I? Why am I here? These are annoying questions. Just play with your remote and don't bother us. The modern philosophical solution.

Shut up, Nick, there's a serious discussion taking place now. You can look but please don't touch.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 7:17 pm Who am I? Why am I here? These are annoying questions. Just play with your remote and don't bother us. The modern philosophical solution.

davidm wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 7:54 pm

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 7:17 pm Who am I? Why am I here? These are annoying questions. Just play with your remote and don't bother us. The modern philosophical solution.

And here is your typical slander of people who don't believe as you do. EVERYONE asks these questions -- who am I? Why am I here? It's just that many of us don't agree with your answers to those questions.-- not that we ignore the questions and play with the remote. Rather, we don't delude ourselves into believing, as you and ICan do, that there is a Big Man in the Sky who justifies our existence. There isn't.

Now go play with your remote (shine box?)

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 8:03 pm

davidm wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 7:54 pm

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 7:17 pm Who am I? Why am I here? These are annoying questions. Just play with your remote and don't bother us. The modern philosophical solution.

And here is your typical slander of people who don't believe as you do. EVERYONE asks these questions -- who am I? Why am I here? It's just that many of us don't agree with your answers to those questions.-- not that we ignore the questions and play with the remote. Rather, we don't delude ourselves into believing, as you and ICan do, that there is a Big Man in the Sky who justifies our existence. There isn't.

Now go play with your remote (shine box?)

What is the sense of asking the question if you've decided it has no answer? Just create your own reality. That is an Oprahism. Fine if it satisfies you. However there are sincere people who are not content with the escapism of creating their own reality

davidm wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 8:13 pm

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 8:03 pm

davidm wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 7:54 pm

And here is your typical slander of people who don't believe as you do. EVERYONE asks these questions -- who am I? Why am I here? It's just that many of us don't agree with your answers to those questions.-- not that we ignore the questions and play with the remote. Rather, we don't delude ourselves into believing, as you and ICan do, that there is a Big Man in the Sky who justifies our existence. There isn't.

Now go play with your remote (shine box?)

What is the sense of asking the question if you've decided it has no answer? Just create your own reality. That is an Oprahism. Fine if it satisfies you. However there are sincere people who are not content with the escapism of creating their own reality

Why do you think the question has no answer unless it presupposes a Big Daddy in the Sky? That's called begging the question. People like you and ICan stack the deck by saying even to ask the question is to presuppose the answer. I say life can and does have meaning without need of a creator. Of course these meanings are subjective -- my meaning will differ from yours.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 8:18 pm So what is the objective purpose of life in the universe which gives the life of Man its objective meaning?

What could provide it other than a conscious source?

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 8:18 pm
Doesn't it strike you as absurd to consider that the only purpose of this vast universal machine has only purpose you, less than a speck within it, give it.

davidm wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 8:30 pm

Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Sep 17, 2017 8:18 pm
Doesn't it strike you as absurd to consider that the only purpose of this vast universal machine has only purpose you, less than a speck within it, give it.

I don't give the universe purpose, and it does not give me purpose. I give myself purpose.