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Thread: What is the meaning of life?
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2014-09-30, 01:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is the meaning of life?
*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.
So your saying that mosquitos are something vastly deferent from people or even life?
You really must understand the question in order to answer it.
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2014-09-30, 01:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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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.
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2014-09-30, 01:19 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is the meaning of life?
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.
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2014-09-30, 01:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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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.
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Oooh, and that's a bad miss.
Don't exercise your freedom of speech until you have exercised your freedom of thought.
― Tim Fargo
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2014-09-30, 03:36 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is the meaning of 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.
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2014-09-30, 03:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is the meaning of life?
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2014-09-30, 04:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is the meaning of life?
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.
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2014-09-30, 05:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is the meaning of life?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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2014-09-30, 05:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2011
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.
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2014-09-30, 05:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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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!
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2014-09-30, 06:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is the meaning of life?
The answer is recursive on the question.
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2014-10-02, 05:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is the meaning of life?
Populate heaven.
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2014-10-02, 10:17 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is the meaning of life?
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.
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.
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.
Hey this reminds me of a song.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UbHY7vBAp4o
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.
I'm sorry to say but you added nothing to the discussion, then you say stuff that already been said.
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
How does this have to do with me or him? And are you saying I don't have a consencus!?!
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]
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2014-10-02, 11:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is the meaning of life?
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.
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2014-10-03, 12:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is the meaning of life?
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.
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
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2014-10-03, 03:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is the meaning of life?
I watched an online course on politics, and both Hobbes and Machiavelli were required reading.
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Oooh, and that's a bad miss.
Don't exercise your freedom of speech until you have exercised your freedom of thought.
― Tim Fargo