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The Meaning of Life

182 points by kulpreet 12y ago

cliveowen 12y ago
It's just a subjective take on the age-old question that doesn't add anything to what you already know from philosophy classes.
- sp332 12y ago
  True, unless you didn't take philosophy classes, or if you just memorized what a bunch of other people said without really thinking about applying it to your own life.
- 3rd3 12y ago
  It also had some clever thoughts in it you won’t hear in a philosophy class.
NanoWar 12y ago
I also try to enable the dreams of others, but this ultimately makes me happy, too. [ Taken from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo ]
spking 12y ago
For the vast majority of people, constantly thinking about the meaning of life and dwelling on the fact that you're going to die seems like a recipe for anxiety. Trying to adopt a set of contradictory rules to follow would likely only compound that anxiety. To summarize the formula laid out by the author: 1. Remember, you're going to die! 2. Plan for the future, but not too much or you'll have multiple divorces and no friends. 3. Think about the present, but not too much or you'll end up poor and unhappy. 4. Think about the past to remember how far you've come. 5. Only do work where you are in "the flow", so you can be happy when you're dying (remember, you're going to die!) I'm not saying these activities are pointless or bad in isolation, I just think it's unrealistic and generally not practical to have all that rattling around in your head while you make decisions about how to spend your time. Just buckle up and enjoy the ride. Be nice to others, find interesting things to work on and have some fun. If you spend all your time worried about whether your current activity and state of mind is somehow optimized for achieving the meaning of life, you have a good chance of being overwhelmed and paralyzed by it.
- drumdance 12y ago
  I think of it more as exception driven: 1. Am I happy now? If so, keep doing what you're doing. 2. If not, is what's making me unhappy really important in the scheme of things? If not, goto 1. 3. Focus on changing your situation, or your reaction to it. If you get to #3, ideally try to find meaning in the process of change itself rather than focusing too much on the end state.
marcus_holmes 12y ago
Nice to be reminded of this. I'm researching Stoic philosophy, and a core question is "what is your life about?". Nice to be reminded that any meaning in my life is what I choose to place on it, not what it intrinsically has. Similar: the value of something is what someone will pay for it. Intrinsic value is a mirage.
jimmaswell 12y ago
Seems like it ended up at the same conclusion I'd drawn long ago, nice.
hawkharris 12y ago
I went to a debate about the existence of God a few months ago. Dan Barker, an atheist who has contributed to the Daily Show, had the winning quote: "There is no meaning of life -- and that's a great thing: it means that there's meaning in life." The quote is poignant regardless of your religious affiliation. Barker was saying that the meaning of life is intensely personal. Each of us invents it through our own experiences.
- Uncompetative 12y ago
  That is so much shorter than what I posted on Derek Siver's site it is embarrassing: Born at the end of the '60s just before Christmas I was named after a saint. Later I found out that Santa Claus was largely invented by Coca-Cola to sell sodas and all the unlikely, but commonly held, beliefs that he was omniscient and omnipresent for at least one night of the year was seriously undermined. Then it was only a short jump to realise that Jesus was probably all made up too, that he wasn't the son of God and, by extension, there might well not be a God. I became a devout atheist at the age of seven - by 'devout' I mean that were there to be a Rapture as some believe that there will be, I will consider the 'proof' of the second coming to be symptomatic of hallucination, possibly a spiked water supply, and refuse to believe in God because I prefer to live my life that way without one. The question "What is the meaning of life?" had no easy answers in 'forgiveness', or 'love thy neighbour', or the promise of an afterlife for those who did good deeds as if we were on Santa's omniscient list of good children to recieve presents. So I used logic and logic alone to arrive at the definitive objective answer no matter how it may seem uncomfortable to my sensibilities to reveal it. The truth is, that to ask this question objectively you have to necessarily be totally objective about life and to be objective about anything you have to be outside of it with a detached point of view. With 'life, the universe and everything' with a whole 'philosophical universe of discourse' included in the set of things being considered I had to immediately dismiss all instrinsic attempts at an answer as not definitively objective due to their lack of detachment and inescapable subjective bias. Realising that I needed to be outside the 'universe of discourse' to properly pose the question I saw what the difficulty with answering this had been all this time... ...'meaning' is part of the 'universe of discourse' and it not available if outside of it. Consequently, all claims to a definitive meaning of life are erroneous in logic as an objective answer cannot be found. It is not so much that life is meaningless and we should all be nihilistic atheists, but that we are free to live any way we please as there is no wrong answer - as there is no definitive objective ULTIMATE answer! Every way you wish to give your life meaning is equally valid for your life, with the caveat that this is an ephemeral guideline you choose to adopt not an eternal truth - actually, I like the way this same argument was presented "in reverse" by Mr Sivers as whenever I have posted about this in various fora in the past I have felt that I've come across as overly alienating by hitting them with the cold truth first instead of pandering to their intimately held, but unfortunately subjective, beliefs. Putting it all the other way around encourages more people to read on and seems more life affirming - even if I know, in truth, that life is without extrinsic meaning.
nnx 12y ago
"People at the end of their life who claimed to be the happiest with their life were the ones who had spent the most time in this state of flow." I can certainly believe this. If you are not familiar with the concept of "flow state" (Samadhi in Hindu cultures [1]), I'd recommend reading the wonderful "Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art" by Stephen Nachmanovitch [2] over the more famous "Flow" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. [1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samadhi http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samadhi [2] http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0874776317 http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0874776317
- baddox 12y ago
  Is the goal to maximize how happy you report your life as having been when you're at its end? I could conceive of other plausible goals.
zhaphod 12y ago
My take is that there is no meaning of life. We impose our own meaning to get by.
ChristianMarks 12y ago
Then again there are Nietzsche's three terrible truths: 1. Existential: death and suffering are inevitable.* 2. Moral: life is amoral. 3. Epistemic: most of what we think we know about the world is illusory. *I include being downvoted on HN, especially under the new voting regime, under the category of suffering. Edit: a reference, with additional clarification and justification for those who dispute the abbreviated claims. Leiter, Brian, The Truth is Terrible (February 22, 2014). Daniel Came (ed.), Nietzsche on Morality and the Affirmation of Life (Oxford University Press, Forthcoming). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2099162 http://ssrn.com/abstract=2099162 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2099162 http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2099162
- javert 12y ago
