Hi everyone! We are having a gathering this Sunday in Santa Monica (4-20-08; see the event listing nearby on this tribe page). I hope to see you there! Whether or not you come to Sunday's meeting, feel free to carry on a discussion by posting your own ideas here, either before or after Sunday's meeting.
Here's the "official" wording of this topic, which was the winner of the email voting this week:
WHAT'S THE MEANING OF LIFE? Does life even have a purpose or meaning? When we ask this question, what exactly are we asking? Does the question even make sense? If it does, it leads to a number of related questions that include but are not limited to the following. Does meaning come 'from within' or from an external source? Can life be meaningful, given its apparent finitude and impermanence, or is it worthwhile only if there is an eternal aspect to it?"
Life's purpose or meaning may be among the oldest of philosophical questions, but philosophers are still talking about it. Typically, they approach it by trying to analyze or make sense of the question, trying to give an answer to it, or trying to show that it has no answer, that life has no meaning. Of those who try to answer it, many attempt to "capture in a single principle all the variegated conditions that confer meaning on life," according to one recent article on the issue.
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For those interested, here are the full vote-by-email results for this month's topic:
1) Are You An Ethical 'Speciesist' Or Anthropomorphist? (15.5 Votes)
2) Is Science Converging Upon The Truth, (15.25 Votes)
3) What's The Meaning Of Life?? (34.0 Votes)
4) Why Is It Wrong To Pollute? What Is Pollution, Anyway? (8.75 Votes)
5) What Moral Obligations Do We Have To Obey The Laws And Legal Rulings Of Our Government? (9.5 Votes)
Each topic stays on the list until it wins or consistently receives a paltry number of votes. You may have noticed that the votes do not come in whole numbers. This is not because fractions of a person turn in votes, but because you receive one vote for your top choice, a half vote for your 2nd choice (if you had one), a quarter vote for your 3rd choice, and so on.
See you Sunday!
Brian
Here's the "official" wording of this topic, which was the winner of the email voting this week:
WHAT'S THE MEANING OF LIFE? Does life even have a purpose or meaning? When we ask this question, what exactly are we asking? Does the question even make sense? If it does, it leads to a number of related questions that include but are not limited to the following. Does meaning come 'from within' or from an external source? Can life be meaningful, given its apparent finitude and impermanence, or is it worthwhile only if there is an eternal aspect to it?"
Life's purpose or meaning may be among the oldest of philosophical questions, but philosophers are still talking about it. Typically, they approach it by trying to analyze or make sense of the question, trying to give an answer to it, or trying to show that it has no answer, that life has no meaning. Of those who try to answer it, many attempt to "capture in a single principle all the variegated conditions that confer meaning on life," according to one recent article on the issue.
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For those interested, here are the full vote-by-email results for this month's topic:
1) Are You An Ethical 'Speciesist' Or Anthropomorphist? (15.5 Votes)
2) Is Science Converging Upon The Truth, (15.25 Votes)
3) What's The Meaning Of Life?? (34.0 Votes)
4) Why Is It Wrong To Pollute? What Is Pollution, Anyway? (8.75 Votes)
5) What Moral Obligations Do We Have To Obey The Laws And Legal Rulings Of Our Government? (9.5 Votes)
Each topic stays on the list until it wins or consistently receives a paltry number of votes. You may have noticed that the votes do not come in whole numbers. This is not because fractions of a person turn in votes, but because you receive one vote for your top choice, a half vote for your 2nd choice (if you had one), a quarter vote for your 3rd choice, and so on.
See you Sunday!
Brian
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Los Angeles
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Re: WHAT'S THE MEANING OF LIFE? (yeah, really!)
Thu, April 17, 2008 - 6:33 PMOPTIONAL READINGS: I have a few readings that will focus our discussion this Sunday on this broad topic; I highly recommend that you read one or more of them. Our discussion, however, focuses on the topic rather than specifically on the readings. These optional readings are a good way to inspire and stimulate your interest and thinking on the matter, and clarify the ideas and debates involved:
1. plato.stanford.edu/entries/life-meaning/
This overview article is titled "The Meaning of Life," appropriately enough. It's from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, one of our usual sources of good articles that summarize philosophical ideas.
