At least giving one’self a leeway prevents having to face the existential jump, or rather in some cases, the jumps of existence.
re: ‘this’
and this from cyborg me that entity:
Just noting the almost impossible coincidence that eventually at some point equivocates the existential jump with the jump of existences
aka parallel universal structures
makes sense, Now , meaning we’re jumping wether we indeed notice it or not
The Search for Meaning
What Is Life Worth?
Michael Allen Fox wonders whether life really is ‘a precious gift’.
On the contrary, we live in a world where hundreds and hundreds of millions are still convinced they have found the “clear answer” to the “existence question”. And, in turn, they insist that their own One True Path is all that one need embrace in order to embody Enlightenment here and now and [for most of them] immortality and salvation there and then.
Again, just ask them.
Then the part where even given free will, all of these One True Paths are rooted existentially in dasein and not in any assessment that actually demonstrates there really is One True Path.
For example, the part where any number of folks here claim to have acquired an Intrinsic Self that allows them to “just know” intuitively, spiritually, naturally – genetically? – the right thing to do. And even though these Intrinsic Selves are often no less conflicted in regard to any number of moral and political conflagrations, no on is backing down. Why? Because they have far, far too much invested existentially in the Real Me astride the One True Path to back down.
Not sure? Then start here…
…or, by all means, add your own brand spanking new assessment of the human condition to the pile.
The “purpose” of having to find meaning in life is simply in the act of seeking and finding-creating purpose. In a way it doesn’t matter what is meaningful to you, so long as something is meaningful to you.
And by helping participate in the process of your own discovery of what is meaningful for you, you further empower yourself with respect to that space of meaning. It becomes more a part of you and you can take greater ownership over that space. Then you can achieve some direction and velocity along certain lines within that space. Eventually, one meaning will fade or lose its potency and you will discover a new meaning. The process repeats. Until we die.
Maybe it continues after we die, I assume so but who really knows. We can only logically analyze from the side of this known existence, at least at first. It would be good to construct some speculative logical positions regarding the possibility-structures of the ‘other side’ with regard to meaning-space discovery/creation/movement. But most people (and most philosophers) are way, way too mired up in their own meanings to even realize any of that higher-level stuff exists or is even possible.
Which is fine. Because part of the purpose and function of meaning is that it is supposed to suck us in until we are all mired up within it. That is part of the ‘meaning of meaning’ at least when it comes to how it functions, and probably also to why it functions in this way.
If you have something in your life that is meaningful to you, then you have fulfilled the task of meaning. Someone ought to do a broad philosophical survey of the various types of meanings and how these are similar and different, better and worse, more or less useful etc. from each other, but again that sort of higher-level work is beyond (almost?) all philosophy today.
Finding Meaning in Suffering
Patrick Testa on the extraordinary hope offered by Viktor Frankl.
Well, it’s hardly the only explanation, of course, but it’s a big one: capitalism. On the other hand, some will suffer considerably more than others when the bottom line is the bottom line.
Then this part:
Why indeed?
No, really, how ludicrous is this? Especially coming from a man who as a Holocaust survivor was surrounded by those who suffered terribly given the circumstances created by the Nazis. At least until their suffering ended in the gas chambers.
Imagine then his reaction to someone like me. Why? Because the meaning that most of us strive for is essential. In other words, why on Earth is the world around us the way it is at all? Then cue many of these folks…
…for the “answer”.
In fact, it’s not for nothing that many will come around to accepting Harold Kushner’s answer: there is a God and God is good. It’s just that He’s not omnipotent. Had He been there wouldn’t have been Nazis, right?
Then the part where meaning itself becomes the goal. As though Hitler and his ilk weren’t bursting at the seams with meaning. Meaning that if you weren’t “one of them” watch out.
So, in a sense, the search for meaning among mere mortals has easily become the source of much suffering: my meaning…or else.
Though, sure, he no doubt did provide many with just the answer they craved. Only, from my frame of mind, logotherapy is basically just one more of these:
Book review – The Case Against Reality: How Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes
at The Inquisitive Biologist
On the other hand, rabbit holes are no less construed by mere mortals given the manner in which they have come to understand them as [you know what’s coming] a manifestation of dasein rooted existentially out in a particular world understood in a particular way.
