New OOTS products from CafePress
New OOTS t-shirts, ornaments, mugs, bags, and more
Page 3 of 3 FirstFirst 123
Results 61 to 76 of 76
  1. - Top - End - #61
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Tyndmyr's Avatar

    Join Date
    Aug 2009
    Location
    Maryland
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: What is the meaning of life?

    Quote Originally Posted by Findpathfencer View Post
    One who complains solves nothing. If one sees a problem and cares anuff to complain then he should fix the problem and not half heartily tell him the fix it him self.

    But what you proposed back is wrong and misses the point.
    *twitches at spelling*

    It is not wrong. It simply points out that this is only a difficult question because it lacks clarity.

    You will note that the same is true of my example, if you are answering a more specific question like "what is the price of this purple dye".

    The meaning of life is a question concerning every one(even you) and is a question that means many thing with many parts of those many meanings. The two biggest meanings is a personnel one and one concerning every one.
    Personal. And while your question may include me, I am certainly not concerned by it.

    So your saying that mosquitos are something vastly deferent from people or even life?
    Mosquitos are significantly different from people, yes. Life comes in many forms. Discussing the meaning of A life is different from discussing the meaning of ALL life.

    You really must understand the question in order to answer it.

  2. - Top - End - #62
    Troll in the Playground
     
    Devil

    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Location
    Lost in the Hinterlands
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: What is the meaning of life?

    Do whatever you like with your life. Ever since they developed cold fusion, you're only here to serve as a battery for the machine civilization anyways.
    A father taken by time, a brother dead by my own hand.
    With this work behold my grief, in Stone and shifting sand.

  3. - Top - End - #63
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Anarion's Avatar

    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    San Francisco
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: What is the meaning of life?

    Quote Originally Posted by SiuiS View Post
    Aye.

    The problem as I see it with these talks is there's a certain script you're going to get because anything else leads down a road that basically says the rules are made up and the points don't matter, and encourages misanthropy and immorality by it's language.

    Take the Kant angle. The default response is to dissect someone's sensation of correctness until it doesn't make sense and fails some technical test and then say there must be something wrong with it. I'm honestly surprised at the ending we got, with Anders saying perhaps we should cobble together a working morality, when he has already done a lot of te groundwork for discrediting the need for morality*.

    We as people have established that emotional intelligence exists. But we still insist that the answer to everything must be some boiled down fortune cookie nugget of logical thought, for some reason. If someone says they know Right when they see it (or Meaning, or Morality), they'll be asked why or how. They will often either stumble through logic, or say in some form that they just know the way that resonates with them, intuitively. To which the response is almost always the same;

    "that's stupid, it couldn't be right because it doesn't always work and there's no way to independently verify it."

    But really, that's so backwards. That's the smartest possible answer, and blindly applying a tool that doesn't work to a situation and insisting it's the right one for the job – forcing an objective logical universal synopsis of something that isn't objective, logical or universal – is the stupid move. Recognizing that there's a core of meaning that most people can only define in the negative, that the question is inherently an intimate one and one of purely human perspective, and engaging honestly with it in those terms and recognizing the limits of any answer is the right way to do things, but is also what we are taught is wrong and invalid due to lack of objective logical benchmarks. And it's so silly.

    The stance of an academic as some external force, examining humanity and life from the outside, can only lead to biased and faulty answers.





    * not to say Anders actually did or intended anything of the sort. Just that the trend follows the same questioning, and lends the semblance of authority to the interrogations that eventually lead there.
    This is a really thoughtful post and I don't really disagree with it. My response is that despite the failings, it's incredibly worthwhile to try the logic anyway. Because it creates insights, it opens new ideas, and sometimes it guides people's actions too, especially in the tough spots where the intuition gets muddled.

    Besides, the problem with the meaning of life question isn't the challenge in attempting to try and quantify the gargantuan range of possibilities available to every being on the planet. That's hard anyway, but the meaning of life question has a much simpler problem. Namely, nobody can agree what the heck "meaning" actually means.
    School Fox by Atlur

    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    Anarion's right on the money here.
    Quotes

    "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”
    Oscar Wilde Writer & Poet (1891)

  4. - Top - End - #64
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Asta Kask's Avatar

    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Gothenburg, Sweden
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: What is the meaning of life?

