No. I’m sorry. There is no cosmic meaning. If you took every possible meaningful proposition in the universe so that you had one big proposition consisting of all meaning, that proposition would, itself, be meaningless (W said something similar in a lecture on Ethics). It would ‘just be’. There would be nothing about it that was meaningful or meaningless, as there is nothing against which it could be tested. One couldn’t say, “This part is meaningful, and this part is abitrary or trivial or nonsense.” With all the little individual meaningful propositions that make up the super-proposition, you can do that. But not with the mondo proposition. For this proposition stands above and beyond all space and time, immortal, as the sum total of all possible facts in existence. The Omega proposition. The only thing that never changes. The set of all possible meaningful propositions in any possible world.
Cosmic meaning would imply that the universe itself is somehow meaningful, which as far as we can tell from our materialistic scientific perspective, it isn’t. And that’s not really problematic since we know meaning comes from and applies only to meaning-capable beings. Like humans, and other life that has values and motives and needs and feelings. Rocks have no meaning, suns have no meaning, lightyear-sized expanses of hydrogen gas have no meaning. And there’s nothing wrong with that. We don’t need to anthropomorphize meaning into the dead matter of the universe to somehow justify the existence and value of meaning to ourselves, that is silly.
If every living value-capable being was gone from existence, then existence would lose all meaning. But it would still be a fact that meaning had existed, and would probably exist again at some point in the future. That is the mundane view.
…The more interesting spiritual-leaning view is that there are beings greater than us on other planes or dimensions, gods if you like, or even “God” itself that is always there in the background and for which there exists plenty of meaning. If there is a God, then perhaps its mind or body is the entire universe, maybe all of the rocks and other nonliving matter are like the little bits of carbon and iron and other stuff that is in our own bodies; it itself is not alive but is involved actively in some larger process of living things. Who knows? Given the totality of human experiences with so-called supernatural things, and how limited our knowledge is of the universe beyond earth, and also given the fact that science and most philosophers refuse to even investigate in this direction out of their own closed-mindedness and inflated egos, there is plenty of reasonable doubt when it comes to the typical materialistic scientific-atheistic view.
To understand or analyze meaning we need to first define where and why and for whom it exists, let alone define what it is. Do all that, and you end up with its context, which is important for categorizing it and understanding the meaning of meaning. But of course modern ‘philosophy’ couldn’t care less about any of that.
that would include our minds (Descartes referred to us thinking things as spiritual material)
mind=mind
self=other
You’re overcomplicating things.
Could you explain how your speculation is better? It comes back to the profound mystery? Does that make it better?
When you assert things like the following…
Me, I still have no illusions whatsoever that given the gap between what I think I understand about these things and all that I do not understand about the existence of existence itself “I” am still no less an infinitesimally insignificant “speck of existence” in the staggering vastness of all there is.
We’ve gone from a time when Christians figured that the Earth was the center of the universe to one in which Earth is but a staggeringly insignificant speck of existence in a universe far, far beyond our even being able to grasp just how vast it is.
Me, I’m still but one more utterly insignificant “speck” of existence in the staggering vastness of “all there is”. I’m just not as “arrogant, autocratic and authoritarian” as the FFOs are here in regard to things like morality and religion.
And that brain is itself but one of billions of other brains on this unimaginably tiny slice of a unverse – Earth – that is in itself so unimaginably insignificant in the vastness of “all there is”.
But, again, the most crucial factor being that in whatever way you choose to confront the climate change debate as a Pagan, you are able to intertwine and then embed your own personal agenda into this spiritual Self that enables you to at least be comforted that your efforts are in sync with something that transcends your own infinitesimally insignificant existence.
this is the kind of assertion he is countering, and counters well in the beginning of the article. I think his argument is weak when he thinks he has demonstrated significance, but when those, like you, assert that we are insignificant, this shares a similar weakness. You’ve taken this stand, repeatedly, that you and we are insignificant. One what grounds? Counter his arguments against that position in the beginning of the article if you can.
