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"Maybe you believe that objective knowledge can give us meaning" I doubt anyone believes that. How could that ever be so? "To me, the application of Occam's R
by anentropic 10y ago
"Maybe you believe that objective knowledge can give us meaning"
I doubt anyone believes that. How could that ever be so?
"To me, the application of Occam's Razor is that my consciousness is evidence of some meaning"
This really makes no sense, it's the same anthropocentric fallacy that led people to believe for centuries that the Earth must be the centre of the universe.
It's back-to-front... the need to seek 'meaning' for life is more likely a result of the narrative tendency in human consciousness. And in recognising this we can turn away from the idea that there must be some kind of 'higher' externally-provided big-m 'Meaning' - an idea which must lead to either hopelessness and futility, or self-delusion.
Instead, small-m 'meaning' in your life becomes something you can give to yourself, you can choose what gives meaning to your life, you can change your mind.
Being able to sit comfortably without Meaning is a valuable trait.
- dasil003 10y agoYou are not immune to the anthropocentric fallacy by virtue of being an empiricist, it's a fantasy. We are all anthropocentric by definition, and that is at the core of my argument. Note that I don't need for there to be Meaning, I just happen to believe there is because it makes sense to me. It's not particularly anthropocentric because I'm not claiming that it has anything more to do with humans than with space dust. Again this is not about knowledge but about faith. We all have faith in something, but some people have trouble accepting that and instead justify their belief systems by pointing to facts. The problem is we don't live in a mathematical world where the axioms are defined by us, our logic has to ultimately be based on something. I agree with you it's a beautiful thing that we get to choose what that is.