In other words, not just theoretically. Up in the philosophical clouds, reality often revolves solely around words defining and defending other words. Down here, however, is where the rabbit holes abound. In particular, in regard to meaning, morality and metaphysics.
Perhaps because it is one thing to propose “a case against reality” in a book – in an argument – and another thing altogether to actually make it stick out in a world where from the cradle to the grave reality is, well, everywhere.
Instead, the distinction to make, in my view, is between reality in the either/or world and “reality” in the is/ought world.
For me, the answer is found in this part of the article:
For Frankl there exists outside our genes, instincts, drives, and environmental and social conditioning, something uniquely human, something personal, that cannot be captured in materialist reductionist thinking.
In Man’s Search for Meaning Frankl offers three ways to rediscover meaning in the personal, spiritual or ‘noetic’ dimension. First, we can participate in active creation. We can start a community project, write a book, or compose music. We can build something, not because of the end, but simply for the sake of creation.
Albert Camus saw creation as an ‘absurd joy par excellence’ that mimicked the ephemeral quality of existence (The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, 1946). For example, an actor breathes life into a character for a fleeting moment, then exits the stage. The significance of an actor’s work is the performance itself and those experiencing it. The joy is in the doing. We can similarly find joy in our work. Professor Stephen Hawking for instance stated in an interview to ABC News in 2018 that his work provided meaning, and without it, his life was empty. Frankl coined the term ‘unemployment neurosis’ for depressive episodes triggered by lack of opportunities to work. Work and creativity gives us purpose and connection beyond ourselves.
A second way Frankl believed we could find meaning is through love, whether it’s love of another person, or of art or nature …
The last way to find meaning Frankl cites is by taking a stance when faced with unavoidable suffering. He argued that human life has purpose and dignity even during the most abject suffering – it has the meaning we choose to give it. Humans have a capacity to choose how we bear our burden in seemingly insurmountable conditions – and Frankl experienced some of the worst circumstances possible, living through Auschwitz and losing his father, mother, brother, and pregnant wife. Although his faith in meaning and purpose was tested, he never lost it. This tragic optimism embraces life despite its hardship.
In Frankl’s view, people have often thought about the meaning of life in the wrong way. He stated, “Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked” (Man’s Search for Meaning). He means, it’s up to us to find meaning to our lives in any given circumstance.
Frankl is not saying we shouldn’t try to alleviate suffering. We should. And when we see injustice, it’s our responsibility to try to rectify it. But he reminds us that courage and honor can be found even in the darkest times. And in misfortune, there can be hope for the future.
Just do it!
Finding Meaning in Suffering
Patrick Testa on the extraordinary hope offered by Viktor Frankl.
The Problem of Suffering
Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, was concerned with reconciling the existence of evil and suffering with our belief in a purpose-driven world.
Then right back to those who pursue a purpose that actually results in the suffering of others. Dozens and dozens of them historically, of course, and most of them rationalized it in the name of one or another God or ideology or Kingdom of Ends. In other words, the “my way or the highway” “or else” if you don’t become “one of them” ilk.
Just for the record, these things:
Of course, this is the part where some simply subsume all of that in one or another One True Path. All of the many, many different ways there are to explain them away.
And, again, as always, the beauty of the human condition is such that what you believe about God and suffering “in your head” need be as far as it goes. Or those who subsume their own reactions to these terrible events in one or another “leap of faith”.
And, of course, this part…
Not counting all of those millions around the globe who, from day to day to day, embody it instead as the worst of all possible worlds.
On the other hand, it’s the world we all live in. Not only that but over and over and over again there are those who profit from that suffering. Think, say, the military industrial complex or the medical industrial complex. Or Wall Street.
Then the part where “…suffering cannot be eradicated. It is a feature of the human condition” becomes just a rationale for doing…nothing about it? Then the truly grim part where for the preponderance of men and women, that is exactly what they do: nothing.
Some just do more of it than others.
On the other hand, from time to time, sure, the cure can become worse than the disease.