  Well, 2 and 3 are not true and 1 is leaving out a big part of the picture, which is that life and pleasure are quite attainable.
  - namenotrequired 12y ago
    I don't think they're just "not true", but they are very generalised and ambiguous, and a lot can be said both for and against them. Edit for clarity
- jqm 12y ago
  Nietzsche is not about avoiding suffering though. Nor is he about "accepting" suffering. His belief is about an act of will. That you "will" what happens to you. By this act we obtain power over life and the events in it. (not sure I fully agree... just stating what I understand). "Was that life? Well then! Once more!" -from Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
javert 12y ago
Here is the meaning of life. There is only one inherent value to consciousness, and it is pleasure. What is the evidence for this claim? It is directly perecptible. To see the proof of this, all you have to do is look. Everything else you value should be for the sake of this ultimate value. (Because there is no other ultimate value for them to be for the sake of.) Now, this isn't an endorsement of hedonism, which I take to mean "doing whatever feels good." Rather, you should pursue pleasure systematically. First, it must be sustainable over the long term (your lifespan). Second, it must account for the various kinds of emotions (e.g. serenity, self-esteem, etc.). Third, it must account for the fact that these emotions are effects that have specific causes.
- NaNaN 12y ago
  In front of me, there are three great mountains: 1. The pleasure as you described. 2. Determinism. 3. Nihilism. I don't know why pleasure is valuable to consciousness. To determinism, if we are free to think, we can just observe our life without real pains or real gains. To nihilism, I just don't know everything, including nihilism. I just wonder why I should jump to a conclusion. For my intuition?
- cousin_it 12y ago
  Is the pleasure of others meaningful to you, or only to them?
  - javert 12y ago
    Other people's pleasure is not inherently valuable to me, just neutral. However, I do value other people's pleasure when it increases my pleasure. It is pretty obvious why this applies to loved ones and friends, but it actually extends to all of society. A happier society is a better place to live, with more productivity, more to be inspired by (and not discouraged by), etc.
    - cousin_it 12y ago
      OK. Is the pleasure of you at a different time valuable to you at the current time?
Codhisattva 12y ago
"Let instinct trump logic" - bad advice. Instinct is simply pattern matching current conditions against memory. Without experience, instinct is a poor criteria and logic should be employed. Read Kahneman for the supporting research into that.
- deleted 12y ago
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- ftwinnovations 12y ago
  Thank you! This is the one point I very much disagreed with from this talk. His argument is that our logical brain, which is new, is first to interpret our environment but am pretty sure that premise is flawed. Our irrational, fast, animal side is first given sensory input and a chance to act on it... Fight, flee, flinch, do nothing... At which point the slower, newer, better evolved logical side begins to work through it and make rational decisions. This newer side is what truly separates us from the rest of the animals out there, and is what creates everything.. Society, self-awareness, inventions, everything. Not to say instinct is bad. It's extremely valuable, and as Blink Theory pointed out so famously, has it's place as well. But as you said, I agree it's bad advice to let one simply trump the other.
- d23 12y ago
  Yeah, our past experiences create walls of thought around us and make it hard to see or imagine what things are like outside them. Logic is one tool that can help us, as well as imagination. There are probably others.
- djim 12y ago
  However, as he states in the article, instinct is the result of experience. He is saying the mechanism of instinct is older in humans than logic, so the process is more refined/trustworthy when comparing the two. Seems right to me..
  - vdaniuk 12y ago
    The mechanism of instinct has emerged from the evolutionary process to provide a survival and reproduction advantage over others. Instinct most certainly is an advantage for species (may be just random path-dependent mutation), not for the individual. Thus we shouldn't trust on instinct alone to find an optimal solution for sense/meaning problem.
DanielBMarkham 12y ago
tl;dr: We choose to give life meaning. It is our choice of assignment of meaning (or not), that is the only thing to be discussed here. (Yay existentialism!) When you think about the incredible number of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars, having untold habitable planets, existing for tens of billions of years? Then we think about our one planet Earth, and how each of us lives only 50-100 years and then we're gone? We have the question backwards. In the grand scheme of things, we're much less than a speck on a mote somewhere, a fruit fly. We're completely inconsequential. It's not for us to ask what life is about. We have the question backwards. Instead life -- that thing that has existed for eons before we were ever a possibility and that will exist eons after our memory is gone -- is asking us "What is the meaning of you?" Life sets us up with initial conditions and gives us various challenges as we go through our minuscule little part of it. It is during these experiences that Life is asking us what our meaning is. Our choices provide the reply. Being alive is answering the question: what is my meaning? We could no more judge the meaning of life itself than we could begin to count the habitable planets in the sky. To phrase the question in this way is just to provide busywork instead of dealing with the reality in front of us.
jqm 12y ago
I see little point in trying to ascertain the "meaning" of life. From what I see, life itself gives birth to the concept of meaning not the other way around. But I guess it would be hard to get speaking engagements saying "you are born, then you die, and what you do in between is a waste of time".... Even if this were the case in reality. (Which I'm not saying it is).
- benjoffe 12y ago
  > I see little point in trying to ascertain the "meaning" of life. From what I see, life itself gives birth to the concept of meaning not the other way around. Did you actually listen to the talk? He comes to the same conclusion.
  - jqm 12y ago
    I read the transcript. I don't think you understand what I am saying. We don't come to the same conclusions. I'm saying the concept of "meaning".... not the "meaning of life" is something derived from the property of life itself. Therefore using this concept to ask a question in a larger context probably isn't valid.
    - benjoffe 12y ago
      From the article: > Nothing has inherent meaning. Everything is only what it is and that's it. I think you come to the same conclusion but perhaps express it a little deeper than the author does.
- devnonymous 12y ago
  You didn't watch the video/hear the talk, did you ?
  - jqm 12y ago
    see the above. I read the transcript. You didn't read the post and responses carefully did you?
ambivalence 12y ago
Derek Sivers is so wrong in his video. The Talking Heads were active until 1991!
bsenftner 12y ago
This is like a skin cell asking what is the meaning of life. The meaning of life is larger than our individual selves, and is found in the totality of life: we are either the recursive self creation of God, or the creation of some super intelligence seeking answers to questions it can not. Either way, our purpose is clear: create heaven, create time travel, teleport all living entities at the moment of their death to heaven, and then provide comfort, care, and understanding. Yeah, not my idea: read "The Light of Other Days", Arthur C Clark's last novel.
michaelsbradley 12y ago