2. web.arizona.edu/~phil/facu...of_life.htm
This article, by another philosophy professor, is in an anthology dedicated to the life of the famous and recently deceased philosopher Robert Nozick, who wrote on the meaning of life and many other topics.
3. www.philosophynow.org/issue59...tion.htm
Philosophy Mow Magazine runs a "Question of the Month" Blog. This is a collection of short responses by the magazine's readers to the question, “What Is The Meaning Of Life” -
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Re: WHAT'S THE MEANING OF LIFE? (yeah, really!)
Thu, April 17, 2008 - 6:37 PMHere's an excerpt from the from the first of the above optional readings, plato.stanford.edu/entries/life-meaning/
This is the introductory paragraphs of that article:
THE MEANING OF LIFE
Many major historical figures in philosophy have provided an answer to the question of what, if anything, makes life meaningful, although they typically have not put it in these terms. Consider, for instance, Aristotle on the human function, Aquinas on the beatific vision, and Kant on the highest good. While these concepts have some bearing on happiness and morality, they are straightforwardly construed as accounts of which final ends a person ought to realize in order to have a significant existence. Despite the venerable pedigree, it is only in the last 50 years or so that something approaching a distinct field on the meaning of life has been established in analytic philosophy, and it is only in the last 25 years that debate with real depth has appeared. Concomitant with the demise of positivism and of utilitarianism in the post-war era has been the rise of analytical enquiry into non-hedonistic conceptions of value grounded on relatively uncontroversial (but not universally shared) judgments or “intuitions,” including conceptions of meaning in life. English-speaking philosophers can be expected to continue to find life's meaning of interest as they increasingly realize that it is a distinct line of enquiry that admits of rational enquiry to no less a degree than more familiar normative categories such as well-being, right action, and distributive justice.
This survey critically discusses approaches to meaning in life that are prominent in contemporary English-speaking philosophical literature. To provide context, sometimes it mentions other texts, e.g., in Continental philosophy or from before the 20th century. However, the central aim is to acquaint the reader with recent analytic work on life's meaning and to pose questions about it that are currently worthy of consideration.
When the topic of the meaning of life comes up, people often pose one of two questions: “So, what is the meaning of life?” and “What are you talking about?” The literature can be divided in terms of which question it seeks to answer. This discussion begins by addressing works that discuss the latter, abstract question regarding the sense of talk of “life's meaning,” i.e., that aim to clarify what we are asking when we pose the question of what, if anything, makes life meaningful. Then it considers texts that provide answers to the more substantive question. Some accounts of what makes life meaningful provide particular ways to do so, e.g., by making certain achievements (James 2005), developing moral character (Thomas 2005), or learning from relationships with family members (Velleman 2005). However, most recent discussions of meaning in life are attempts to capture in a single principle all the variegated conditions that confer meaning on life. This survey focuses heavily on the articulation and evaluation of these theories of what makes life meaningful. It concludes by examining nihilist views that the conditions necessary for meaning in life do not obtain. -
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Re: WHAT'S THE MEANING OF LIFE? (yeah, really!)
Sun, April 20, 2008 - 12:42 AMArlene, from our discussion group, has a few ideas on the topic, so I'm posting this for her:
Built into the question, "What Is The Meaning Of Life? is the assumption that there is a meaning, which seems to dismiss the real question as to whether there is or there is not a meaning to life.
Albert Camus, French Existentialist, proclaimed man as absurd..as a contradiction, given that on the one hand, there is no meaning, and yet, man cannot psychologically maintain his sanity without insisting that there is meaning. Heidegger was quite blunt in trying to show how man is inauthentic when attempting to "throw" himself into projects which give meaning to life. One can only reach authenticity when one awakens to the realization that man is forever on the abyss with no guidelines, and no "Guider." Hence, there is the notion of
angst in his philosophy.
