I guess the obverse of this premise would be a “logical” form of Immaculate Conception to make our errors ineffectual when applying reason. As it stands , I’m still waiting to be noodle-whipped by applied logic!
I think so. What was his conception of “Ãœbermensch”? Wasn’t it a sort of ideal? Wasn’t he aware of European man’s dècadence? If he hadn’t any kind of ideal, for what purpose did he criticize “Christianity” with so much anger?
Surely Nietzsche’s “Ãœbermensch” had something to do with that. Maybe it’d be a man prepared to live in a godless world.
I can hardly understand freewill, I don’t think it truly exists. How many things you do only because you’re influenced or obliged to do? Even in society, man is totally controlled by his environment.
Here I think I’m missing the point. I make mistakes, I don’t “sin”. If our souls are part of god, and if it is more important than the body, so nothing that our body does can corrupt our souls, unless you’re saying a “part of god” can be corrupted.
Would you understand it if you had been born in a wildland?
Maybe. Well, Nietzsche’s thought had a profound influence on modern thought, but of course things are different today and we don’t have to be attached to his points of view.
Right. When people become tired of this materalist world, they become idealist. Marx didn’t believe in god, but he believed in his ideal.
This is horrific because to be alive or to be dead is the same thing. You awake every morning knowing that it means absolutely nothing what you’ll do during the day. You want to fight, you want to live, but after all, your fight and your life are meaningless, there’s no reason for you to fight, so WHY TO FIGHT? You cannot answer that without giving life some form of meaning, can you?
OK, I see your point,never mind guy.
I’d like to wake up every morning feeling that my life is important.
Isn’t a purposeless world irrational? If life HAD a meaning, it’d be something rational. But if life is something useless, why to call it “rational”?
I unerstand your obvious skepticism, although you know as well as I that total skepticism is really impossible, I mean, you cannot be a totally skeptical person. You want me to explain why I fell that a purposeful world would be better? I can’t answer you properly. Maybe it’s just one more belief. I think I’d like to feel important. Maybe capitalist world makes me sick and makes me wonder what’s the purpose of living in a world where my life is simply a 0.
To be alive and dead are not the same thing. In terms of a higher purpose for life, some divine, mystical purpose, if this purpose is absent then they are the same, but only in terms of that purpose. We are alive… Just as a rock exists there on the ground. And yes, the rock existing there is not an absolute, but considering our senses and the logical deduction that occurs in our heads is really the only faculty we have, then we must judge how real something is by those. And since my senses tell me there is a rock, and that I live, I am as sure as I can be that this is so. So I guess I am not a complete skeptic, but I am not absolutely sure about anything as well.
You mentioned a fight. Did you mean the fight against death, the want to live? If so, is it not sufficient that this process exists in our genes. Isnt that some sort of purpose… If you are indeed talking about this, then isnt the biological imperative reason enough to fight? Or is this just not a grandiose enough purpose for you?
I guess I do not really understand this purpose you are looking for. Do you want a guide for what actions you take in life? Or do you want to feel that your actions will be important to some greater purpose. For example, I am not saying you believe this, I am merely thinking to myself I guess… Say the great big purpose of humanity is to eventually build a great big temple made of a substance we have not yet discoverd, so that we can usher in a new era, with another, diffirent purpose. But for now that is our purpose. Would you like to feel that the actions you take somehow move humanity closer to this goal? Is that the kind of purpose you seek, to know that your actions somehow effect the acomplishment of some super goal? I guess I can see how that can be comferting… Let me try and analyze this belief. This purpose seems to be a method of qualifying human action. Doing A becomes good because it serves to move us towards this super goal, whatever it is. And doing B either does not help with the acomplishment of this goal, or even sets it back. Thus, in terms of this purpose, action B becomes bad. Thus you wish to find this purpose, or meaning, or goal in life, so you will be able to know if your actions are helping the acomplishment of it, or hurting it. Is this analysis correct do you think?