It may seems like an obvious truth to you. It may seem negative, so it’s not one that’s comforting you - though perhaps it is. But regardless, how was significance measured by you so that you could place yourself, us on the extreme low end of significance?
How do you justify this negative objectivism around significance and why is what you do better than what other do when the speculate we are significant? (“At least I…”)
Significance
Ruben David Azevedo tells us why, in a limitless universe, we’re not insignificant.
Seventh: The Anthropic Principle. The strong version of the anthropic principle states that the fundamental physical constants and parameters of our universe seem to have values specifically fine-tuned for the emergence of life.
If the values of those constants had been even slightly different, it is claimed, then the universe would have been very different, to the extent that no life like ours could have possibly emerged.
Here of course some will bring this – the universe – around to God. Others to Pantheism. But there was once a time when the lines on Mars seemed to indicate a vast system of canals indicating an advanced civilization. Turns out they were “an optical illusion caused by the alignment of natural surface features”.
And if the universe was primed from the very beginning to bring about the emergence of biological life leading to us, it was also primed [at least here on Earth] to sustain a ghastly slaughterhouse of predator and prey throughout much of the “animal kingdom”. Not to mention all of the “natural disasters” that have sustained enormous pain and suffering among our own species.
So, what is the significance of that?
Which, from my frame of mind, is why in regard to either God as the Creator or the Big Bang as the Creator, what I almost always come back to is not so much whether they exist but how to reconcile the existence of either one with this:
Same thing though for me. If scientists and philosophers are able to discover that elusive – illusive? – Theory Of Everything, enabling them to explain both the ontological and teleological nature of “all there is” [and our place in it] it still seems rather clear to me that this Creator, however He/She/It went about creating creation itself, does not give a shit about the extent to which terrible things can happen to us. Well, if only from the cradle to the grave, so far.
And, again, that’s the beauty of having beliefs like this. You are either indoctrinated by others to believe something or your life unfolds such that you come existentially to accept one narrative rather than another.
Then this part: beliefs = actual consequences.
Imagine instead of thinking, why not download wiki into ur brain?
Actual NWO globalist 1984 mind-slaves.
Yes you.
Fucking cope, slave. No one cares. Not anyone who matters, anyway.
Keep on simping for ur masters.
Imagine a world where… in philosophy discussion,
no one bothers to explain their own ideas but only quotes stuff other people said, on state-approved websites well known for being inaccurate and easily manipulated.
No thanks.
The Search for Meaning
What Is Life Worth?
Michael Allen Fox wonders whether life really is ‘a precious gift’.
More to the point, one man’s questions pertaining to meaning and morality can result in many, many conflicting answers from others. And others might ask very different questions. It can reach the point where the argument shifts to which questions themselves are likely to result in the most relevant answers.
Do some here actually believe it is just a coincidence that thousands of years after mere mortals invented philosophy, we are still not even close to any answers that might be described as deontological.
Especially answers from those who insist both worth and value revolve solely around becoming one of them. And, further, that this is the only thing that will ever satisfy any truly rational man and woman.
Of course: that part:
The part that for literally tens of millions of men, women and children around the globe, finding answers that allow them merely to subsist [or not] from day to day is all that matters. And what are the lives of those in Gaza and Ukraine and all of the other “hot spots” struggling to survive from day to day worth.
Here, of course, is where those like Marx and Engels introduced political economy into the mix. The part where human interactions eventually come to revolve around to the social, political and economic policies of those who have accumulated the most wealth and power. The government let’s call it.
What is life worth to someone awash in riches derived from exploiting the wage slaves in one or another sweatshop around the world?
The Search for Meaning
What Is Life Worth?
Michael Allen Fox wonders whether life really is ‘a precious gift’.
The human ant colony? On the other hand, human beings like ants like most other animals we are familiar with, do share one basic common denominator: subsistence.
All biological creatures one way or another have to survive from day to day. They have to acquire food, water and shelter. And, yes, they have to reproduce themselves over and over again.
It’s just that for the vast majority of our fellow creatures, it’s all done autonomically, instinctively, by the book. The book of nature.