When one speaks of the meaning of life, one must look at individual 'meanings,' along with a universal meaning. Looking at the different 'universes,' within our planet... from the sophisticated New Yorker, to the New Zealand aborigine... how does one speak of a "Universal Meaning?"
Getting off the philosophical, or, perhaps not, tonight the meaning of life for me is to prepare a good meal for the family, and at other times, to prepare an exciting show for my audience, and we can get grander by saying that the meaning of life is to feed the hungry, stop all wars, create a brotherhood, and on and on...all wonderful ideas...and as Camus might have said, necessary for our sanity, or as Heidegger would have proclaimed, interesting projects into which we have "throwed" ourselves...all inauthentic. -
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Re: WHAT'S THE MEANING OF LIFE? (yeah, really!)
Sun, April 20, 2008 - 8:13 AMComedy!
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Re: WHAT'S THE MEANING OF LIFE? (yeah, really!)
Sun, April 20, 2008 - 12:56 PMSome quotes I found online:
Joseph Campbell:
I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.
Albert Camus:
You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.
Dell Hymes:
The shaping of deeply felt values into meaningful, apposite form, is present in all communities, and will find some means of expressions among all.
Ernest Becker:
When we understand that man is the only animal who must create meaning, who must open a wedge into neutral nature, we already understand the essence of love. Love is the problem of an animal who must find life, create a dialogue with nature in order to experience his own being.
Ernest Becker:
I think that taking life seriously means something such as this: that whatever man does on this planet has to be done in the lived truth of the terror of creation, of the grotesque, of the rumble of panic underneath everything. Otherwise it is false. Whatever is achieved must be achieved with the full exercise of passion, of vision, of pain, of fear, and of sorrow. How do we know ... that our part of the meaning of the universe might not be a rhythm in sorrow?
HH the Dalai Lama:
What is the meaning of life? To be happy and useful.
Hannah Senesh:
One needs something to believe in, something for which one can have whole-hearted enthusiasm. One needs to feel that one's life has meaning, that one is needed in this world.
Mitsugi Saotome:
If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life, it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth.
Paul Tillich:
Religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the question of the meaning of our life.
Robert Penn Warren:
The poem is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful. And in the end, the poem is not a thing we see --i t is, rather, a light by which we may see -- and what we see is life.
Victor Frankl:
What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.
Victor Frankl:
A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how."
Victor Frankl:
We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by doing a deed; (2) by experiencing a value; and (3) by suffering.
Victor Frankl:
If architects want to strengthen a decrepit arch, they increase the load that is laid upon it, for thereby the parts are joined more firmly together. So, if therapists wish to foster their patients' mental health, they should not be afraid to increase that load through a reorientation toward the meaning of one's life. -
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Re: WHAT'S THE MEANING OF LIFE? (yeah, really!)
Sun, April 20, 2008 - 1:00 PMTHIS PASSAGE IS FROM A PREVIOUS POSTING ON THIS TRIBE: by Richard J. Eisner rjeisner@ix.netcom.com
Typographical note: This web site does not accommodate italicization, for which I will substitute CAPITALIZATION. Such expedient, alas, does not work for the personal pronoun "I"; so I must resort to the additional awkward notation that that word in the last sentence below is italicized.]
"Why are we here?" is a variant of the proverbial query about "the meaning of life." One signification of "meaning" in this connection is VALUE (including disvalue), which has both an objective and a subjective sense. The objective form is INHERENT value, whose presence or absence is a fact, or truth, independent of our opinion about it. My own opinion (though I will not rehearse the argument for it) is that intrinsic value is impossible. Subjective worth is, if you will, the value that that which WE VALUE (say, our own life, or even life in general) has TO US.
