Life has meaning?

[digitalbuddha48]

I recently got a comment on a post I made on facebook about how life has meaning when one my long lost friends wrote this little jewel:

nothing has meaning in and of itself. however, things can become meaningful if one chooses to confer meaning onto those things. even an absurd concept like "eternity" can prove to become meaningful, if one chooses to make it as such. the meaning of eternity is to be found not so much in it's future actuality, but in it's present actuality. if someone chooses to believe in eternity, and it allows them to continue on living in the present, than that someone could potentially be living a meaningful life. death is very real, but even death is meaningless until one chooses to bring meaning to it.

"existence precedes essence" -Jean-Paul Sarte

Agree/disagree? Thoughts?

 

[Zerosix]

Wishful thinking?

 

[Neffi]

It's a pretty obvious conclusion for the non-theist. Evidence indicates that we weren't placed here by anyone or anything. There is no purpose to our being here. We're just self-willed to exist by natural selection.

It's the same with everything. Nothing has meaning without something directly giving it meaning. People want a god to give them meaning because it means they don't have to do it themselves.

 

[DarwinsOtherTheory]

I recently got a comment on a post I made on facebook about how life has meaning when one my long lost friends wrote this little jewel:

nothing has meaning in and of itself. however, things can become meaningful if one chooses to confer meaning onto those things. even an absurd concept like "eternity" can prove to become meaningful, if one chooses to make it as such. the meaning of eternity is to be found not so much in it's future actuality, but in it's present actuality. if someone chooses to believe in eternity, and it allows them to continue on living in the present, than that someone could potentially be living a meaningful life. death is very real, but even death is meaningless until one chooses to bring meaning to it.

"existence precedes essence" -Jean-Paul Sarte

Agree/disagree? Thoughts?

I would have to agree.

 

[BlueNova]

I think that life having meaning comes from ones self, your choices actions and beliefs, and from the relationships one has with others.

You may not feel that you can bring meaning to life yourself, but to others you have meaning, even if it is negative. Every interaction you have can give meaning to your life, even if you don't realize it yourself.

But thats just my perspective.

 

[Quane]

I think that life having meaning comes from ones self, your choices actions and beliefs, and from the relationships one has with others.

You may not feel that you can bring meaning to life yourself, but to others you have meaning, even if it is negative. Every interaction you have can give meaning to your life, even if you don't realize it yourself.

But thats just my perspective.

I agree. The bottom line is, we should keep on living if we value the pleasurable aspects of life more than the inability to experience such pleasures in death. These aspects of gratification will range in a spectrum from pure altruism in pragmatic utilitarianism to individualistic hedonism/neo-objectivism. However, in terms of decisions for the rational human being, we will continue to make the conscientious effort to stay alive as long as the marginal value of the choices we can make as living human beings is greater than the absence of being able to make such choices in death.

The above are just my personal views, and this question is very complicated. I think philosophers have debated this for millenia to no avail.

 

[sophophilo]

I think that life having meaning comes from ones self, your choices actions and beliefs, and from the relationships one has with others.

Where's the evidence for this "meaning"?

 

[Gnomesmusher]

Where's the evidence for this "meaning"?

I'd say the evidence is the fact that your actions affect your life. What could possibly have more meaning to your life than how you've lived it?

 

[COMMUNIST FLISK]

im nihilistic.

no need for any meaning, natural or supernatural in my opinion, we just exsist and we have to deal with that as it stands, so we should just stop worrying about "meanings of life" and enjoy the one life we are very lucky to have.

 

[Pe3er]

what is the purpose of meaning to you?

we are a mind, a personality (changeable) and the only time we have is now.

in some eyes somethings are more valuable then other things.
and in my eyes everything has more or less a cause or/and a reason.

so purposeless has its meaning because what is nothing more then some type of meaning.
nothingness that we know of is vacuum space.

what is so worthless with that?

but to the point i agree in some sort, purposeless is in some way meaningful.
everything as its affect of some sort.

death is end of the start, and everything as we know has a start----

 

[SIGScienceISGod]

Life has meaning as well, life.
The experience of it, the entire realm of our intelligence and emotional capacities that make us superior.

 

[Daemon6]

It's a pretty obvious conclusion for the non-theist. Evidence indicates that we weren't placed here by anyone or anything. There is no purpose to our being here. We're just self-willed to exist by natural selection.

It's the same with everything. Nothing has meaning without something directly giving it meaning. People want a god to give them meaning because it means they don't have to do it themselves.

Agreed

 

[Ozymandyus]

I wholeheartedly believe that life has meaning. There is all kinds of meaning built into the universe. I don't think it was put there by anyone, but there are a few facts about our situation that yield all kinds of meaning.

The objective truths of the universe: gravity, vastness, age, magnetism etc... juxtaposed against the objective truth of our own existence - fragility, brevity, boundedness, will inevitably produce like-mindedness/similar feelings when different people are confronted by the same situations. Flight, at least when first seen, seems wondrous to each of us. The fact that problems and barriers CAN be solved and overcome and that such overcoming often leads to something wondrous inevitably MEANS something to beings that can perceive those possibilities. We can choose to ignore such meaning, or deny it... but I don't see the point. The fact that we can bring about change in our environment, for good or bad, inevitably implies that we should pay attention to how our actions affect that environment. The fact that we are alive for a brief time in a vast universe of long lived things WILL cause .

There is meaning innate in this juxtaposition, and yes though we each get there in our own subjective ways, on our own path, we are all presented with the same universe through the same faculties created by the same biological processes - which ends with inevitable shared meaning. We receive pleasure and pain from the same sorts of things -> meaning. We don't have to 'give meaning' to these facts in order for them to have meaning in a very factual and real way - we can accept or deny that meaning for ourselves but it doesn't destroy the meaning.

 

[Sparky]

I recently got a comment on a post I made on facebook about how life has meaning when one my long lost friends wrote this little jewel:

nothing has meaning in and of itself. however, things can become meaningful if one chooses to confer meaning onto those things. even an absurd concept like "eternity" can prove to become meaningful, if one chooses to make it as such. the meaning of eternity is to be found not so much in it's future actuality, but in it's present actuality. if someone chooses to believe in eternity, and it allows them to continue on living in the present, than that someone could potentially be living a meaningful life. death is very real, but even death is meaningless until one chooses to bring meaning to it.

"existence precedes essence" -Jean-Paul Sarte

Agree/disagree? Thoughts?

I would say that life has no objective meaning but does have a subjective meaning - what YOU wish to make of it. In other words, I would agree