It seems to me that no matter what system you’re using, capitalism, socialism, or whatever, if the human beings were governing themselves according to self equals other, then they would take care of each other. That’s why, no matter what system you use, it ends in total chaos. Because they don’t govern themselves according to self equals other. In whose hands is the system under whichever system? Selves and others. There are always going to be people who take advantage of the loopholes. Always. That is why the poor you will always have with you.
And that is why, if you want true revolution, it’s going to come from people who govern themselves according to self equals other regardless what system they are in.
And that is why everyone else who has fallen away from that tries to stomp out religions that haven’t. Sometimes they’re happy to make allowances for (exploit) citizens who think Christianity is about “prosperity”, or being their idea of sheep, for example, rather than about love despite circumstances. As long as they don’t actually know their religion because they’re too busy doing other stuff like surviving.
I think you are suffering from avolition or amotivation, which is a symptom of various forms of psychopathology, which describes the decrease in the ability to initiate and persist in self-directed purposeful activities.
relevant:
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I wrote yesterday in my journal: “I suppose that these notes mean that I am a sceptic and don’t trust humanity to do the right thing because I know how often I haven’t. When we understand how often we are driven by illusions, I must smile when someone imagines a humanity guided by reason [I was thinking about Asimov’s “Foundation”]. That would require us to tackle our illusions.”
How does this hit you, Bob?
Reasoning without loving is empty, loving without reasoning is blind.
“Reason, wrote Whitehead, is ‘the discipline of shrewdness’. And he went on: ‘Reason which is speculative questions the methods, refusing to let them rest.’ It is, in other words, a critical discipline, more than a creative faculty, questioning our ways of thinking and keeping us from complacency, its first target being our ‘methods’ – which include itself […]
McGilchrist, Iain. The Matter With Things (p. 847).
‘Love’, said the French philosopher Louis Lavelle, ‘is a pure attention to the existence of the other’.
Lavelle 1939, ch 9, §7: «La charité est … une pure attention à l’existence d’autrui. »
So, a critical discipline that doesn’t acknowledge the existence of another, but uses the other only as an object of observation is empty of … what? I would suggest it was empty of the primal affinity of humankind to its kind.
Pure attention to the existence of the other without a critical ability, is infatuation.
But McGilchrist also says “reason suggests a global, holistic understanding, which makes sense only in the round. It is a seamless apprehension of the world.”
It also stands apart from rationality, which is more narrowly focused, but tends to be what people in the modern world prefer.
Simone Weil says we must each use our “one single and identical reason” to “try to represent [liberty] clearly to ourselves” (Oppression and Liberty, 94) as a “guiding principle” (ibid, 90) of progress towards which people of good will actively and methodically row together. But, before even that, the stimulus necessary to overcome all challenges to liberty is that “each would see in every work-fellow another self occupying another post, and would love him in the way that the Gospel maxim enjoins. Thus we should possess, over and above liberty, a still more precious good; for if nothing is more odious than the humiliation and degradation of man by man, nothing is so beautiful or so sweet as friendship,” (ibid, 94). Fellow-feeling.
Rational love. Trumps Ayn Rand all day, erryday.
Weil, Simone. Oppression and Liberty. Routledge & Kegan Paul (transl), 1958.
[Compare to the “aloneness” from the “Philosophize This” podcast on Dostoevsky.]
It was more of a locking himself away, and when he embarked on some communal activity, he denied his host his presence, instead falling into drunkenness.
If I understand Simone Weil’s words correctly, she emphasizes the essential connection between individual reason, liberty, and mutual respect. That means that liberty should not be understood merely as freedom from oppression but also as a guiding principle that requires clear, collective understanding and action.
I am reminded of the song by Sting where he sings, “If you love someone, set them free!” It has always been a guiding principle in my marriage of 47 years. It is mutual, of course. Otherwise, it wouldn’t work, because liberty doesn’t forget mutual respect. We have always had a clear intention to grow old together, which means that certain things are avoided to make that goal sustainable.
The “one single and identical reason” seems to refer to the shared capacity for rational thought that all people (should) possess. But to understand liberty not just intellectually but as a communal goal that unites people toward progress, I find it has to be reason and not rationality, if you see what I mean. For liberty to be truly realised, people must work together, and “rowing” serves as a metaphor for cooperation toward a common end.