A second definition of "meaning" here is PURPOSE, to which the objective-subjective dichotomy likewise pertains. Since objective purpose overlaps, and depends on, objective worth (as Aristotle said, a thing's purpose is to seek its essential good); the impossibility of absolute value entails the impossibility of absolute purpose. It seems to me that purpose in this context is just (subjective) intention, and that, therefore, the concept "the purpose of life" is unsound because purpose, being a state of mind, is a property, not of LIFE, but of INDIVIDUALS; and because, contrary to the phrase's implication of a unity of purpose ("the"), not all our purposes have the same object, not even happiness, which we often sacrifice for other desiderata (what we value (or believe is intrinsically valuable) may be a factor in determining our pursuits). (In further consequence, your "mission in life" does not exist prior to and independent of you, awaiting your discovery of it, but instead ARISES FROM you.)
To the argument that life's purpose is objective in consisting in its creator's (God's) purpose for it, I would offer this response. If God could not possibly change His mind in this regard, then life's purpose would be akin to inherent purpose, which, as discussed, I reject (and God would be extraneous). On the other hand, if God COULD alter His purpose for life, then it is not necessary or universal, but merely contingent, one percipient's (subjective) intent. Be that as it may, men frequently purpose to perform God's will. But I wonder: Considering that any course of events (including our actions) WILLED by an OMNIPOTENT being would inevitably come to pass, regardless of our little effort for or against it; what is the logic in the notion of attempting to discover and do God's will? Alternatively, what adjustment would we make in our purpose to carry out God's will if we supposed that God wants us simply to do what is best for humanity?
A third acceptation of "meaning" of life is a combination of the other two, and is captured by "meaningful." When we pursue meaning in our lives, we are seeking purpose and value. Which meaning, again, is subjective, and something each person must generate for himself. What we search for in this respect is, not meaning, per se, but rather a SENSE of meaning; not THE meaning, but A meaning . . . which I have found in writing about such philosophical questions. -
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Re: WHAT'S THE MEANING OF LIFE? (yeah, really!)
Sun, April 20, 2008 - 1:01 PMFROM ANOTHER POSTING FROM THE PAST ON THIS TRIBE: by Samwise:
I had a thought once that was quite powerful for me... (but who am I... Wait that's another whole question... I digress...)
The Thought was...
Not only is there not answer to life... There was never a question to begin with.
Like... What is the question "Tree"? There is no question "Tree". There is just tree, rock, bird, cat, continent... And that's not a problem... in fact it's very freeing (at least to me).
The question, unless just an interesting intellectual excercise done for a mental workout, can be very heavy and troubling... Seldomly do I hear people asking that question with great glee and joy "WHY ARE WE HERE??? WHOO HOOO!!! YEEE HAW!!!"... It's usually when we DON'T seem to have a vision of what we are working toward. Martin Luthor King, Ghandi, Mother Theresa... I don't think they had the time to ask that question... they were too busy answering it in their own way.
And it's not about completeing the vision either... It doesn't matter if you complete your vision in your lifetime... only that you inspire others and allow that vision (that dream) to grow bigger, be shared by and release ownership to others. It is an entity unto itself.
Hmmmm, maybe that's the answer to the non-question...
TO HAVE A VISION AND INSPIRE OTHERS INTO A VISION... GIVING THEM A POWERFUL PURPOSFUL AND FULFILLING LIFE, ELEVATING ALL.
(yeah, that's the ticket) -
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Re: WHAT'S THE MEANING OF LIFE? (yeah, really!)
Sun, April 20, 2008 - 1:03 PM...AND ANOTHER ONE: from Frinj / Ken:
I've used that approach in the past, telling people that questioning what is the purpose of life is akin to asking what is the weight of blue, or some such analogy.
Yet, on the other hand, I cannot entirely dismiss the question. It seems to me that people would not be obsessed with such a metaphysical question (i.e., unconnected to daily survival) unless there were something to it. Sort of like the idea that hunger proves food exists, thirst proves drinks exist. Your not going to have an urge evolve without there being some satisfaction for that urge out there.
