what am i?

i am one particular intersection of a much larger sequence of contingent events - i am the stuff of minutia, of insignificant detail - i don’t live so much as i happen - i am a process within a process - a molecule of a molecule.

it’s an objective, if bleak, way of looking at things - but if we value objective descriptions of reality, we should acknowledge the truth of what it means to be a person: that we, as human individuals, are insignificant, however much we may value ourselves.

we are each part of an infinite supply, i find the numbers coming out of Japan to be a stark reminder of that.

Type nine stuff for sure.

You matter.

One cannot objectively say what is either significant or insignificant. Meaning and significance belongs to subjective experience – is subjective experience. You say we are all insignificant, and I ask: to whom? Significance is always a point of view - hence, subjective.

…my experience is immediate, personal, overwhelmingly significant, and lived - i am a unique process and there is no other exactly like me - the details of my becoming unfold before me as I live.

To locate people amongst the larger physical processes of the universe is a valuable and objective point of view. Acknowledging the subjective capacity that makes value possible is also a valuable and objective point of view.

Valuing objectivity is, of course, subjective.

I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise.

Insignificant in the cosmic sense? Absolutely. But a minor speck of dust in vast emptiness of space and time.

Insignificant to your wife/husband/parents/children/siblings/friend/etc…? Of course not. But then again your significance to them, is cosmically insignificant.

Each body who perished in Japan will be replaced. The person will not be.

yes, we place subjective significance upon things and each other, and valuing objectivity is indeed subjective, like everything else - but if you argue that we are indeed individually significant you have to (as you yourself point out) specify to whom we are significant - it seems to me that the wider universe is indifferent to us - so insofar as objectivity is defined as adopting a more universal point of view, it follows that we are all objectively superfluous

i’m not denying the potential richness of individual subjective experience, only the broader relevance of it.

if anything matters, it is only to us and only because we say so

what might one have been surprised about?

yup. and the best we can do is downplay or ignore the significance of our cosmic insignificance.

as far as i’m concerned they will be replaced. i don’t know anyone in Japan, so to me they are all just numbers - i don’t say that to sound crass - i find the whole thing very sad - but i’m just being realistic. the world is not any worse off for this.

What “world”? What “wider universe”?

the world and universe that we commonly identify as such when speaking of objective things.

How could anything matter to a non-sentient thing like a rock, or a world, or a universe? It’s an absurd concept.

Nothing in particular. I was just reminded of that line from Fight Club when reading this thread.

I don’t think we need to ignore it? Nor do I think we need to let it overwhelm us. It’s always useful to think about from time to time to keep things in perspective. But then again, do you think ants worry about their insignificance in terms of the plant, yet along the universe? What matters to us, is our lives, our spheres of control. You could argue that the cosmos is as insignificant to us, as we are to it.

They can’t be replaced. The self is a sum of it’s relationships both past and present. You might not know anyone in Japan, but plenty people did.
As for the cosmic importance of it, yeah it’s not much. Sad nonetheless, but not important.

It’s not even a matter of saying so – saying something doesn’t matter, when it does, doesn’t make it insignificant; and saying something does matter, when it does, doesn’t make it (cause it to be) significant.

On the one hand, I could say you’re right. On the other, I think it’s important to point out (edit: looks like anon already did) that the universe isn’t even capable of feeling indifferent about (to) anything. It’s really a personification. To further complicate this picture of an indifferent universe that everyone takes for granted, it should be noted that we are part of the universe. The universe can be thought of as one singular giant and complex unity, or rather as the collective term for the many variable things that exist.

There is no such thing as a universal point of view. I believe this is what Nagel meant by “the view from nowhere.” Despite all our striving that direction, an objective epistemology assumes “that we could know the world other than as parts of it.”

As for superfluity, I could extend your point and say the universe is entirely superfluous, for it does not exist necessarily or with any inherent purpose. It did not need to be. BUT… It is. So let’s say that you and I are entirely superfluous. What would it matter except to someone who values the necessary as the only important kind of thing? Otherwise, my apparent logical/ontological superfluity need not make a difference in my valuation of my being.

Relevant to what? And in what way? What are the conditions of broader relevance?

I personally don’t think this is a bleak way of looking at things.

I agree with humegotitright when he said, “Each body…will be replaced. The person will not be” but our impact still only lasts so long. Eventually everyone we mattered to will also be dead, and we will be forgotten, so yes, we are insignificant. Why is this a bad thing? You say, “I don’t so much live as I happen”, but no, that’s not right. You DO live. You see, you touch, you taste, you experience the world. The knowledge that we are insignificant should bring you comfort. You are free to experience the world as you will, free of expectation, if you embrace that you are insignificant. When you realize that you don’t matter, when you accept it, your life becomes your own.

I really love this. Well said, Blurred.

I can’t see how it can be anything but a matter of saying so? Maybe not explicitly, as in “global warming matters”, but if we don’t decide what is signification and what isn’t, then who does?

well, yeah - precisely. the whole notion that individual people matter in any universal sense is absurd.

How can a person not signify anything to herself? I say it is impossible. I think it is fascinating however that we can feel this way about ourselves: insignificant. What does it mean - that we deny the meaning we are so full of? I think it means that we are unsatisfied until we mean something to other people. We want to feel like we are being taken seriously and that we are significant to others – absent this, we look perhaps to the universe and perhaps we find a God that cares about us or perhaps we find nothing and feel like we signify nothing.

“Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Decide might not be the right word. Did you decide for all that is significant to you to be significant to you? Or was some of it significant to you before you had a choice in the matter – perhaps before you were even conscious that it mattered to you?

What am I?

What is your behavior. Talk is cheap.

Behavior is how others figure out who/what we are.