Life is a gift of God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, who in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in God's own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Saviour. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life. Adapted from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It reflects my own belief and answer to this question, and I am happy to be numbered among billions over the centuries who would have answered Siver's question in the same way. http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2.HTM http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2.HTM
- jqm 12y ago
  I'm not hating on your answer here, you certainly are free to believe as you wish and at least as right as anyone else, but appeal to popularity, especially when that popularity was often forced at the point of a sword, is not a very good argument.
  - michaelsbradley 12y ago
    I did not make an appeal to popularity. I believe what the Church teaches, and I am perfectly happy being one sheep among billions in the sheepfold – that was my point. The reason I pointed that out is that, other controversies aside, in an age of hyper-individualism, the fact that a set of beliefs is shared by so many is itself often an unstated motive for doubt.
  - stefantalpalaru 12y ago
    Would you say the same to the guy who discovered atheism at the age of 7, somewhere at the top of this thread?
  - virtualwhys 12y ago
    I'd say the phrase, "nobody wins an argument", most definitely applies to debates between believers and non-believers; i.e. he's not arguing in favor of Christianity, but rather is in the business of saving souls.
deleted 12y ago
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eternalban 12y ago
http://www.formakers.eu/media/1.857.1372411075.nature_3d_print_recity_11.jpg http://www.formakers.eu/media/1.857.1372411075.nature_3d_pri...
negamax 12y ago
Very good video and ideas. "You must have worked really hard at it" Just want to correct the line 'Life is Suffering' when you brought up Buddhism. That sounds sadistic. Buddhist's idea is suffering exists. Which is presented as a fact that can be seen with a rational mind. And life is to be lived in pursuit of eliminating suffering for yourself and others. Just thought, I point this out.
- dominotw 12y ago
  Its not sadistic. Life was full of suffering for vedic nomads who finally settled down in cities. Instead of turing outwards philosophers of that time lie buddha and mahavira turned inwards for comfort.
  - xmonkee 12y ago
    Life is suffering regardless of your position in time and space if you haven't attained nibanna. Its not specific to the vedic nomads otherwise there would be no need to walk the eight fold path in the first world. Suffering is the first noble truth.
    - dominotw 12y ago
      >Life is suffering regardless of your position in time and space Is it though? I've lived several third world countries and a couple of first world countries. I know from first hand experience that life in rich countries is much much less suffering and is good 80% of the time whereas in third world countries is 80% suffering. What is the point of our developments in science and technology if everyone is still suffering equally.
      - xmonkee 12y ago
        From a Buddhist perspective: In what country do you not have death of loved ones, old age, sickness? In what country do you not have attachments, fear or sadness? Technology can make us more comfortable, but not "solve" life for us. Some people have more comfort in life than others, animals are even worse off than poor people, and gods in heavens are more comfortable than Bill Gates, yet all of them will face death and sickness in this life (including the gods in buddhism). The only escape is Nirvana. From a secular perspective: There are lots of ways to look at this. We could see everyone as being on a spectrum. Your happiness levels depend on your position on the spectrum relative to your peers. Poor people in the US have cars, yet they are extremely unhappy and suffering. The same amount of wealth in India would make you middle class and much happier. So clearly the happiness is not a function only of money but also of perception. People were in general just as happy or sad 3000 years ago as they are today, what has technology achieved then? If technology was making the world more equal, I would support the proposition that development is a net positive, as everyone would have the chance to grow spiritually rather than spend a human birth just surviving, but that's not the case. Technology divides more than it equalizes. There is no "point" to technology, it will happen. There's no use fighting it, there's no use supporting it over everything else. Technological progress is a fact of life. There is a point to equality, it allows everyone to achieve their potential and maybe reduce actual suffering on the planet.
joaorj 12y ago
When the video showed the slide saying "Life is ____" I paused and thought about it for a minute. For me life is producing output when presented with some kind of input. If we are alive and that's pretty much what we do, life must be it. (not only man, but every animal I can think about) Now, how are we alive and a computer problem isn't, I don't know. Maybe because our input comes directly from the natural world? What is the meaning of life? As others said here, it's a question that seems illogical to be asked.
stefantalpalaru 12y ago
The part about "old" and "new" brain in the instinct section is wrong. The brain is not compartmentalized like that.
DigitalJack 12y ago
If you are seeking meaning, consider attending an alpha course. It is a forum for atheist, agnostic, and Christian alike, on the topic of Christianity and faith. http://www.alpha.org/about http://www.alpha.org/about From the site: Alpha really is for anyone who’s curious. The talks are designed to encourage debate and explore the basics of the Christian faith in a friendly, honest and informal environment.
- insin 12y ago
  Adam Rutherford attended an Alpha Course and did a series of posts on the Guardian's Comment Is Free about it, if anyone's interested: http://www.theguardian.com/global/series/alpha-male http://www.theguardian.com/global/series/alpha-male Sounds like the usual credulous nonsense to me, by YMMV :)
- DigitalJack 12y ago
  I really don't understand why someone would downvote this.
  - lsh 12y ago
    I do. I do ...
stefantalpalaru 12y ago
> What does it mean that all of your previous attempts at something have failed? > Nothing! Nothing at all. Don't try skydiving.
- joeguilmette 12y ago
  If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving isn't for you.
  - stefantalpalaru 12y ago
    You don't start skydiving by jumping off a plane by yourself with a parachute that you need to release at a certain altitude. There are intermediary steps and if you don't learn from your own mistakes because "nothing has inherent meaning" you're gonna have a bad time.
    - deleted 12y ago
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wellboy 12y ago
For me the meaning of life is: To reach one's full potential and to be excellent to each other. So basically self-actualization while being awesome. :)
dctoedt 12y ago
Riffing off of Robert Wright's book Non-Zero [1]: * Consider the apparent self-assembling of the universe over the last 13.8 billion years. * Consider the seeming overall long-term trend (certainly not a monotonic one) of "improvement" in life. Adapting Gregg Easterbrook's thought experiment [2]: Would you permanently trade places with a random person who lived 1,000 years ago? How about 10,000 years ago? Would anyone, at any time, do so? It's a defensible proposition that, as theologian Philip Hefner put it, we are created co-creators [3]. To what end? Who knows. But if past performance is any indication, it'll be pretty neat. From this perspective, conducting one's life in accordance with (a weak version of) Pascal's Wager [4] seems like a reasonable course of action. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Nonzero-The-Logic-Human-Destiny/dp/0679758941 http://www.amazon.com/Nonzero-The-Logic-Human-Destiny/dp/067... (not an affiliate link) [2] http://www.amazon.com/Beside-Still-Waters-Searching-Meaning/dp/0688160654 http://www.amazon.com/Beside-Still-Waters-Searching-Meaning/... (ditto) [3] http://currentsjournal.org/new_currents_ed_06_01.html http://currentsjournal.org/new_currents_ed_06_01.html [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager
- baddox 12y ago
  I don't see the significance of the trading places question. Would you trade places with a random person 1,000 years in the future either? Or a random person on Earth today? Or even a random person among the top 1,000 most successful (by your own definition) on Earth today? Or even a person you specifically choose? It seems like most relatively happy or even comfortable people would say no to all these opportunities.
h1karu 12y ago
I thought life is all about launching a minimal viable product, tweaking it to narrow in on product/market fit, and then scaling up. You mean there's more to life AFTER that ?! oh brother. I'll worry about that once I get there
jqm 12y ago
Some people postulate the meaning of life resides in God. So I wonder then, what the meaning of God's life would be? Simply adding recursive complexity doesn't solve the question, but now you have two problems. For the record, I think the real problem is the question. It supposes that "meaning" can be something outside of what we experience and I don't believe it can be.
- NaNaN 12y ago
  Good point. I think the author (and many other people) was just blinded by self-conceit and jumped to a conclusion too quickly.
  - jodrellblank 12y ago
    Given that's the same conclusion the author came to, how was he "blinded by self-conceit, answering too quickly"?
    - NaNaN 12y ago
      So you're asking where my ignorance came from? Well, I don't know. But I don't think I have any real reason to believe the author. :( Am I self-abased? Anyway, I like this joke: "Life is hard." (Sorry.)
      - NaNaN 12y ago
        Yeah, maybe I should not think others is what, but just think I think what. Oh my, an infinite recursion. Anyone can help me?
    - NaNaN 12y ago
      After I realized the recursion inside my conclusion, I jumped out for a while and asked you another question: Is the conclusion from that video/talk a tautology or a pure belief? The author just described what he experienced and didn't talk about the relationship between meanings and his intuition. He believed meanings do not come from what he feels (the artifical Chinese characters), and didn't say why his intuition let him hold that belief for natural things. He just know his own feelings. This remind me of some words from Buddhists -- Everyone can not see the truth through other people's eyes.
luke-stanley 12y ago
Life is overcoming entropy.
- jqm 12y ago
  So it seems. But life itself is simply sunlight falling to earth if you think about it biochemically. In other words as far as we know, life is a channel for and manifestation of entropy.
  - rehack 12y ago
    >But life itself is simply sunlight falling to earth if you think about it biochemically Don't you think, that by same extension, car is just Gas/Fuel coming in from a Gas/Fuel station? I am sorry, but I find most essays on the topic of 'meaning of life' escapist. Or rather answering a different question on how best to live life, with the assumption that the real meaning is unknowable. None of these essays satisfy my need to know, what it is actually all about. Talking about this essay, its excellent no doubt. But IMHO its misleading all the same.
    - jqm 12y ago
      In your example I would say body=car. The motion of the car would be life. And that is indeed a channel of gas from the fuel station. The car is needed to channel it, but the car is not it. There is an active component. I agree with the rest of your post. Talking about the "meaning of life" is masturbatory in my opinion. Not that there is anything wrong with a little self pleasure. It just doesn't produce much.
F_J_H 12y ago
In summary, finding the meaning OF life (to quote Dan Barker - thanks @hawkharris) is to find the meaning IN life, for you personally. A the end of the day, we look for the meaning of/in life to ultimately be happy, or at least content. For that, we need a "purpose", and the philosopher Daniel Dennentt has some good advice here: “Find something more important than you are, and dedicate your life to it.” So, how do you find your purpose - something that is "more important than you are"? For many people, the answer is based in religious belief. Others may find value in a letter penned by 20 year old Hunter S. Thompson: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/11/04/hunter-s-thompson-letters-of-note-advice/ http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/11/04/hunter-s-t... Key quote: "In every man, heredity and environment have combined to produce a creature of certain abilities and desires—including a deeply ingrained need to function in such a way that his life will be MEANINGFUL. A man has to BE something; he has to matter. As I see it then, the formula runs something like this: a man must choose a path which will let his ABILITIES function at maximum efficiency toward the gratification of his DESIRES." I would add that the DESIRES need to be aligned with, and perhaps subservient to, that thing which is "more important than you are", otherwise ==> hedonism.
nutanc 12y ago
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learc83 12y ago
I can't understand how any comment that posits the existence of God or objective morality has been downvoted to oblivion, yet comments that suggests that the only meaning (and thus morality) lies in increasing one's own pleasure are rising to the top. I'd also like to add that michaelsbradley's comment way down at the bottom of the page sums up my Christian belief on the meaning of life pretty nicely even though I'm not Catholic. (and I suspect I have a different interpretation of "the Church" when I read that statement)
- majani 12y ago
  Surely you cannot expect a religious argument to do well in a scientific forum.
  - michaelsbradley 12y ago
    Reason and faith, science and religion, are not enemies or necessarily in tension with one another. Fr. Robert Spitzer, S.J.[1] does a fine job of exploring evidence for God's existence from modern science[2]. Many notable scientists were/are persons of faith[3]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Spitzer_%28priest%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Spitzer_%28priest%29 [2] http://www.amazon.com/New-Proofs-Existence-God-Contributions/dp/0802863833 http://www.amazon.com/New-Proofs-Existence-God-Contributions... [&] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mkjhxzqr-5k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mkjhxzqr-5k [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_scientists http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_scientists
dominotw 12y ago
There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide - Albert Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus. Yes we can invent stupid justifications for life like 'life is about love', 'life is helping others' and a million other equally bizzare justifications but in the end its just a pointless absurdity.
- jodrellblank 12y ago
  There is no more value or correctness in calling life 'pointless' or 'absurd'. Framing things that "life is about helping people" is bizarre and "in the end life is absurd and pointless" is not right, it's still trying to put human concepts on an inexplicable universe, but positioning oneself as superior to everyone else while doing so.
kafkaesque 12y ago
I'm late to this, but I thought we had some philosophers on HN that pretty actively participated in discussions. Why wasn't there a discussion on how what Sivers is explaining is the concept of NIHILISM? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism What Sivers said has an underlying message: there is a meaning to life: it is that there is no objective/inherent meaning. This is important to note because of the huge ramifications this has and has had in philosophy since Nietzsche. Unfortunately, nihilism is circular and presupposes moral relativism.
GNUmaro 12y ago
Beautiful video by the way, a must see: http://youtu.be/7d16CpWp-ok http://youtu.be/7d16CpWp-ok