Now, maybe the urge is misunderstood. Maybe the question, "Why are we here?" or "What is the meaning of life?" is slightly askew. I suppose the question itself denotes a fundamental desire by people to accomplish something important before dying.
So maybe the first question is, "What tasks are important?" Important to whom, though? Maybe the self? Maybe the most important task is to achieve confidence in your own ability to decide what tasks are important and then strive to accomplish them. The task itself is really not important in any objective sense. The important part is achieving the self-confidence to decide for yourself what task is important and having the will to try accomplishing that task. It is like a litmus test for personal growth.
It is like you are travelling and wondering where you are supposed to go. What is the right destination? In fact, there is no wrong destination except having no destination. Without a destination you are perpetually wandering lost and directionless. Thus after a weeks journeying you have not accomplished anything, you are no closer to any destination than you were before. Because people have an inherent urge to accomplish, such a wandering life makes you feel incomplete and shallow.
~ken~
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Re: WHAT'S THE MEANING OF LIFE? (yeah, really!)
Sun, April 20, 2008 - 1:16 PMNietzsche's test for how meaningful and satisfying your life is: Would you want to live it over and over, ad infinitum?
Consider Nietzsche's often quoted passage from The Gay Science at section 341:
"The Greatest Burden. What if a demon crept after thee into thy loneliest loneliness some day or night, and said to thee: "This life, as thou livest it at present, and hast lived it, thou must live it once more, and also innumerable times; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh, and all the unspeakably small and great in thy life must come to thee again, and all in the same series and sequence-and similarly this spider and this moonlight among the trees, and similarly this moment, and I myself. The eternal sand-glass of existence will ever be turned once more, and thou with it, thou speck of dust!"- Wouldst thou not throw thyself down and gnash thy teeth, and curse the demon that so spake? Or hast thou once experienced a tremendous moment in which thou wouldst answer him: "Thou art a God, and never did I hear anything so divine! "If that thought acquired power over thee as thou art, it would transform thee, and perhaps crush thee; the question with regard to all and everything: "Dost thou want this once more, and also for innumerable times?" would lie as the heaviest burden upon thy activity! Or, how wouldst thou have to become favorably inclined to thyself and to life, so as to long for nothing more ardently than for this last eternal sanctioning and sealing?"
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Re: WHAT'S THE MEANING OF LIFE? (yeah, really!)
Sun, April 20, 2008 - 1:18 PMThe psychiatrist David Viscott once said, "The meaning of life is to discover your gifts and talents in this world; the purpose of life is to use these gifts to help others." (my paraphrase)
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Re: WHAT'S THE MEANING OF LIFE? (yeah, really!)
Sun, April 20, 2008 - 1:21 PMA few of my own thoughts:
I suspect that we have not been put here for any particular reason, except that the universe produced us by a combination of happenstance and the laws of physics, evolution, and so on. So, in the narrow sense of this question, we appear to have been put here with a design built into us: to survive and reproduce. However, nature's purposes are not necessarily my purposes for myself. Now that we're here, we also seem to have been given the gift (or burden) to choose and to pursue whichever projects and values we judge to be the best way to spend our time and live our life. Even if we were put here or designed for specific reasons and purposes (for example, by some God or by the evolutionary process in nature), we still are compelled to make our own choices of what to pursue. We can choose to go along with the designs Nature or God(s) has designed us for (or what we think Nature or God has designed us for), or we can resist those designs and follow others of our own making.
However, the question arises as to whether we are capable of choosing other than what designs are instilled in us. Some argue that we can only choose those courses of action that arise from some value within us, and that all our values derive from the human nature we are born with. For example, nobody would value food or sex if we weren't born with a biological drive to eat or procreate. If we weren't made with a sense of curiosity and boredom, and a capacity to figure things out, then learning would have little value. As it is with food, sex, curiosity and boredom, the argument goes, so it is with all other pursuits humans can come up with.
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