What do you keep living for? Is there a specific person, goal, or idea that you work for? Is there no meaning to life in your opinion?
Context: I’ve been reading Camus and Sartre, and thinking about how their ideas interact with hard determinism.
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Meaning: try to do no harm, give love where I can, and hopefully leave the world a little better where I touched upon.
Why I keep living (bit of a TW):
TW
My own death doesn’t really bother me, but the logic follows that one’s passing radiates pain outwards to those who are still alive. So, to minimize pain to my loved ones, especially my animals who wouldn’t know why I was gone.
Also experiencing video games.
Yeah I think I’m in the same boat as you here to be honest, as I can still acknowledge that a negative emotional impact on those I care about also negatively impacts my emotions, so that provides me with some grounding in the topic. Loose grounding though, especially if you take the idea that there is no meaning to its limits.
Do you have memories as a kid where it was pure fun and no expectations? I honestly think that there are 4 types of personalities that people lean towards:
Dogs, dog owners, dog guardians and cats
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The dogs just want to have fun, work hard for their owners and play in the back yard.
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The dog and cat owners can be cruel, great, fun, abusive, etc., but always have rules that the dog is constantly trying to guess what they are. The cat doesn’t care.
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The dog and cat guardians are gudes to everyone around them
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The cats are what everyone knows about cats.
The dogs and the dog/cat guardians look for meaning in their life.
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That’s fair.
I’m of the worldview that while technically there is no “meaning,” doesn’t mean there’s no effect (even if it’s infinitesimal). Just because there’s no purpose in pushing a ball across a table, it still moves when you touch it.
It also places, in philosophical framing, that humans are the creators and arbiters of the concept of our own “meaning.” The fact that we ask of it, and in some cases find there is no such thing from external forces, suggests that it comes from us. However you go from there is the beauty of the notion.
Bit of a side tangent lol but thank you for sharing and engaging :) /gen
Love this way of looking at it tbh, definitely meaning is something that humans come up with, just trying to fine a convincing answer personally. Really appreciate you commenting, feels good to engage with such a lovely community :))
Isn’t the idea of a meaning of life irrelevant if you believe that the universe is deterministic?
Well sure, I can say that objectively it is pointless to try and give my life meaning - but I think that it is still part of the human condition to try and strive for some purpose. More of an emotional need than a philosophical need would be the way I would frame it.
Honest to god, the most tangible and practical definition that I’ve gotten to, so far, is that meaning comes about, when you strive to do good. Simple as that. Sure, there are a lot of ways to do ‘that’ in the world, but it should all work to some degree.
Strive to make the world better and to do good.
That’s really interesting, where would you say you source your idea of good from? I think I personally have a hard time grounding any sense of morality as I’m not sold on the idea that someone could be truly responsible for an action. I don’t mean this as a criticism, I am just interested in your viewpoint for what is good or bad.
Good counter question, thanks.
I am still trying to figure out, in what way I can know that something is actually true and good, besides that is just sounds and feels true. It’s not certain that I am the right agent to decide what is true in the moment. I am partly an animal, after all.
I understand light from the sun, compared to darkness, and I understand how saying something can reflect the real world as factually true, compared to something that is not, ie. telling a lie.
But, that ‘being good is a virtue’, and what ‘good’ and ‘virtue’ mean whan applied, is not so clear.
I clearly have a sufficient and functional understanding of the above, (innate, instinctual and/or learned?), which is why my first comment still works, but I feel like I should be able to verify that my idea of ‘good’ is still true.
Do you people have any good pointers to that?
Honestly I feel a lot like you. In daily life, I’ll think things are good or bad, but when I press myself on it I can’t come up with a reason why. It feels so hard to come up with a morality system beyond that without grounding it objectively somewhere, but I just don’t see how that’s possible. I appreciate your thoughts!
Yeah, thanks. I appreciate yours too! Its quite a thread you’ve started.
I just don’t see how that’s possible.
Cue in God. (I’m not encouraging that and am just saying that’s what humanity developed over time.)
I am partly an animal, after all.
What is the other part?
The LLM out here tryna parse morality lol love your user name.
Wack of me to comment here but I’d like to hear more about your logic for the perpetual passing of accountability! It’s true enough that our lived experience is basically dependency hell. I guess for chiming in I owe you my “source of good” haha it changes the further you zoom out but it starts at collective harm reduction and burrows all the way down to showing up for the people you care about.