    How did I lay the groundwork for saying there's no morality? Morality is, at its core, trying to answer the question "What should I do?" A code of morality may be implicit in some people, but it's necessary for everyone who's not a catatonic.
    Avatar by CoffeeIncluded

    Oooh, and that's a bad miss.

    “Don't exercise your freedom of speech until you have exercised your freedom of thought.”
    ― Tim Fargo

  5. - Top - End - #65
    Titan in the Playground
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Dallas, TX
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: What is the meaning of life?

    Quote Originally Posted by Findpathfencer View Post
    The answers are starting to sound the same, so if I may I'll ask something extra.

    What brings meaning to your life?
    Many things, several of which we are not allowed to discuss on this forum.

    If you want a complete answer, talk to people whose approach to life has earned your respect. Talk to them privately, with no rules of what topics are allowed..

    And count on many long talks. There is no simple, clear answer.

  6. - Top - End - #66
    Colossus in the Playground
     
    NecromancerGuy

    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    Xin-Shalast
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: What is the meaning of life?

    Quote Originally Posted by Findpathfencer View Post
    One who complains solves nothing. If one sees a problem and cares [enough] to complain then he should fix the problem and not half heartily tell him the fix it him self.
    Fixed that for you.

    Also, building a consensus to gain allies with which to do things is, in fact, a thing, and often characterized as naught but complaining.

    Also, mosquitoes are abominations that must be destroyed, not a form of life.
    Last edited by Coidzor; 2014-09-30 at 03:49 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Keld Denar View Post
    +3 Girlfriend is totally unoptimized. You are better off with a +1 Keen Witty girlfriend and then appling Greater Magic Make-up to increase her enhancement bonus.
    Homebrew
    To Do: Reboot and finish Riptide

  7. - Top - End - #67
    Barbarian in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    Marlinspike

    Default Re: What is the meaning of life?

    Quote Originally Posted by Anarion View Post
    This is a really thoughtful post and I don't really disagree with it. My response is that despite the failings, it's incredibly worthwhile to try the logic anyway. Because it creates insights, it opens new ideas, and sometimes it guides people's actions too, especially in the tough spots where the intuition gets muddled.
    An interesting thing about logic and morality:

    Sociopaths and psychopaths score higher than the average person on logic tests... yet look at their ability to be highly immoral.

    I'm not saying that being logical makes you immoral, I'm saying that understanding and experiencing morality requires something other than logic, and sociopaths lack that "something".

    Sure you could probably logically explain morality, but the explanation would be so complicated and long... it would be impossible for any one person to understand.

  8. - Top - End - #68
    Banned
     
    SiuiS's Avatar

    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Location
    Somewhere south of Hell
    Gender
    Female

    Default Re: What is the meaning of life?

    Quote Originally Posted by Razade View Post
    There's a lot of reasons for this, all of them against the Forum Rules which is a shame because it's a good conversation to have.
    I don't believe the fetishization of logic as a discussion topic is against the rules, myself, although it's a topic I'm not well-read on.

    That's the issue, I find. The inability to recognize the faults of a single tool, the inability to consider other tools.

    Quote Originally Posted by Anarion View Post
    This is a really thoughtful post and I don't really disagree with it. My response is that despite the failings, it's incredibly worthwhile to try the logic anyway.
    Oh, certainly. I am not against logic and find it to be rather elegant when well used. It just needs checking; while theoretical inquiry is good, endless navel gazing is not, and logic is itself terrible at truly tellig you when you're no longer getting sufficient returns.

    Besides, the problem with the meaning of life question isn't the challenge in attempting to try and quantify the gargantuan range of possibilities available to every being on the planet. That's hard anyway, but the meaning of life question has a much simpler problem. Namely, nobody can agree what the heck "meaning" actually means.
    Meaning is subjective and relative. We only have trouble defining "meaning" in a way that works for all people at all times, and so assume we don't "really" know what meaning means.

    Think about that. If someone asks you a question, 'what is the meaning of this thing?' You could probably answer, though it would be a bit glib and off the cuff. If someone asked you later what does this other thing mean, you could again answer. If they then point out that your two answers use different meanings of the word meaning, logic tells you that both answers must be wrong (because logical conditioning tells you there are universal binaries). It's just as accurate – and far more useful – to say that each definition is appropriate to the context of the question and situation, rather than the universal understanding isn't applied and so violates the validity of the equation.