That seems to make sense to me, but what I have realized is that there already exists a concious qualifier for actions. I say concious because the biological imperitive to survive seems to be instinctive, and your concious thought process ussually has little effect on the acomplishment of this goal. This qualifier I speak of, this goal, is scientificly proven, or at least has great evidence to suggest its existance, unlike any other suggested goals such as God or anything else people can think of. It is apparently even more powerfull than the goal to survive. It supercedes that goal. I would suggest that this goal is the persuit of pleasure. Its existence is apparent in every stage of human life. And this fact is a big factor in my belief that it is the only goal. Does not an infant shy away from a hot stove after it has felt the pain from touching it. Does not an infant cry for his mother’s breast after having fealt the pleasureful taste of milk? Do infants act with the goal of pleasing God or any other purpose in mind? They know no such things, but they all feel pain and pleasure. This is the only inherent, empericly evident goal I am aware of. It is the only inate way to determine which action’s results are “good” or “bad”.
It is not a goal we choose to have, it is a goal evolution seems to have put into our nature. And I believe it is the basis of concious human thought. It is a complex system that evolved because the persuit of what is pleasurable coincided with what gave us the best chance of survival. Only at some point conciousness became more powerfull than instinct, and all other processes occuring in our bodies. And thus the persuit of pleasure became the # 1 goal. I guess if you could say that evolution had an intention, that being our survival, it got ahead of itself by creating the pleasure drive. Though at first our persuit of what was pleasurable greatly increased our survival rate, at some point for some reason, maybe because of the introduction of complex societys, our minds began creating the chemicals that produce pleasure for reasons other than those best suited for our survival. We began valuing and obtaining pleasure from things evolution maybe never intended us to obtain it from. Such as music, art, love (relationships)… And survival became second hand to pleasure, as can be seen by the act of suicide…
Now I know evolution has no intention, it happend because its the only thing that could happen. Those fittest to survive will, perfectly logical conclusion. I was merely portraying it in that light for effect. The rest of my statements were conjecture. This makes sense to me when I observe the nature of human action. I think behaviorism and neurology would not contradict me. Anyways, I thus believe pleasure is the drive we act upon. And I believe you Fabiano at some point accociated a great purpose with pleasure, and thus are convinced that this big purpose is a good thing, and indeed, by some process of your mind, the belief in this purpose would bring you pleasure. But you have become aware of the contradictions such a belief would have with your observations of the real world. So I suggest Fabiano, since we inevitably have this inbuilt purpose for pleasure in us, learn to love it. Like me, I am made happy whenever I obtain pleasure, because I am achieving the only real purpose that exists in humanity.
P.S. I am repeating myself 
I wrote extensivly about this in my other posts. I just feel like you are so unhappy fabiano, I was hoping my outlook on life would apeal to you, because it does indeed have a purpose. Maybe not so grand as you would like, but at least it is in concordence with what we observe in nature… What do you think?
Nevermind, we’re here to write what we think, aren’t we ? I liked your answers, I guess you did understand what I meant.
I’m really unhappy, I can’t deny that. I don’t think this situation will ever be changed. But I’m still alive. I’m not dead yet. Of course, my ntural instincts keep me alive even against my will.
But have you noticed that you have said that life was purposeless and that that was not horrible, but now you say that life has indeed a meaning? You know this is not a “superior” meaning, but it is a meaning. Haven’t I said that we can’t bear the meaninglessness of life?
Yes, I did contradict myself, but thats because I saw that the purpose you seemed to be seeking was a suprnatural one. I was denying the existence of that one without clarifying which kind of purpose I meant. My mistake.
You say you are unhappy and will always be so, but you say your instincts keep you alive against your will? Do you really believe this is so? Im not trying to imply anything, but it seems to me that if I was verry unhappy and no drugs or anything in the world was making me feel better, well, ide kill myself… Again, Im not implying that what you should do. But considering this, I must believe that there is something you like in this world that you keep on living for. You cant be that deppressed can you? You must enjoy arguing about Nieztches super man? You must have people you love. You must have music you like to listen to, and art you admire. Arn’t the moments of joy you get from those things worth it? Isnt that a purpose enough to at least live on? I dont think its your instincts that are keeping you alive. I think you just love too much in this world to leave it behind. As do I, and everyone else that chooses to live.
