“Meaninglessness” - It makes me think of the day to day actions and existence of the huge majority of people, the human race in general. The non-caring, mundane, usual, “rat-race” lives that most of us live. The hundreds of thousands of blank expressions on commuters that I see every morning. The tiny bubbles of reality that they exist in as they go about their daily doings. From waking in the morning to asleep at night, the main pursuit is to earn money to live another day of the same. Interaction with their fellow man on the minimal, basic level. For the most part, unaware of the possibilities of something more purposeful or spiritual, meaningful and bettering for them and mankind.
Meaninglessness seems sometimes to mean, I get no response. My situation or my complaint or my version falls on the deaf ears of the universe. But it seems like the model depends on a lot of meanings.
Meaninglessness is an empty term. It has no intrinsic value or symbolism in itself, but is used as a rhetorical tool for those looking to elicit an emotional response from others.
Interesting. I always felt surrounded by deaf ears, but lately my own seems to be the most prevalent; I can’t take anything I say or think seriously. It used to be I would take what I had to say very seriously, would you say that it’s possible that I’m now finally getting with the program?
The model depends upon a lot of discussion certainly, but where is the meaning surrounding it?
What i’m about to say has obviously been said before, but when i think of meaninglessness my mind goes straight to the meaninglessness of human endeavor - meaninglessness in the ultimate sense. Clearly we attach all kinds of meaning to the things we do, so in that sense, it can be said to mean something if one paints a famous picture or makes a paradigm busting scientific discovery. But from the perspective of the universe, so to speak, we, and all the things we do, are just a blip, a relatively short-lived accident of matter and circumstance. The lack of any grand scheme in the universe means we must invent our own meanings for things - or pick and choose from prefab meanings, as when we adopt a religion or adhere to some other -ism. But that basic meaninglessness still haunts a lot of people, and outright scares lots of others into states of denial. Meaninglessness is the ground from which Gods and Creeds grow. Philosophies and ideologies. Right and wrong. Everything that involves assigning value to things, or in otherwords, human endeavor in general.
If your presumption is nothing, then by default you have no business addressing the opinions of others, since an opinion is inherently an assertion of something. Yet, interestingly, in this thread alone, it appears as though you decided to constructively respond to some of the posts, while deciding to play rhetorical word games with some of the other ones.
UPF, there seems to be a distinction between humans who keep in sight of that ground and those who don’t, do you agree? And if so what are some of the implications of keeping that ground in sight and not?
My presumption isn’t nothing, my presumption is that in all three of the questions I asked you, there is no answer. I’m prone to word games, true, but I’ve been specifically trying to avoid them here, though while I’m hesitant to say I’ve been successful in that, I would say that I’ve been consistent in my responses. So where have I been playing word games as opposed to not?
For the reasons stated above, stuart, your distinction (between playing games and not playing games is mute and irrelevant) it doesen’t really matter, because there difference too, is meaningless.
I agree, and I realize I am approaching my habit of contradiction to the point of incoherency, so let me explain myself better:
I find meaning in much, all my statements here reflect that, though only in real time; the time I posted them. To best describe my problem; all the meanings that are accessible to me are covered in soap.
And so I’m not obliged, nor do I necessarily have the capability, at any time, to stay with what I said at any other, I’m at the mercy of the contingency that coats everything I would hold fast.
A distinction can be made, yes, but i would caution that it’s never the whole story. Nobody keeps the ground in sight all the time. Looking down at it too much can lead to existential vertigo, so to speak. It can be a scary and/or depressing thing. Everybody depends upon some kind of meaning or other.
Well, one part of me says that whatever gets you through the night is alright, another part of me says that it’s better not to live a lie - i think the answer probably lays somewhere between those two: like, it’s necessarry to live a lie at times, but sometimes it’s also good to remind oneself of the “truth” - like when one starts to place too much meaning upon any particular thing; say, how wealthy one is, or how often one gets laid, or how many friends one has, etc.