    Quote Originally Posted by Asta Kask View Post
    How did I lay the groundwork for saying there's no morality?
    You've started the process of logical dissection which, when taken too far, almost universally ends in saying that all moral structures are equal. The follow up is basically "when everyone has super powers, no one will have super powers" which makes logical sense on paper but doesn't actually play out in reality.

    It would be easy for someone to agree with your methods over all other proposed ideas or methods and assume that they should be continued beyond your already given, rational answer to the problem. That's sort of the issue. It's easy to teach people how to use logic to approach a problem. It's hard to teach them to recognize when they've gone far enough.

    I've beat that horse enough I suppose though.

    Quote Originally Posted by Aliquid View Post
    I'm not saying that being logical makes you immoral, I'm saying that understanding and experiencing morality requires something other than logic, and sociopaths lack that "something".
    Indeed, it is enough to say also "yet being logical does not make you moral either".

    Sure you could probably logically explain morality, but the explanation would be so complicated and long... it would be impossible for any one person to understand.
    It's not even that. It's that the explanation is heuristic. It's a surface pattern which speaks of the depth of the equation but doesn't bestow the knowledge of the equation.

    Explaining morality through logic can work, but it could also end up like describing a painting and hoping it's equal to taking someone on a your of the louvre.

  9. - Top - End - #69
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    enderlord99's Avatar

    Join Date
    Jul 2011

    Default Re: What is the meaning of life?

    Quote Originally Posted by Coidzor View Post
    Also, mosquitoes are abominations that must be destroyed, not a form of life.
    They're both, actually.
    Spoiler: Vanity quotes
    Show
    Quote Originally Posted by Strigon View Post
    Wow.
    That took a very sudden turn for the dark.

    I salute you.
    Quote Originally Posted by AuthorGirl View Post
    I wish it was possible to upvote here.

    I use braces (also known as "curly brackets") to indicate sarcasm. If there are none present, I probably believe what I am saying; should it turn out to be inaccurate trivia, please tell me rather than trying to play along with an apparent joke I don't know I'm making.

  10. - Top - End - #70
    Ettin in the Playground
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Pelican City
    Gender
    Female

    Default Re: What is the meaning of life?

    Didn't read the whole thread, but
    The meaning of life is to contribute to the lives of others and society.
    Don't be a useless husk of barely-humanity. Mean something.
    Meaning something is what gives your life meaning. It's Tautologically Delicious!

  11. - Top - End - #71
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    Eulalios's Avatar

    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Steady Habit
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: What is the meaning of life?

    The answer is recursive on the question.

  12. - Top - End - #72
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    danzibr's Avatar

    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Location
    Back forty.
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: What is the meaning of life?

    Populate heaven.
    My one and only handbook: My Totemist Handbook
    My one and only homebrew: Book of Flux
    Spoiler
    Show
    A comment on tiers, by Prime32
    Quote Originally Posted by KillianHawkeye View Post
    As a DM, I deal with character death by cheering and giving a fist pump, or maybe a V-for-victory sign. I would also pat myself on the back, but I can't really reach around like that.
      /l、
    ゙(゚、 。 7
     l、゙ ~ヽ
     じしf_, )ノ

  13. - Top - End - #73
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    AssassinGuy

    Join Date
    Dec 2013
    Location
    ohio USA
    Gender
    Male

    frown Re: What is the meaning of life?

    Quote Originally Posted by Aedilred View Post
    Not so sure about that. There are lots of things that are worthy of complaint that the complainant can't fix themselves. That is in fact a large part of the point in the police and justice system in most countries. We can't redefine your question for you - or, well, we can try, but it relies on your accepting the proposed redefinition, which you didn't.

    (Incidentally, and without wishing to be overly snide, does your belief in this principle extend to identifying spelling mistakes? My inner correctionist is twitching).




    You can strip it back to its most basic level, but at that point the subject is so broad and the question so vague it's very difficult even to consider meaningfully. As I mentioned before - and while Douglas Adams was joking, at the heart of the joke is a kernel of truth - determining the right question in this instance is if anything even harder, and even more subjective, than working out "the answer". Even at a very basic inquisitorial level, are we asking what, why or how? Each of those would have different answers, and any of them could suffice as "meaning".
    You have to call the The police and justice system first to get them to know which means that you did do something about it.