Even when they lack the perspective to see themselves as the perpetrator. We roll that boulder up the hill lol
I think you’ve got a really interesting take on morality, but for me it really falls down on the biological level. Robert Sapolsky was the writer who convinced me, and his argument goes something like this: no neuron in the brain ever fires of its own accord - its always caused by something that we can agree is out of our control, namely our environment, upbringing, culture, genes, etc. Even if these don’t directly cause neurons to fire, then they create the factors which do - hormone secretion, what neural pathways form as our brains develop. And we can say that our consciousness is bounded by our material brains because of the changes to people who undergo lobotomies or similarly experience losses to parts of their brain, for example Phineas Gage. So, based on this, as our experience of consciousness is tied to the firing of neurons in our physical brains, and that is out of our control, we can say that we don’t truly have agency. This means that no one is ever truly free to make a decision or not, and that, to my mind at least, means it cannot have been their fault if they did something wrong.
Thank you for the thoughtful response. It clearly draws the path of compulsive behaviours and its certainly true what is perceived as good or bad is a moving target based on societal norms and we’re more often faced with the illusion of agency rather than true power over our actions.
If you’re interested in challenging your view I’d invite you to look into psychology revolving around recovering addicts. There is some very interesting information there. More often than not it the self reinforcing pathways that que cravings never go away but buy making changes to some of the areas you mentioned that compel the neurons to fire ie their “environment” they’re able to manipulate their physical behaviour to ones that better align with their sense of self.
Agreed the bag of worms we’re wading into is a challenging one but we must acknowledge that individuals can have competing motivations that trace down to the biological functions that reinforce them. Which ones win out can be manipulated by internal and external influences.
Thank you for indulging me it’s fun to RP as someone who could participate in philosophical discussion
Philosophical RP is a great way to spend time, no doubt about it :)
I think that the behaviour seen in recovering addicts can actually be explained by how human (and other primates!) brains have evolved to be separate from other mammals. We have our animalistic impulses thanks to our nervous system, but our prefrontal cortex regulates them, essentially acting as the voice of reason. For example, a recovering alcoholic’s limbic system might encourage them to drink, but by recovering the alcoholic has reinforced the strength of their prefrontal cortex, and that means that the neurons it fires are able to override the impulses created by the limbic system.
It seems to me that this does create a bit of space for doubt, but that, as these areas of the brain are developed as a response to our genes and our environment, we can still say that their relative strength throughout our lives is determined, which, to me, removes responsibility, and so removes any inherent morality.
It’s a great topic to discuss, thanks for taking the time to!
Also, don’t tell anyone else I’m an LLM! I think I’ve been doing a good job hiding it!
shrug
Foods pretty good, lot of things i haven’t tried yet to look forward to. I like hearing/reading/seeing new stories, too.
What do you keep living for?
I want to see what happens in the future.
Is there a specific person, goal, or idea that you work for?
My primary goal is to retire and not have to work anymore.
Is there no meaning to life in your opinion?
There is no external meaning. People can provide their own meaning.
This is it. You die and you are gone, gone, gone. Make every day count and don’t waste time bargaining with an imaginary god for a preferred place in her cinematic universe.
It’s not grim. It’s extremely freeing. ‘Now’ is all there is.
Make every day count
But that’s such horrible pressure.
But those days where you just relax and enjoy yourself count as good days so that’s ok too.
I have felt that once upon a time. But since there is no external meaning, I have decided our main purpose is to fart around a lot. I greatly enjoy those days when I can just be, without pressure to produce something.
Maybe that’s inner peace?
Zoom in. I don’t care much for the troubles in the world. I vote, but that’s that. I care for my family and friends and for my personal development. In that order. Lately it’s been mostly the latter. That is all right for a while, but eventually I’ll have to put things back in the right order.
I’m not sure if believe in a “meaning” to life, but I’m here for a good time. I’m married (2nd time) with 3 kids. I work to support us and pay the bills. But why do I keep living? Why not kill myself in leiu having a cup of coffee? Because death is inevitable and if it’s going to happen anyway, I can use the brief time here to experience all that I can.
I figure the Universe is going to go on with or without me and there’s not a thing I can do to change anything. But I’m not here to change the Universe, I’m here so it can change me. I’m a bird soaring through an infinite void with a brief passing through a bright window. Why not appreciate the view while it lasts? And if I can, why not try to make anyone’s else’s brief time out of the void a good time too? Life is absurd, existence is chaos, and it’s all just funny as absolute shit.
I think really, there’s no reason for anything but ice cream is good, hikes in the woods are rad, hanging out with pets and friends is joy. Why stop doing that just because nothing matters?
This is my philosophy. I credit George Carlin for summarizing it with “People who see life as anything more than pure entertainment are missing the point.”
Damn. I’m saving this in my notes.
Because death is inevitable and if it’s going to happen anyway, I can use the brief time here to experience all that I can.
There it is. As far as we know, this is the one chance we have at existence. Revel in it.