182 points by kulpreet 12y ago

It's just a subjective take on the age-old question that doesn't add anything to what you already know from philosophy classes.

sp332 12y ago
True, unless you didn't take philosophy classes, or if you just memorized what a bunch of other people said without really thinking about applying it to your own life.
3rd3 12y ago
It also had some clever thoughts in it you won’t hear in a philosophy class.

NanoWar 12y ago

I also try to enable the dreams of others, but this ultimately makes me happy, too. [ Taken from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo ]

spking 12y ago

For the vast majority of people, constantly thinking about the meaning of life and dwelling on the fact that you're going to die seems like a recipe for anxiety. Trying to adopt a set of contradictory rules to follow would likely only compound that anxiety. To summarize the formula laid out by the author: 1. Remember, you're going to die! 2. Plan for the future, but not too much or you'll have multiple divorces and no friends. 3. Think about the present, but not too much or you'll end up poor and unhappy. 4. Think about the past to remember how far you've come. 5. Only do work where you are in "the flow", so you can be happy when you're dying (remember, you're going to die!) I'm not saying these activities are pointless or bad in isolation, I just think it's unrealistic and generally not practical to have all that rattling around in your head while you make decisions about how to spend your time. Just buckle up and enjoy the ride. Be nice to others, find interesting things to work on and have some fun. If you spend all your time worried about whether your current activity and state of mind is somehow optimized for achieving the meaning of life, you have a good chance of being overwhelmed and paralyzed by it.

drumdance 12y ago
I think of it more as exception driven: 1. Am I happy now? If so, keep doing what you're doing. 2. If not, is what's making me unhappy really important in the scheme of things? If not, goto 1. 3. Focus on changing your situation, or your reaction to it. If you get to #3, ideally try to find meaning in the process of change itself rather than focusing too much on the end state.

marcus_holmes 12y ago

Nice to be reminded of this. I'm researching Stoic philosophy, and a core question is "what is your life about?". Nice to be reminded that any meaning in my life is what I choose to place on it, not what it intrinsically has. Similar: the value of something is what someone will pay for it. Intrinsic value is a mirage.

jimmaswell 12y ago

Seems like it ended up at the same conclusion I'd drawn long ago, nice.

hawkharris 12y ago

I went to a debate about the existence of God a few months ago. Dan Barker, an atheist who has contributed to the Daily Show, had the winning quote: "There is no meaning of life -- and that's a great thing: it means that there's meaning in life." The quote is poignant regardless of your religious affiliation. Barker was saying that the meaning of life is intensely personal. Each of us invents it through our own experiences.

Uncompetative 12y ago
That is so much shorter than what I posted on Derek Siver's site it is embarrassing: Born at the end of the '60s just before Christmas I was named after a saint. Later I found out that Santa Claus was largely invented by Coca-Cola to sell sodas and all the unlikely, but commonly held, beliefs that he was omniscient and omnipresent for at least one night of the year was seriously undermined. Then it was only a short jump to realise that Jesus was probably all made up too, that he wasn't the son of God and, by extension, there might well not be a God. I became a devout atheist at the age of seven - by 'devout' I mean that were there to be a Rapture as some believe that there will be, I will consider the 'proof' of the second coming to be symptomatic of hallucination, possibly a spiked water supply, and refuse to believe in God because I prefer to live my life that way without one. The question "What is the meaning of life?" had no easy answers in 'forgiveness', or 'love thy neighbour', or the promise of an afterlife for those who did good deeds as if we were on Santa's omniscient list of good children to recieve presents. So I used logic and logic alone to arrive at the definitive objective answer no matter how it may seem uncomfortable to my sensibilities to reveal it. The truth is, that to ask this question objectively you have to necessarily be totally objective about life and to be objective about anything you have to be outside of it with a detached point of view. With 'life, the universe and everything' with a whole 'philosophical universe of discourse' included in the set of things being considered I had to immediately dismiss all instrinsic attempts at an answer as not definitively objective due to their lack of detachment and inescapable subjective bias. Realising that I needed to be outside the 'universe of discourse' to properly pose the question I saw what the difficulty with answering this had been all this time... ...'meaning' is part of the 'universe of discourse' and it not available if outside of it. Consequently, all claims to a definitive meaning of life are erroneous in logic as an objective answer cannot be found. It is not so much that life is meaningless and we should all be nihilistic atheists, but that we are free to live any way we please as there is no wrong answer - as there is no definitive objective ULTIMATE answer! Every way you wish to give your life meaning is equally valid for your life, with the caveat that this is an ephemeral guideline you choose to adopt not an eternal truth - actually, I like the way this same argument was presented "in reverse" by Mr Sivers as whenever I have posted about this in various fora in the past I have felt that I've come across as overly alienating by hitting them with the cold truth first instead of pandering to their intimately held, but unfortunately subjective, beliefs. Putting it all the other way around encourages more people to read on and seems more life affirming - even if I know, in truth, that life is without extrinsic meaning.

nnx 12y ago

"People at the end of their life who claimed to be the happiest with their life were the ones who had spent the most time in this state of flow." I can certainly believe this. If you are not familiar with the concept of "flow state" (Samadhi in Hindu cultures [1]), I'd recommend reading the wonderful "Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art" by Stephen Nachmanovitch [2] over the more famous "Flow" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. [1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samadhi http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samadhi [2] http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0874776317 http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0874776317

baddox 12y ago
Is the goal to maximize how happy you report your life as having been when you're at its end? I could conceive of other plausible goals.

zhaphod 12y ago

My take is that there is no meaning of life. We impose our own meaning to get by.