But what happens when nature evolved into us? Again, assuming our own interactions are not entirely autonomic in turn, we are able to choose among many, many, many different social, political and economic agendas. And yet without some ultimate, intimate connection to God or the Universe, we are still smack dab in the middle of all this:
So, given all of these One True Paths available to us, why one and not another? Why yours and not mine? Why ours and not theirs?
On the contrary, there are any number of objectivists able to assure any and all of us that only their own assessments asnd assumptions are not able to be contested. Or, if they are contested, watch out.
Or else, in other words.
That’s my own assumption. But I believe “in my head” “here and now” that my own set of assumptions, much like yours, are embedded metaphysically in The Gap and Rummy’s Rule and morally and politically in dasein. Then the part where human interactions are the embodiment of the Benjamin Button Syndrome. The part where we go about the business of interacting with others given all the variables in our lives that are not either fully understood or controlled.
Unless, perhaps, in a world awash in a new religion – “show me the money!” – existence is considerably more fulfilling for some than for others? After all, some plunder the Earth all the way to the bank. The amoral global capitalists revel in exploiting both nature and all the rest of us.
So, perhaps, in order to put the planet back on the right path only certain homo sapiens need be constrained.
The one true path? Something tells me that path’s … destination … does not depend on whether or not we are on/toward it.
The Search for Meaning
What Is Life Worth?
Michael Allen Fox wonders whether life really is ‘a precious gift’.
Better for who? Certainly better for those who may soon be celebrating the DJIA at 50,000 points. Or the MAGA crowd. Or the global capitalists.
And it’s true that while some deplore the fate of animals kept around only to sustain human consumption, if it weren’t for human consumption how many of them would even be around at all?
Here, particularly, in two respects:
1] climate change that some predict will bring about global calamities of epic proportions
2] the ever-entrenched risk of a nuclear holocaust
Then those for whom the value of their own existence revolves almost entirely around “I’ve got mine, Jack!” Or the sociopaths. Or those who wallow in pop culture and/or in the pursuit mindless consumption, all the while praying to God that they will be selected for one or another “reality show”
The Search for Meaning
What Is Life Worth?
Michael Allen Fox wonders whether life really is ‘a precious gift’.
Questioning the Question
Many would answer that the value of existence is inestimable, and would perhaps regard questioning that as peculiar, or as too silly to take seriously. They might say, life is good pretty much by definition, because ‘good’ implies life-enhancing or conducive to human flourishing.
Here I always come back around to all the things we do from day to day that bring us considerable satisfaction and fulfilment…no matter what we believe it all means. If anything at all. An essentially meaningless and purposeless existence is not likely to make the food we eat less delicious, or the music we love less exhilarating, or our accomplishments less pleasing.
Then, of course, back to this part:
And how is this not likely, in turn, to be rooted existentially in dasein? For any number of reasons, each of us here came to explore the world around us philosophically. Instead, my own point is to suggest that in regard to meaning and morality, it is the limitations of philosophy that most intrigue me.
Then the part where each of us individually come to draw our own conclusions based either on circumstances or on the beliefs we sustain. And that includes all those able to believe in one or another religious dogma.
And let’s not leave out the part where one person’s highly desirable good comes about in a world where the consequences of that beget any number of burdens for others.
And, in regard to any of them, what is the consensus philosophers have come to pertaining to behaviors that all rational men and women are obligated to choose?
The Search for Meaning
What Is Life Worth?
Michael Allen Fox wonders whether life really is ‘a precious gift’.
There are people who go about the business of living their lives without giving much thought at all to meaning and purpose. They are instead awash in pleasurable experiences that provide them with all manner of fulfillment. Often, it is only when for whatever reason that all begins to crumble, that they suddenly find themselves in need of, well, at least an explanation. Then cue all of the One True Paths out there they get to choose from that promise them exactly that.
Of course, there are existential crises as some construe them and existential crises as others construe them. My own revolve around being profoundly fractured and fragmented in an essentially meaningless and purposeless world that culminates in oblivion.