    You where snide when you said I didn't accepted the redefinition. I don't think any one proposed a redefinition to me unless your talking about what he said, and what he said meant that the question was wrong, which would end all talks about the question because he didn't replace it.


    Quote Originally Posted by Aedilred View Post
    I would posit the principal reason is that they've given the matter more thought than we have, and possibly ever will. They've also usually made an effort to educate themselves on what people who have put similar quantities of thought into the subject have said. It's the same reason you might listen to any expert.

    Experts aren't always right, and laymen not necessarily wrong. People self-medicate without seeing a doctor, and represent themselves in court without the assistance of a lawyer. However the experts are usually better-equipped to identify the pitfalls and problems with a given course of action or chain of reasoning, and present helpful and informed suggestions that people might well not reach on their own.

    It's a sad tendency noted by many humanities specialists of my acquaintance that many people consider expertise and education irrelevant just because the conclusions reached in that field aren't conclusively provable, and would rather, as Mitchell and Webb put it, rely on their "internet-assembled philosophy" after "thinking about it for twenty minutes and thinking they've come to some interesting conclusions".
    To think what you said would mean that what we're discussing here is pointless and we should only follow the words of long outdated dead people. A philosopher is not some magical person that was told by (put whatever powerful thing here) to spread their beliefs. There's philosophers (that talk about good thing) that spread bigotry and racism, so do we keep following their teachings?

    Really the philosopher that people know about are the people that came up with ideas that'd advanced our culture and society, that's why will still teach their teachings.

    Quote Originally Posted by SiuiS View Post

    There are so many things this person doesn't understand that they have become blind to the unspoken and unhinted-at ulterior motive you have but won't be open about? That's not relevant to the question asked at all...
    This guy basically said the question was wrong and pointless, ,and that angered me to no end, because when ever someone says No or that was wrong without adding anything all ways ends with ending the discussion.

    I thought I was pretty open about the situation. I have no ulterior motive for creating this thread. and if you or anyone don't get why I created this thread then go back to the original post.

    Quote Originally Posted by ORione View Post
    Life is a board game that was created by Milton Bradley.
    Hey this reminds me of a song.

    http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UbHY7vBAp4o

    Quote Originally Posted by Razade View Post



    SiuS summed it up pretty well. The reply was pretty much what I expected from someone who, asking a question, dismisses the answers as being all to "same-y".
    I don't think I dismissed anything that wan't dismissing the question it self. But that don't matter or the fact your assuming something, what matters is I'm sorry. I should of not said what I said, I should of properly explained why I was angry at you. I'm sorry and hope your willing to forgive me.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tyndmyr View Post
    *twitches at spelling*



    You really must understand the question in order to answer it.
    I'm sorry to say but you added nothing to the discussion, then you say stuff that already been said.

    Quote Originally Posted by Jay R View Post
    Many things, several of which we are not allowed to discuss on this forum.

    If you want a complete answer, talk to people whose approach to life has earned your respect. Talk to them privately, with no rules of what topics are allowed..

    And count on many long talks. There is no simple, clear answer.
    You've given the best answer to that question, but sadly there really isn't anyone how have 'earned' my respect. Really the only person how has earned my respect is SiuiS, but I doubt she'd discuss it with me

    Quote Originally Posted by Coidzor View Post
    Also, building a consensus to gain allies with which to do things is, in fact, a thing, and often characterized as naught but complaining.:
    How does this have to do with me or him? And are you saying I don't have a consencus!?!

    Quote Originally Posted by Aliquid View Post
    An interesting thing about logic and morality:

    Sociopaths and psychopaths score higher than the average person on logic tests... yet look at their ability to be highly immoral.

    I'm not saying that being logical makes you immoral, I'm saying that understanding and experiencing morality requires something other than logic, and sociopaths lack that "something".

    Sure you could probably logically explain morality, but the explanation would be so complicated and long... it would be impossible for any one person to understand.
    That something is empathy. Many of those guys lack empathy so they don't feel the emotions of other people. If you don't have empathy then you lose a lot of things,one of the biggest is understanding and being part of a community.
    Last edited by Findpathfencer; 2014-10-02 at 10:43 PM.
    If it sounds like I'm trolling I'm really not.