ChristianMarks 12y ago

Then again there are Nietzsche's three terrible truths: 1. Existential: death and suffering are inevitable.* 2. Moral: life is amoral. 3. Epistemic: most of what we think we know about the world is illusory. *I include being downvoted on HN, especially under the new voting regime, under the category of suffering. Edit: a reference, with additional clarification and justification for those who dispute the abbreviated claims. Leiter, Brian, The Truth is Terrible (February 22, 2014). Daniel Came (ed.), Nietzsche on Morality and the Affirmation of Life (Oxford University Press, Forthcoming). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2099162 http://ssrn.com/abstract=2099162 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2099162 http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2099162

javert 12y ago
Well, 2 and 3 are not true and 1 is leaving out a big part of the picture, which is that life and pleasure are quite attainable.
- namenotrequired 12y ago
  I don't think they're just "not true", but they are very generalised and ambiguous, and a lot can be said both for and against them. Edit for clarity
jqm 12y ago
Nietzsche is not about avoiding suffering though. Nor is he about "accepting" suffering. His belief is about an act of will. That you "will" what happens to you. By this act we obtain power over life and the events in it. (not sure I fully agree... just stating what I understand). "Was that life? Well then! Once more!" -from Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

javert 12y ago

Here is the meaning of life. There is only one inherent value to consciousness, and it is pleasure. What is the evidence for this claim? It is directly perecptible. To see the proof of this, all you have to do is look. Everything else you value should be for the sake of this ultimate value. (Because there is no other ultimate value for them to be for the sake of.) Now, this isn't an endorsement of hedonism, which I take to mean "doing whatever feels good." Rather, you should pursue pleasure systematically. First, it must be sustainable over the long term (your lifespan). Second, it must account for the various kinds of emotions (e.g. serenity, self-esteem, etc.). Third, it must account for the fact that these emotions are effects that have specific causes.

NaNaN 12y ago
In front of me, there are three great mountains: 1. The pleasure as you described. 2. Determinism. 3. Nihilism. I don't know why pleasure is valuable to consciousness. To determinism, if we are free to think, we can just observe our life without real pains or real gains. To nihilism, I just don't know everything, including nihilism. I just wonder why I should jump to a conclusion. For my intuition?
cousin_it 12y ago
Is the pleasure of others meaningful to you, or only to them?
- javert 12y ago
  Other people's pleasure is not inherently valuable to me, just neutral. However, I do value other people's pleasure when it increases my pleasure. It is pretty obvious why this applies to loved ones and friends, but it actually extends to all of society. A happier society is a better place to live, with more productivity, more to be inspired by (and not discouraged by), etc.
  - cousin_it 12y ago
    OK. Is the pleasure of you at a different time valuable to you at the current time?

Codhisattva 12y ago

"Let instinct trump logic" - bad advice. Instinct is simply pattern matching current conditions against memory. Without experience, instinct is a poor criteria and logic should be employed. Read Kahneman for the supporting research into that.

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ftwinnovations 12y ago
Thank you! This is the one point I very much disagreed with from this talk. His argument is that our logical brain, which is new, is first to interpret our environment but am pretty sure that premise is flawed. Our irrational, fast, animal side is first given sensory input and a chance to act on it... Fight, flee, flinch, do nothing... At which point the slower, newer, better evolved logical side begins to work through it and make rational decisions. This newer side is what truly separates us from the rest of the animals out there, and is what creates everything.. Society, self-awareness, inventions, everything. Not to say instinct is bad. It's extremely valuable, and as Blink Theory pointed out so famously, has it's place as well. But as you said, I agree it's bad advice to let one simply trump the other.
d23 12y ago
Yeah, our past experiences create walls of thought around us and make it hard to see or imagine what things are like outside them. Logic is one tool that can help us, as well as imagination. There are probably others.
djim 12y ago
However, as he states in the article, instinct is the result of experience. He is saying the mechanism of instinct is older in humans than logic, so the process is more refined/trustworthy when comparing the two. Seems right to me..
- vdaniuk 12y ago
  The mechanism of instinct has emerged from the evolutionary process to provide a survival and reproduction advantage over others. Instinct most certainly is an advantage for species (may be just random path-dependent mutation), not for the individual. Thus we shouldn't trust on instinct alone to find an optimal solution for sense/meaning problem.

DanielBMarkham 12y ago

tl;dr: We choose to give life meaning. It is our choice of assignment of meaning (or not), that is the only thing to be discussed here. (Yay existentialism!) When you think about the incredible number of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars, having untold habitable planets, existing for tens of billions of years? Then we think about our one planet Earth, and how each of us lives only 50-100 years and then we're gone? We have the question backwards. In the grand scheme of things, we're much less than a speck on a mote somewhere, a fruit fly. We're completely inconsequential. It's not for us to ask what life is about. We have the question backwards. Instead life -- that thing that has existed for eons before we were ever a possibility and that will exist eons after our memory is gone -- is asking us "What is the meaning of you?" Life sets us up with initial conditions and gives us various challenges as we go through our minuscule little part of it. It is during these experiences that Life is asking us what our meaning is. Our choices provide the reply. Being alive is answering the question: what is my meaning? We could no more judge the meaning of life itself than we could begin to count the habitable planets in the sky. To phrase the question in this way is just to provide busywork instead of dealing with the reality in front of us.

jqm 12y ago

I see little point in trying to ascertain the "meaning" of life. From what I see, life itself gives birth to the concept of meaning not the other way around. But I guess it would be hard to get speaking engagements saying "you are born, then you die, and what you do in between is a waste of time".... Even if this were the case in reality. (Which I'm not saying it is).

benjoffe 12y ago
> I see little point in trying to ascertain the "meaning" of life. From what I see, life itself gives birth to the concept of meaning not the other way around. Did you actually listen to the talk? He comes to the same conclusion.
- jqm 12y ago
  I read the transcript. I don't think you understand what I am saying. We don't come to the same conclusions. I'm saying the concept of "meaning".... not the "meaning of life" is something derived from the property of life itself. Therefore using this concept to ask a question in a larger context probably isn't valid.
  - benjoffe 12y ago
    From the article: > Nothing has inherent meaning. Everything is only what it is and that's it. I think you come to the same conclusion but perhaps express it a little deeper than the author does.
devnonymous 12y ago
You didn't watch the video/hear the talk, did you ?
- jqm 12y ago
  see the above. I read the transcript. You didn't read the post and responses carefully did you?

ambivalence 12y ago

Derek Sivers is so wrong in his video. The Talking Heads were active until 1991!

bsenftner 12y ago

This is like a skin cell asking what is the meaning of life. The meaning of life is larger than our individual selves, and is found in the totality of life: we are either the recursive self creation of God, or the creation of some super intelligence seeking answers to questions it can not. Either way, our purpose is clear: create heaven, create time travel, teleport all living entities at the moment of their death to heaven, and then provide comfort, care, and understanding. Yeah, not my idea: read "The Light of Other Days", Arthur C Clark's last novel.

michaelsbradley 12y ago

Life is a gift of God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, who in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in God's own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Saviour. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life. Adapted from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It reflects my own belief and answer to this question, and I am happy to be numbered among billions over the centuries who would have answered Siver's question in the same way. http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2.HTM http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2.HTM

jqm 12y ago
I'm not hating on your answer here, you certainly are free to believe as you wish and at least as right as anyone else, but appeal to popularity, especially when that popularity was often forced at the point of a sword, is not a very good argument.
- michaelsbradley 12y ago
  I did not make an appeal to popularity. I believe what the Church teaches, and I am perfectly happy being one sheep among billions in the sheepfold – that was my point. The reason I pointed that out is that, other controversies aside, in an age of hyper-individualism, the fact that a set of beliefs is shared by so many is itself often an unstated motive for doubt.
- stefantalpalaru 12y ago
  Would you say the same to the guy who discovered atheism at the age of 7, somewhere at the top of this thread?
- virtualwhys 12y ago
  I'd say the phrase, "nobody wins an argument", most definitely applies to debates between believers and non-believers; i.e. he's not arguing in favor of Christianity, but rather is in the business of saving souls.