On the other hand, there are any number of sociopathic killers, tin pot dictators, international arms traders, and serial abusers who do not in the least think the world would be better off rid of them. On the contrary, their own narcissistic wants and needs are the only reason they need to instead use and abuse others.
Though who could deny that if you yourself had to endure “intractable illness, chronic pain, or psychological disturbances such as clinical depression or intense feelings of unworthiness” day in and day out, you are not likely to feel inclined yourself to be a pleasant person to be around.
The Search for Meaning
What Is Life Worth?
Schopenhauer’s Value
Arthur Schopenhauer argues that life is dominated by suffering and negative outcomes, and is thus ‘a business whose returns are far from covering the cost’.
Of course, here we are immediately confronted with the existential reality that some lives are dominated by pain and negative outcomes considerably more so than others. Indeed, and any number of men and women around the globe wouldn’t have it any other way. Their gain is often little more than a reflection of the pain it causes others.
Again, from my frame of mind, how each of us reacts to this individually will depend almost entirely “here and now” not on our “Philosophy of life” so much as the set of circumstances we find ourselves in. After all, as we all know, pleasure and happiness seem far more easily within reach of some rather than of others.
And what does this revolve around if not class, and race, and gender and all the other components of our “lived lives” whereby, depending on where we “fit in” as individuals given any particular community, we ourselves will have access to far more or for less opportunities than others. The part where philosophy meets political economy, stereotypes and any number of historical and cultural dogmas.
It’s not for nothing that millions adhere to one or another religious faith in order to attain both a “spiritual” antidote and a “happy ending”…immortality and salvation.
Also…
Says who? It will almost always come down to that. In the other words, the existential parameters of your life may be nothing at all like the existential parameters of my life, or the lives of others here.
In fact, in my opinion, the role any number of philosophers here take is to obviate all that by insisting there is an antidote.
In fact, hundreds of them:
The Search for Meaning
What Is Life Worth?
Michael Allen Fox wonders whether life really is ‘a precious gift’.
If that’s what some call proof, then proof itself here basically revolves around just that…what some call it. While for others boredom is hardly ever experienced at all.
Me, for example.
On the other hand, what on Earth does it mean to speak of existence “in itself”? After all, even given No God and no essential basis for encompassing meaning in our lives, it hardly makes life worthless “in itself”.
This doesn’t make much sense to me unless it’s just his way of suggesting [as I do] that human existence itself is essentially meaningless and purposeless. But then given all of the existential options available to most of us, there are any number of experiences we can pursue to stave off boredom. And what exactly is encompassed here [for all practical purposes] in regard to “mere existence”?
All I can speculate here is that I must be missing the point. How ought one to perceive prolonged idleness? How prolonged is it? And what are the circumstances that precipitated it? Then those who would truly welcome a period of prolonged idleness in their life.
Yeah, she might. But for how long? Are there no other things in her life she can turn to in order to pique her interests?
Then [again] this part…
This is all no less rooted existentially in dasein, in my view. For some, their lives are bursting at the seams with lots of worthwhile pursuits…while for others nothing seems worthwhile anymore. Or, given a new experience or a new relationship or access to new information and knowledge, it can all turn around.
It seems obvious to me that this is the case. Your own life either has instrumental and use value or it doesn’t. But how exactly would we go about pinning this down for others?
What’s crucial for me is the extent to which others are able to convince themselves that beyond use value, their life is actually in sync with one or another One True Path.
The Search for Meaning
What Is Life Worth?
Michael Allen Fox wonders whether life really is ‘a precious gift’.
The Value of Being Itself
G.W.F. Hegel argues that ‘being’ is the emptiest of concepts. When we examine the thought of being, he observes, we find its content to be as hollow as the thought of nothing. It follows, he continues, that being (or existence) is lacking in qualities that could express value, or, for that matter, any other concrete attribute.
Talk about a “general description philosophical contraption”!
Or will some here make an attempt to connect the dots between what they think this means and the manner in which it is thought to be manifested existentially in the lives that they actually live.
From my frame of mind, what makes philosophy particularly hollow is when it never really goes much further than this in exploring what it means “to be”.
In other words, back to Will Durant’s “epistemologists”.
Thus…
No, in my view, the main problem here still revolves around the gap between what some will insist is in fact the intrinsic value of being itself and their failure to demonstrate how and why this is the case in regard to particular sets of social, political and economic circumstances.
All the more reason for paricular objectivists to insist that “if only others would think about being and nothingness as I do, they’d have access to ‘somethingness’ itself for all the rest of eternity.”
Salvation some call it.
Then straight back up into the clouds…
Uh, obviously?
Well, at least that’s settled.
No one was going, ‘Oh, I wish I existed. I can’t believe I don’t exist yet!’ (‘The Unbelievers Interview’). This humorous but pointed comment underlines the idea that nonexistence possesses no intrinsic quality.
All the more reason then for the objectivists among us to insist their own existence “here and now” comes about as close as mere mortals are ever likely to get to embodying an intrinsic meaning.
It’s just that for millions and millions this isn’t good enough. They need God or His spiritual equivalent in order to seal the deal on both sides of the grave.
Yes this all makes good sense Lambig, but, and this is a huge ‘if’ then the cosmos being as enormous as all that, so really man can not rap his mind around it, then how come the species have evolved to this level, where we are threatened for extinction as most animals, if an artificially simulated program to keep our memory going , even if we turn hybrid, cuboids?
For if, such humongous project does resonate with the will to live, not to be thrown back into eternal darkness, then it must be assumed that our will to live hopes to overcome it’s opposite, of wanting to destroy ourself?
This is almost incredulously negative to suppose that our own extinction here and now would presuppose a universal death wish, omotivated and energized by a built in scepticism about a mistaken God, who was not sure of what He was doing on a cosmic level, because then why would or could be eternally remembered as wise, and tortuously talented to create despair in His own image?
Would it make more sense, given what we are beginning to learn if cosmology, that the opposite makes more sense, and that it has evolved over infinite time to higher definition of what logic whispers to us, through seeing our individual angst and apparent hopelessness?
To some, it is no longer even arguable .
The Search for Meaning
What Is Life Worth?
Michael Allen Fox wonders whether life really is ‘a precious gift’.
The Value of Becoming
Do you have to be a pessimist like Sophocles or Schopenhauer to seriously question whether existence (or life) has value? Surely not – no more than you have to be psychologically disturbed. But whatever answer one gives to the question, one might say that pondering the value of existence comes with the territory (of life), at least if the history of ideas provides any reliable evidence.
Whether in regard to the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the arts we pursue, the accomplishments we accumulate, the relatinships that fulfill us and on and on and on, there are countless things that give our existence value. And a pessimistic philosophy can often pale next to a brutaly pessimistic set of circumstances.
Then the part where increasingly more and more of us prefer to exist…virtually? After all, online who we are is limited only by a lack of imagination. So, the value of becoming a different person can become such that it becomes preferable to “real life”.
Yes, but the question then becomes this: full of opportunities to do what? the potential to accomplish or to achieve what? Then the part where historically, lots of different objectivists will be eager to tell you about the potential for opportunity. All you need do is to become “one of us”.
The Search for Meaning
What Is Life Worth?
Michael Allen Fox wonders whether life really is ‘a precious gift’.
And even here we have to insert this: click.
And, of course, psychologically, in being so utterly insignificant – a speck of existence in the staggeringly vast context of all there is – many “here and now” cling to moral, political and spiritual dogmas that provide them with the One True Path to Enlightenment and/or Salvation. And what has never changed [so far] is the fact that all one need do is to believe something is true, and that makes it true.
Then straight back to a component of the human condition that enables millions to insist that, in fact, it really is just that.
A precious gift from God, for example.
On the contrary, right? There are Givers here up the wazoo. Deontologists, political ideologues, religious denominations, cults, nature fanatics, and on and on.
I agree. Only in regard to human interactions in the is/ought world, I am still inclined to be fractured and fragmented. Also, I’ve convinced myself further that in the absence of a God, the God, mere mortals are unable to establish deontological parameters pertaining to social, political and economic interactions.
Or, rather, none that I’m aware of.