Here’s your mistake: I haven’t said that I am “seeking” a purpose. Can’t you see that if I’d seek a purpose, I’d would be giving my life a purpose? No, what I have tried to say is that we CAN’T live a meaningful life, no matter how much we try. If I could find a meaning, I’d try to find it, do you see?
You’re really clever, guy. Look at what I’ve said: my instincts keep me alive!. But aren’t my instincts that tell me that life is meaningless? Not my animal instincts, but my human instincts. So, why to stay alive? This is the question I’d like to answer. I think I can’t. Of course I amuse myself (haven’t I loved this philosophical forum?), and of course there are things which I think are important to me. I know what you’ll say next: but once your life is meaningless, how can there be things “important” to you?. ANother question I’d like to answer. This is my real problem: I know that life is meaningless, but part of me doesn’t accept that, and fights for life, and does want to live and see the ending of this game. Really confusing, no? I wonder if I’m too young…only twenty-two, maybe there’s a lot of things that I can’t understand yet.
I am confused. You arn’t seeking it yes, but youve made it clear you desire this purpose, even though you admit there can be no supernatural purpose. What I am confused about is, with the pleasure drive, is that not a purpose, a meaning? I thought that I concluded that the reason a purpose is desirable is to be able to qualify actions. To be able to feel you are achieving something, or are important in the accomplishment of some goal. Instead of making one up, what about feeling good about accomplishing the one we know we already are acomplishing. If a race of aliens came down right now and analyzed our actions, I think they would come to the conclusion that we are a bunch of greedy, selfish people, acting to benefit ourselves at all times. And they would not be wrong. The thing is, “greedy”, “selfish” are negative conotations, I suggest they not be. What makes one purpose greater than another? I dont think there is such a qualifier. But as long as a purpose exists, then there is reason to live. An ameoba has a purpose (survival), but an ameoba doesn’t have a conciousness that cares one way or the other if it is accomplishing any goal. We do. And I believe it can be proven (within a reasonable doubt) that our conciousness has a goal seperate from our body (whose goal is survival). That goal is ofcourse the pleasure drive. So those aliens that noticed how we act would deduce we act for pleasure. I am fine with that. Its a purpose isn’t it? Whose to say one purpose is greater than the next? That is what you seemed to have in mind. By saying we live with no purpose, it appeared as if you either didnt realize the purpose that exists, or were looking down on it, by ignoring its existence. I guess my mistake was to go along with you about having no purpose. Scratch that, we do have a purpose, the natural, causal kind. We have the purpose for perfectly logical, causal reasons. Nothing supernatural about it. And what I notice in you and many other people, is that the supernatural one seems to apeal to yall more. That was the reason for my line of questioning: which standards you were using to deduce one purpose being greater than the other. Because I dont think such standards exist. Considering this, we might as well enjoy the only purpose we can percieve.
Neither of your instincts tell you there is no purpose. I am sorry for leading you on to believe I agree with no purpose. Again, I thought you were talking about a purpose outside of the laws of the universe, the supernatural kind. So believing life is meaningless is wrong, I think. And that part that fights for life in you, thats the purpose im talking about. You love life, you enjoy it, you obtain pleasure from it. You are acomplishing your purpose, your goal.
Curiously, I wonder what you would think if I told you I was only 18. Would your opinions about my thoughts change? Just curious 
What makes me sad is the inexistence of a meaning. It’s not the same thing than to desire a purpose, is it?
I understand your point pretty well, guy. You’re saying that there would be no difference between a materialist and a spiritual meaning to life. In other words, even if our life had a “supernatural” purpose, things would’nt be different, right? I must say that you’re not wrong.
NO, although I have thought that you were older. You seem to be a more “experienced” guy( that’s a compliment). Thank you for the nice things you wrote.
Why thank you fabiano.