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eternalban 12y ago

http://www.formakers.eu/media/1.857.1372411075.nature_3d_print_recity_11.jpg http://www.formakers.eu/media/1.857.1372411075.nature_3d_pri...

negamax 12y ago

Very good video and ideas. "You must have worked really hard at it" Just want to correct the line 'Life is Suffering' when you brought up Buddhism. That sounds sadistic. Buddhist's idea is suffering exists. Which is presented as a fact that can be seen with a rational mind. And life is to be lived in pursuit of eliminating suffering for yourself and others. Just thought, I point this out.

dominotw 12y ago
Its not sadistic. Life was full of suffering for vedic nomads who finally settled down in cities. Instead of turing outwards philosophers of that time lie buddha and mahavira turned inwards for comfort.
- xmonkee 12y ago
  Life is suffering regardless of your position in time and space if you haven't attained nibanna. Its not specific to the vedic nomads otherwise there would be no need to walk the eight fold path in the first world. Suffering is the first noble truth.
  - dominotw 12y ago
    >Life is suffering regardless of your position in time and space Is it though? I've lived several third world countries and a couple of first world countries. I know from first hand experience that life in rich countries is much much less suffering and is good 80% of the time whereas in third world countries is 80% suffering. What is the point of our developments in science and technology if everyone is still suffering equally.
    - xmonkee 12y ago
      From a Buddhist perspective: In what country do you not have death of loved ones, old age, sickness? In what country do you not have attachments, fear or sadness? Technology can make us more comfortable, but not "solve" life for us. Some people have more comfort in life than others, animals are even worse off than poor people, and gods in heavens are more comfortable than Bill Gates, yet all of them will face death and sickness in this life (including the gods in buddhism). The only escape is Nirvana. From a secular perspective: There are lots of ways to look at this. We could see everyone as being on a spectrum. Your happiness levels depend on your position on the spectrum relative to your peers. Poor people in the US have cars, yet they are extremely unhappy and suffering. The same amount of wealth in India would make you middle class and much happier. So clearly the happiness is not a function only of money but also of perception. People were in general just as happy or sad 3000 years ago as they are today, what has technology achieved then? If technology was making the world more equal, I would support the proposition that development is a net positive, as everyone would have the chance to grow spiritually rather than spend a human birth just surviving, but that's not the case. Technology divides more than it equalizes. There is no "point" to technology, it will happen. There's no use fighting it, there's no use supporting it over everything else. Technological progress is a fact of life. There is a point to equality, it allows everyone to achieve their potential and maybe reduce actual suffering on the planet.

joaorj 12y ago

When the video showed the slide saying "Life is ____" I paused and thought about it for a minute. For me life is producing output when presented with some kind of input. If we are alive and that's pretty much what we do, life must be it. (not only man, but every animal I can think about) Now, how are we alive and a computer problem isn't, I don't know. Maybe because our input comes directly from the natural world? What is the meaning of life? As others said here, it's a question that seems illogical to be asked.

stefantalpalaru 12y ago

The part about "old" and "new" brain in the instinct section is wrong. The brain is not compartmentalized like that.

DigitalJack 12y ago

If you are seeking meaning, consider attending an alpha course. It is a forum for atheist, agnostic, and Christian alike, on the topic of Christianity and faith. http://www.alpha.org/about http://www.alpha.org/about From the site: Alpha really is for anyone who’s curious. The talks are designed to encourage debate and explore the basics of the Christian faith in a friendly, honest and informal environment.

insin 12y ago
Adam Rutherford attended an Alpha Course and did a series of posts on the Guardian's Comment Is Free about it, if anyone's interested: http://www.theguardian.com/global/series/alpha-male http://www.theguardian.com/global/series/alpha-male Sounds like the usual credulous nonsense to me, by YMMV :)
DigitalJack 12y ago
I really don't understand why someone would downvote this.
- lsh 12y ago
  I do. I do ...

stefantalpalaru 12y ago

> What does it mean that all of your previous attempts at something have failed? > Nothing! Nothing at all. Don't try skydiving.

joeguilmette 12y ago
If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving isn't for you.
- stefantalpalaru 12y ago
  You don't start skydiving by jumping off a plane by yourself with a parachute that you need to release at a certain altitude. There are intermediary steps and if you don't learn from your own mistakes because "nothing has inherent meaning" you're gonna have a bad time.
  - deleted 12y ago
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wellboy 12y ago

For me the meaning of life is: To reach one's full potential and to be excellent to each other. So basically self-actualization while being awesome. :)

dctoedt 12y ago

Riffing off of Robert Wright's book Non-Zero [1]: * Consider the apparent self-assembling of the universe over the last 13.8 billion years. * Consider the seeming overall long-term trend (certainly not a monotonic one) of "improvement" in life. Adapting Gregg Easterbrook's thought experiment [2]: Would you permanently trade places with a random person who lived 1,000 years ago? How about 10,000 years ago? Would anyone, at any time, do so? It's a defensible proposition that, as theologian Philip Hefner put it, we are created co-creators [3]. To what end? Who knows. But if past performance is any indication, it'll be pretty neat. From this perspective, conducting one's life in accordance with (a weak version of) Pascal's Wager [4] seems like a reasonable course of action. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Nonzero-The-Logic-Human-Destiny/dp/0679758941 http://www.amazon.com/Nonzero-The-Logic-Human-Destiny/dp/067... (not an affiliate link) [2] http://www.amazon.com/Beside-Still-Waters-Searching-Meaning/dp/0688160654 http://www.amazon.com/Beside-Still-Waters-Searching-Meaning/... (ditto) [3] http://currentsjournal.org/new_currents_ed_06_01.html http://currentsjournal.org/new_currents_ed_06_01.html [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager

baddox 12y ago
I don't see the significance of the trading places question. Would you trade places with a random person 1,000 years in the future either? Or a random person on Earth today? Or even a random person among the top 1,000 most successful (by your own definition) on Earth today? Or even a person you specifically choose? It seems like most relatively happy or even comfortable people would say no to all these opportunities.

h1karu 12y ago

I thought life is all about launching a minimal viable product, tweaking it to narrow in on product/market fit, and then scaling up. You mean there's more to life AFTER that ?! oh brother. I'll worry about that once I get there

jqm 12y ago

Some people postulate the meaning of life resides in God. So I wonder then, what the meaning of God's life would be? Simply adding recursive complexity doesn't solve the question, but now you have two problems. For the record, I think the real problem is the question. It supposes that "meaning" can be something outside of what we experience and I don't believe it can be.

NaNaN 12y ago
Good point. I think the author (and many other people) was just blinded by self-conceit and jumped to a conclusion too quickly.
- jodrellblank 12y ago
  Given that's the same conclusion the author came to, how was he "blinded by self-conceit, answering too quickly"?
  - NaNaN 12y ago
    So you're asking where my ignorance came from? Well, I don't know. But I don't think I have any real reason to believe the author. :( Am I self-abased? Anyway, I like this joke: "Life is hard." (Sorry.)
    - NaNaN 12y ago
      Yeah, maybe I should not think others is what, but just think I think what. Oh my, an infinite recursion. Anyone can help me?
  - NaNaN 12y ago
    After I realized the recursion inside my conclusion, I jumped out for a while and asked you another question: Is the conclusion from that video/talk a tautology or a pure belief? The author just described what he experienced and didn't talk about the relationship between meanings and his intuition. He believed meanings do not come from what he feels (the artifical Chinese characters), and didn't say why his intuition let him hold that belief for natural things. He just know his own feelings. This remind me of some words from Buddhists -- Everyone can not see the truth through other people's eyes.

luke-stanley 12y ago

Life is overcoming entropy.

jqm 12y ago
So it seems. But life itself is simply sunlight falling to earth if you think about it biochemically. In other words as far as we know, life is a channel for and manifestation of entropy.
- rehack 12y ago
  >But life itself is simply sunlight falling to earth if you think about it biochemically Don't you think, that by same extension, car is just Gas/Fuel coming in from a Gas/Fuel station? I am sorry, but I find most essays on the topic of 'meaning of life' escapist. Or rather answering a different question on how best to live life, with the assumption that the real meaning is unknowable. None of these essays satisfy my need to know, what it is actually all about. Talking about this essay, its excellent no doubt. But IMHO its misleading all the same.
  - jqm 12y ago
    In your example I would say body=car. The motion of the car would be life. And that is indeed a channel of gas from the fuel station. The car is needed to channel it, but the car is not it. There is an active component. I agree with the rest of your post. Talking about the "meaning of life" is masturbatory in my opinion. Not that there is anything wrong with a little self pleasure. It just doesn't produce much.

F_J_H 12y ago

In summary, finding the meaning OF life (to quote Dan Barker - thanks @hawkharris) is to find the meaning IN life, for you personally. A the end of the day, we look for the meaning of/in life to ultimately be happy, or at least content. For that, we need a "purpose", and the philosopher Daniel Dennentt has some good advice here: “Find something more important than you are, and dedicate your life to it.” So, how do you find your purpose - something that is "more important than you are"? For many people, the answer is based in religious belief. Others may find value in a letter penned by 20 year old Hunter S. Thompson: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/11/04/hunter-s-thompson-letters-of-note-advice/ http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/11/04/hunter-s-t... Key quote: "In every man, heredity and environment have combined to produce a creature of certain abilities and desires—including a deeply ingrained need to function in such a way that his life will be MEANINGFUL. A man has to BE something; he has to matter. As I see it then, the formula runs something like this: a man must choose a path which will let his ABILITIES function at maximum efficiency toward the gratification of his DESIRES." I would add that the DESIRES need to be aligned with, and perhaps subservient to, that thing which is "more important than you are", otherwise ==> hedonism.

nutanc 12y ago

learc83 12y ago

I can't understand how any comment that posits the existence of God or objective morality has been downvoted to oblivion, yet comments that suggests that the only meaning (and thus morality) lies in increasing one's own pleasure are rising to the top. I'd also like to add that michaelsbradley's comment way down at the bottom of the page sums up my Christian belief on the meaning of life pretty nicely even though I'm not Catholic. (and I suspect I have a different interpretation of "the Church" when I read that statement)

majani 12y ago
Surely you cannot expect a religious argument to do well in a scientific forum.
- michaelsbradley 12y ago
  Reason and faith, science and religion, are not enemies or necessarily in tension with one another. Fr. Robert Spitzer, S.J.[1] does a fine job of exploring evidence for God's existence from modern science[2]. Many notable scientists were/are persons of faith[3]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Spitzer_%28priest%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Spitzer_%28priest%29 [2] http://www.amazon.com/New-Proofs-Existence-God-Contributions/dp/0802863833 http://www.amazon.com/New-Proofs-Existence-God-Contributions... [&] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mkjhxzqr-5k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mkjhxzqr-5k [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_scientists http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_scientists

dominotw 12y ago

There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide - Albert Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus. Yes we can invent stupid justifications for life like 'life is about love', 'life is helping others' and a million other equally bizzare justifications but in the end its just a pointless absurdity.

jodrellblank 12y ago
There is no more value or correctness in calling life 'pointless' or 'absurd'. Framing things that "life is about helping people" is bizarre and "in the end life is absurd and pointless" is not right, it's still trying to put human concepts on an inexplicable universe, but positioning oneself as superior to everyone else while doing so.

kafkaesque 12y ago

I'm late to this, but I thought we had some philosophers on HN that pretty actively participated in discussions. Why wasn't there a discussion on how what Sivers is explaining is the concept of NIHILISM? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism What Sivers said has an underlying message: there is a meaning to life: it is that there is no objective/inherent meaning. This is important to note because of the huge ramifications this has and has had in philosophy since Nietzsche. Unfortunately, nihilism is circular and presupposes moral relativism.

GNUmaro 12y ago

Beautiful video by the way, a must see: http://youtu.be/7d16CpWp-ok http://youtu.be/7d16CpWp-ok