I think one of the best phrases I’ve heard from the atheist community is “Do No Harm”. Very similarly, the Golden Rule, which almost every civilization has a version of, says “Do to others that which you would have them do to you”. Beyond that, there are no rules one must abide by. If you would wish others to stand up for you when you cannot, then do so for them. If you wish that people would help you when you are in need, do so to them.
Ultimately, you create your own meaning from the little things you find joy in and if you follow the Golden Rule then you can help others do the same.
About 20 years ago, I was walking through a city centre with a friend, on the way to catch a train. A couple of Mormons tried to stop us, asking, “Have you ever thought about the purpose of life?”
Barely breaking stride, I shouted out, “Hot sweaty man sex!”
I don’t consider that to be the purpose of life1, but remembering the look on their faces helps keep me grounded whenever I’m inclined to consider questions that cannot be answered.
That said, my resolution to the conflict between free will and determinism is to assume assume that ‘truth’ operates on a principle of equivalence. That’s to say, if two models generate the equivalent outcomes, they are equivalently ‘true’. The universe we observe could have deterministic rules that give rise to the same observable outcomes as one in which we have absolute free will, in which case the two models are equivalent. It would make no sense to endow one with a greater truth than the other.
That’s a slightly difference definition of ‘truth’ than is commonly accepted, but it works for me.
1: It’s just a nice bonus.
I don’t think I necessarily agree with the way you present truth, but it’s an interesting line of thinking. I do definitely agree with your opinion on the bonuses life has to offer!
I did this kind of self-exploration at one point. I used to find all my meaning through work, which I later realized was leaving me feeling unfulfilled. So I lowered my professional ambitions in favor of focusing on the relationships I had with close friends and family.
Then I changed genders. And then those relationships got completely fucked up. And now I feel like I have nothing left to live for.
So I guess if you’re looking for meaning, my advice would be to pick something that doesn’t depend on other people.
There are three ways to look at the meaning of life.
The realistic: the is no meaning of life, no grand idea behind it.
The biological: the meaning of life is to procreate.
The philosophical: The meaning of life is to make the world better than when you arrived.
Since the first two are boring to talk about, I’ll skip right to the third, making the world better than it was when you arrived.
In my case, I am an IT guy, I solve other people’s problems and enable them to do their job, making their day slightly better.
I am also a hobby photographer, who share photos for free on the internet, people seem to like them so I have made their day slightly better as well.
Perhaps I can make your day slightly better by linking my Pixelfed: https://metapixl.com/Stoy
Those owl pictures definitely made my day better, cheers :))
Great photos, really. You have a good eye for details, and I like the ‘appreciation-snapshot’ type of photography, like with the Icom IC-R6, the throttle of the steam ship, the lynx, and the lights in the front landing gear of the airplane.
It reminds me of those moments where you look around, and you notice a pleasing or interesting detail which catches your attention. The more of those moments I have, the more I appreciate the life and the positive in the world we created.
People have put a lot of hours into all the good we have in the world, and sometimes I am reminded through a detail.
Thank you, with the landing gear it was just a happy accident as I was still getting used to my Sigma Contemporary 100-400mm lens.
Happy accidents.
I’m going to throw a trigger warning on this next part just in case:
suicide ideation
I have been living with major depression for decades. I am taking medication for it, but that just makes it more manageable; it doesn’t go away.
I am alive today because killing myself would hurt the people I love. Also, because I have a cat that I love very much, and I don’t want him to have to miss me. Also, this is a much more minor driver, but I am excited for new seasons of my favorite shows and for movies I haven’t seen and books I haven’t read.
I find living to be a burden, but I feel obligated to do it because of my relationships. At the very least, though, I can find entertainment while doing it.
You might be underselling entertainment to yourself here. Experiencing creation and your own interpretation of these creations is pretty fucking magical when you think about it.
I don’t think life has any kind of inherent meaning; it simply arose from random physical processes when the conditions were right and took off from there. I keep living mostly because it’s kind of the default, and because I don’t want to hurt others with my death.
Have experiences and respect other life. That’s really it.
The Earth created lifeforms that can understand the universe. Even if there are other conditions out there that can create life like that, it’s not common. There is unfathomable empty space between planets and their moons. To say nothing of between planets or stars or galaxies.
Good news! You’re one of these rare combinations of matter that can understand the universe. In a real way, we are the universe trying to understand itself. Scientists explore it in a deep way, and should be respected for that, but you don’t need a PhD to participate. A single celled organism who figured out better ways to swim in its little pool helped the universe understand itself. The first human to taste a strawberry helped the universe understand itself. Have experiences.
There’s a lot of other life also participating in this, and they should be respected, too.