    I'm not the smartest thing ever[even know I can seem like it] so I'm going to be wrong some times so just call me out on it.[i swear I'm not trolling]

  14. - Top - End - #74
    Titan in the Playground
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    Tail of the Bellcurve
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: What is the meaning of life?

    Quote Originally Posted by Findpathfencer View Post
    To think what you said would mean that what we're discussing here is pointless and we should only follow the words of long outdated dead people. A philosopher is not some magical person that was told by (put whatever powerful thing here) to spread their beliefs. There's philosophers (that talk about good thing) that spread bigotry and racism, so do we keep following their teachings?

    Really the philosopher that people know about are the people that came up with ideas that'd advanced our culture and society, that's why will still teach their teachings.
    Last I checked, being dead was not a prerequisite for being a philosopher. Maybe I should stop by the department to make sure though.

    There's also a difference between noting that one person's opinion is likely to be better founded than another's, and slavish obedience to the first person's views. The first is a notion entirely congruent with noting that a mathematician is likely to have a more rigorous understanding of functions than somebody who thinks y = mx + b is the be-all end-all of mathematical machinery. The second is dogmatic idiocy, albeit of a type to which people are notably susceptible.

    So yes, I think it's completely fair to say that a philosopher's understanding of the question of the meaning of life is going to be on average better defined, more rigorously examined, and proofed against a higher class of arguments than a random person from the general population. Just like I think David Hume's views on causality are better, more rigorous, and more informative and important than those of the sort of folks who like to cite a correlation as evidence that you should or should not behave in a certain way and think that proves something.

    In other news, evidence is mounting that I may be something of an elitist when it comes to matters intellectual.
    Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
    When they shot him down on the highway,
    Down like a dog on the highway,
    And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.


    Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman, 1906.

  15. - Top - End - #75
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Aedilred's Avatar

    Join Date
    Apr 2006
    Location
    Bristol
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: What is the meaning of life?

    Quote Originally Posted by Findpathfencer View Post
    You where snide when you said I didn't accepted the redefinition. I don't think any one proposed a redefinition to me unless your talking about what he said, and what he said meant that the question was wrong, which would end all talks about the question because he didn't replace it.
    Well, I did say "overly snide". I find not being snide at all a constant struggle. The proposed redefinition was "what is the meaning of life for #entity?" which you rejected - and not for poor reasons necessarily - but the point I was making was that you accused him of pointlessly complaining and not trying to fix things, which wasn't fair since he had proposed a revision of the question. That you didn't find the revision appropriate doesn't invalidate his attempt at contribution.

    To think what you said would mean that what we're discussing here is pointless and we should only follow the words of long outdated dead people. A philosopher is not some magical person that was told by (put whatever powerful thing here) to spread their beliefs. There's philosophers (that talk about good thing) that spread bigotry and racism, so do we keep following their teachings?

    Really the philosopher that people know about are the people that came up with ideas that'd advanced our culture and society, that's why will still teach their teachings.
    Warty goblin has already addressed this admirably above.

    As an historian I am always aggrieved when I see "old" equated to "outdated" without further comment. That Socrates lived a long time ago doesn't mean he (or he as recorded by Plato etc.) has nothing to teach us. We don't have to accept everything they say without critical comment, discussion or thought, and indeed to do so would be silly. But we also shouldn't just toss it aside because it's old.

    Also, as far as I'm aware, Kant is still taught today.
    GITP Blood Bowl Manager Cup
    Red Sabres - Season I Cup Champions, two-time Cup Semifinalists
    Anlec Razors - Two-time Cup Semifinalists
    Bad Badenhof Bats - Season VII Cup Champions
    League Wiki

    Spoiler: Previous Avatars
    Show
    (by Strawberries)
    (by Rain Dragon)

  16. - Top - End - #76
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Asta Kask's Avatar

    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Gothenburg, Sweden
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: What is the meaning of life?

    I watched an online course on politics, and both Hobbes and Machiavelli were required reading.
    Avatar by CoffeeIncluded

    Oooh, and that's a bad miss.

    “Don't exercise your freedom of speech until you have exercised your freedom of thought.”
    ― Tim Fargo

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •