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I always find it very weird when people have debates about whether life is "meaningful" or not. "Meaningfulness" is just a feeling inside a human psyche. If i

I always find it very weird when people have debates about whether life is "meaningful" or not. "Meaningfulness" is just a feeling inside a human psyche. If it feels meaningful, then it is meaningful to you. Other people may have different feelings about what is meaningful. How can a person of type A claim any kind of universal or objective meaningfulness of anything? How would you build a meaningfulness detector or write a meaningfulness algorithm to discern what is meaningful and what is not? What evidence is there to suggest that meaningfulness is a concept that exists outside of our own minds and experience?

kuzmin 12y ago
I spotted the type B person!
- pharrington 12y ago
  It seems so weird to me that so many people confuse someone saying a phenomena is a mental process for saying that phenomena doesn't exist.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    I find they often miss the key fact - human brains are made of the same template; we do have universal values and thought processes. Things that are universal to humans are not arbitrary to us (even though they might be in the grander scale).
    - haberman 12y ago
      > we do have universal values and thought processes If there was universal agreement about what is meaningful, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I think you would be pretty hard-pressed to find very much that is absolutely universal to the human experience. But even if there are things which are highly prevalent in the human experience, that is not evidence that these feelings are "truth." We have direct evidence that our brains are pre-programmed with tons of cognitive biases and nonsensical beliefs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
  - romaniv 12y ago
    It's probably because there are many people who say "this is a mental process" when they really mean "this does not exist".
    - romaniv 12y ago
      Also, come to think of it, the proper term for this is "abstract concept" not "mental process".
- haberman 12y ago
  Classifying my position is not the same as answering it. Suppose an anti-vaxxer says "there are two types of people: type A who believe vaccination is a personal choice and type B who believe that everyone has a duty to vaccinate when they can." If you make a case for why people should vaccinate, and the anti-vaxxer says "oh look, I spotted a type B person," that isn't an actual response to the argument.
  - romaniv 12y ago
    Classifying my position is not the same as answering it. Classifying your position shows that there is no point in answering it. In other words, the important thing here is not whether you're being classified, but why and how. You analogy is invalid. And no, I am not going to directly address your original post either. What is your actual point within the context of this particular newpost anyway? From what I see, you're defending a rather boring dismissal of the original article. A long, though-out, well-written article with tons of interesting observations.
    - haberman 12y ago
      > What is your actual point within the context of this particular newpost anyway? I was curious whether anyone had compelling reasons for believing in the idea of objective or absolute meaningfulness. What I have learned is that the reasons people have offered are extremely weak, in my opinion.
      - romaniv 12y ago
        If you don't know how to count, you learn arithmetic from people who do. Nobody owes you a proof that it "objectively exists". Neither does denying it constitute a valid disproof of every theorem in existence. Such is the nature of abstract concepts.
        lmm 12y ago
        Nonsense. You teach someone arithmetic by showing them concrete instances where it applies, counting apples or sticks or so on. You demonstrate that the abstract thing exists because there's something the same about putting two apples and two more apples together or putting two stones and two more stones together, and by observing one you can learn something about the other.
tjradcliffe 12y ago
> What evidence is there to suggest that meaningfulness is a concept that exists outside of our own minds and experience? Why would you need or want to? I exist. My mind exists. My consciousness exists. My experience exists. I mean that in the perfectly ordinary, uncontroversial sense that we use every day. There is no particular mystery or problem when I say, "My cat exists" or "My socks exist". I can provide evidence for them, in the same way I can provide evidence for my own existence and the existence of my experiences. If you can read and understand this post you have evidence for my existence and the existence of my experience. Furthermore, because we are beings of a particular kind, the things we find meaningful--like the things we find nutritious--fall into a relatively small number of categories. Particulars won't be the same for everyone, but so what? It would be very strange to say that because I like meat and you like fruit there's no objective or universal standard of nutrition, and anyone can eat anything--rocks, trees, nothing--and get along equally well. Simply because our nature does not determine what we find meaningful or nutritious does not mean it does not constrain it. This is again a perfectly ordinary phenomenon that for some reason people get all confused about when it applies to the contents of our minds rather than the contents of our stomachs.
- eli_gottlieb 12y ago
  Not only that, but in fact the kinds of things that are meaningful and valuable to people are often shared with other people, which then provides us with the additional meaning kick of sharing, which, I am told, is caring.
- ThomPete 12y ago
  The question is not whether you experience you exist but what it is that exist. So it doesn't help your argument that you can point to a sock and say it exist. What you have to show is that there is only one way to interpret what you see before you can prove that what you see is in fact what you see. Only then is it truly "a thing" regardless of perspective. In other words. The rock exist in your head as a concept, it's not a concept in nature. A pattern perhaps but not an universal object and the pattern that it is is only one perspective.
- haberman 12y ago
JonathanAquino 12y ago
> How can a person of type A claim any kind of universal or objective meaningfulness of anything? For arguments for objective meaningfulness (or good), I'm partial to natural law theory, which is basically that what is good for a human being is what fulfills the nature of a human being. I don't have time to get into details here, but suffice to say that murder, adultery, lying, and stealing do not fulfill the nature of a human being, whereas justice, fortitude, prudence, and temperance are examples of things that do. I recommend the following for arguments for natural law theory, by philosphers of an Aristotelian/Thomistic bent: [Book] Aquinas, by Edward Feser. Chapter 5 is on Ethics. [Article] The Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Law, by David Oderberg: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7SKlRTfkUiebnUxMUEtc1B4VTQ/edit https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7SKlRTfkUiebnUxMUEtc1B4VTQ/...

kuzmin 12y ago

I spotted the type B person!

pharrington 12y ago
It seems so weird to me that so many people confuse someone saying a phenomena is a mental process for saying that phenomena doesn't exist.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  I find they often miss the key fact - human brains are made of the same template; we do have universal values and thought processes. Things that are universal to humans are not arbitrary to us (even though they might be in the grander scale).
  - haberman 12y ago
    > we do have universal values and thought processes If there was universal agreement about what is meaningful, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I think you would be pretty hard-pressed to find very much that is absolutely universal to the human experience. But even if there are things which are highly prevalent in the human experience, that is not evidence that these feelings are "truth." We have direct evidence that our brains are pre-programmed with tons of cognitive biases and nonsensical beliefs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
- romaniv 12y ago
  It's probably because there are many people who say "this is a mental process" when they really mean "this does not exist".
  - romaniv 12y ago
    Also, come to think of it, the proper term for this is "abstract concept" not "mental process".
haberman 12y ago
Classifying my position is not the same as answering it. Suppose an anti-vaxxer says "there are two types of people: type A who believe vaccination is a personal choice and type B who believe that everyone has a duty to vaccinate when they can." If you make a case for why people should vaccinate, and the anti-vaxxer says "oh look, I spotted a type B person," that isn't an actual response to the argument.
- romaniv 12y ago
  Classifying my position is not the same as answering it. Classifying your position shows that there is no point in answering it. In other words, the important thing here is not whether you're being classified, but why and how. You analogy is invalid. And no, I am not going to directly address your original post either. What is your actual point within the context of this particular newpost anyway? From what I see, you're defending a rather boring dismissal of the original article. A long, though-out, well-written article with tons of interesting observations.
  - haberman 12y ago
    > What is your actual point within the context of this particular newpost anyway? I was curious whether anyone had compelling reasons for believing in the idea of objective or absolute meaningfulness. What I have learned is that the reasons people have offered are extremely weak, in my opinion.
    - romaniv 12y ago
      If you don't know how to count, you learn arithmetic from people who do. Nobody owes you a proof that it "objectively exists". Neither does denying it constitute a valid disproof of every theorem in existence. Such is the nature of abstract concepts.
      - lmm 12y ago
        Nonsense. You teach someone arithmetic by showing them concrete instances where it applies, counting apples or sticks or so on. You demonstrate that the abstract thing exists because there's something the same about putting two apples and two more apples together or putting two stones and two more stones together, and by observing one you can learn something about the other.

tjradcliffe 12y ago

> What evidence is there to suggest that meaningfulness is a concept that exists outside of our own minds and experience? Why would you need or want to? I exist. My mind exists. My consciousness exists. My experience exists. I mean that in the perfectly ordinary, uncontroversial sense that we use every day. There is no particular mystery or problem when I say, "My cat exists" or "My socks exist". I can provide evidence for them, in the same way I can provide evidence for my own existence and the existence of my experiences. If you can read and understand this post you have evidence for my existence and the existence of my experience. Furthermore, because we are beings of a particular kind, the things we find meaningful--like the things we find nutritious--fall into a relatively small number of categories. Particulars won't be the same for everyone, but so what? It would be very strange to say that because I like meat and you like fruit there's no objective or universal standard of nutrition, and anyone can eat anything--rocks, trees, nothing--and get along equally well. Simply because our nature does not determine what we find meaningful or nutritious does not mean it does not constrain it. This is again a perfectly ordinary phenomenon that for some reason people get all confused about when it applies to the contents of our minds rather than the contents of our stomachs.

eli_gottlieb 12y ago
Not only that, but in fact the kinds of things that are meaningful and valuable to people are often shared with other people, which then provides us with the additional meaning kick of sharing, which, I am told, is caring.
ThomPete 12y ago
The question is not whether you experience you exist but what it is that exist. So it doesn't help your argument that you can point to a sock and say it exist. What you have to show is that there is only one way to interpret what you see before you can prove that what you see is in fact what you see. Only then is it truly "a thing" regardless of perspective. In other words. The rock exist in your head as a concept, it's not a concept in nature. A pattern perhaps but not an universal object and the pattern that it is is only one perspective.
haberman 12y ago

JonathanAquino 12y ago

> How can a person of type A claim any kind of universal or objective meaningfulness of anything? For arguments for objective meaningfulness (or good), I'm partial to natural law theory, which is basically that what is good for a human being is what fulfills the nature of a human being. I don't have time to get into details here, but suffice to say that murder, adultery, lying, and stealing do not fulfill the nature of a human being, whereas justice, fortitude, prudence, and temperance are examples of things that do. I recommend the following for arguments for natural law theory, by philosphers of an Aristotelian/Thomistic bent: [Book] Aquinas, by Edward Feser. Chapter 5 is on Ethics. [Article] The Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Law, by David Oderberg: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7SKlRTfkUiebnUxMUEtc1B4VTQ/edit https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7SKlRTfkUiebnUxMUEtc1B4VTQ/...