However, Weil proposes that in order to overcome the challenges to liberty, we must first recognize the humanity of others—seeing each person as an “other self” in a different position and loving them as the Gospel instructs. This love isn’t just a sentimental feeling but a deep, active care that fosters true fellowship and cooperation.
I’d go further and say that the other self is not an “other,” but my mirror-self, with whom I am profoundly connected, even if they do everything to sever that connection. This is perhaps the “still more precious good” she speaks of is this sense of fellow-feeling, or deep mutual respect and affection between people. Weil contrasts the beauty of friendship with the “odious” nature of the humiliation of others, suggesting that the most effective defence of liberty comes not from cold, abstract reasoning alone but from compassionate, empathetic relationships.
It is mutual love and solidarity that form the foundation for genuine liberty, making it a force not just for individual freedom but for communal well-being and progress.
Regarding aloneness, it’s like a false freedom, because you are not free to love. That podcast acknowledged it as hell.
A collection of disconnected individuals.
The Underground Man himself lacking polity within himself.
Imagine a solipsism consisting of thinking you are everyone.
Nietzsche didn’t have to. He became groundlessness deconstructing himself—seeing through.
If you let God be God, you don’t end up freaking out about who “manifests” all this when you’re asleep, or how Being can beget beings that aren’t just multiple (dissociative) personality disorder.
I don’t mean “let” in a weird way… as in… ¡fiat lux!
And on that note…
Finding Meaning in Suffering
Patrick Testa on the extraordinary hope offered by Viktor Frankl.
From my frame of mind, existential anxiety revolves around far more than this. It can revolve around anything that makes you wonder about what it means to be a human being in any particular community. That we exist entails any number of things we may or may not find meaningful. Thus, finding something meaningful is often far removed from actually demonstrating that others are obligated to share the same meaning.
Then the part [mine] where cultural narratives are themselves no less rooted historically in ever evolving and changing sets of circumstances and assumptions.
Actually precipitating anxiety, in other words.
As for “provid[ing] a sufficient rationale to existential questions”, it’s not like there aren’t hundreds and hundreds of One True Paths from which to choose. Or, perhaps, “choose”?
Then the parts I throw in here: distractions, dasein, The Gap, Rummy’s Rule, the Benjamin Button Syndrome and a fractured and fragmented “I” in the is/ought world.
Of course, that’s just on this side of the grave.
Bob: I think you are suffering from avolition or amotivation, which is a symptom of various forms of psychopathology, which describes the decrease in the ability to initiate and persist in self-directed purposeful activities.
You know me, Bob. It’s one thing to think or to believe or to “just know” that something is true “in your head” regarding cosmic meaning. And another thing altogether being able to demonstrate that in fact all reasonable – virtuous? – men and women will be inclined to share it with you.
From my own frame of mind “here and now”, the following…
1] my own existence is essentially meaningless and purposeless
2] human morality in a No God world revolves largely around a fractured and fragmented assessment of right and wrong rooted existentially in dasein
3] oblivion is awaiting all of us when we die
…seem entirely reasonable to me.
On the other hand, if you or anyone else here disputes them in regard to their own life, by all means, share that with me. After all, a part of me wants to believe in something – in anything – that will allow me to scramble up out of the debilitating hole I’ve dug myself down into.
oh, you’ll respond to Bob, but nothing else that followed his post. I don’t really think you are as open as you present yourself as being.
however.
Why do you think you hunger for true meaning, and are not satisfied with that which passes away?
Where did you get the idea of true meaning, if it doesn’t exist?
If we are not dealing with oblivion now/yet, what makes you think we ever will?
If oblivion is in the future, doesn’t that mean that now (your own existence) is not meaningless? Start the series of questions over again.
Bonus question: A fracture/hole only happens in a whole. Can you not see it?
This is my hand reaching into your hole & yanking you out & smacking your infantile ass until you cry like a newborn baby.
but you’ll just keep ignoring me and only respond to Bob. Don’t worry, I raised boys, I’m used to it.