Ah, I see… then meaning/purpose it’s not 2 aspects of the same thing, but rather… one is the thing, the other one is the performance/efficiency of the thing.
But… would you say that the use of the word “meaning” in “the meaning of life” is meant to imply “the performance of life at fulfilling its purpose”?
I feel that then talking about meaning without purpose makes no sense, because you can’t evaluate the performance of something without having a goal to evaluate it against.
I agree, “The meaning of life” is more “The purpose of life” in the way I’m using the words, that’s fair.
Can we have meaning without purpose, intention or aims? What about making meaning out of things that are essentially random?
Humans are good at that. Faces in the Cloud. God stopped the bullet. I got cancer for a reason.
I kinda wish people wouldn’t find meaning in things without purpose sometimes. Maybe they feel as you do, that by giving meaning to these things then they don’t lack a purpose.
Can we have meaning without purpose, intention or aims? What about making meaning out of things that are essentially random?
Doesn’t this contradict your previous definition of “meaning”? If there isn’t intention/purpose then how do you reflect on whether the “outcome matches the intention”? didn’t you say that this reflection is what defines meaning?
Maybe I’m missing something? or perhaps you are using a different meaning of meaning here?
What I feel we humans do too much is give too much importance to ourselves… we tend to see faces in the cloud because we are constantly measuring reality to our own little pocket of experience… we tend to think the bullet stopped because of something we’re meant to do… we tend to think we got cancer because of something we did…
We keep thinking nature governs itself with the same rules and motivations that we experience in our little minds.
Note that “life” is not the same thing as “nature”. The purpose/goal of life might not be the same thing as the purpose/goal of the Universe… most of the Universe is dead, non-life. For all we know, the Universe might actually move towards death as its ultimate goal, and we are actually “the baddies”, we might be the ones who fight against the destination the Universe might be moving towards, the ultimate maximization of entropy and the peaceful state of equilibrium where things stop exchanging electrons and we reach a cold thermal death.
I don’t think the Universe “cares” about whether we see faces in the clouds, or what we think about the bullet/cancer hitting/missing us. Life might have the purpose to preserve itself… but that’s because we have been shaped by evolution to be that way (and we had to!). We had to use those same thermodynamics the Universe moves towards in order to perpetuate ourselves, sometimes thermodynamics are on our side, but not because the Universe willed it so, but because we adapted ourselves so that it is so (we would not have survived otherwise). I feel there’s a lot of “survivor bias” in most of the existential questions humanity makes itself. We ask ourselves “Why are we here?” while forgetting about the astronomical amounts of trial-and-error that happened to reach this point… it’s like someone wondering “why did I pick the right door?” after having chosen every single other door before that one and failed.
Let me end in a happier note:
I feel most problems become meaningless when we sit back and see things from a broader perspective. We often put too much value in things we believe are valuable, when in reality, they only are valuable because we ourselves place that value on them.
Being able to sit, relax, and just enjoy your time (without being stressed about the things you are NOT doing) is not a bad way to pass your life. In the grand scale of things, we are insignificant, don’t worry too much, it’s not worth it.
Hahaha, I do enjoy the conversation :P
Ah, I see… then meaning/purpose it’s not 2 aspects of the same thing, but rather… one is the thing, the other one is the performance/efficiency of the thing.
But… would you say that the use of the word “meaning” in “the meaning of life” is meant to imply “the performance of life at fulfilling its purpose”?
I feel that then talking about meaning without purpose makes no sense, because you can’t evaluate the performance of something without having a goal to evaluate it against.
I agree, “The meaning of life” is more “The purpose of life” in the way I’m using the words, that’s fair.
Can we have meaning without purpose, intention or aims? What about making meaning out of things that are essentially random?
Humans are good at that. Faces in the Cloud. God stopped the bullet. I got cancer for a reason.
I kinda wish people wouldn’t find meaning in things without purpose sometimes. Maybe they feel as you do, that by giving meaning to these things then they don’t lack a purpose.
Doesn’t this contradict your previous definition of “meaning”? If there isn’t intention/purpose then how do you reflect on whether the “outcome matches the intention”? didn’t you say that this reflection is what defines meaning?
Maybe I’m missing something? or perhaps you are using a different meaning of meaning here?
What I feel we humans do too much is give too much importance to ourselves… we tend to see faces in the cloud because we are constantly measuring reality to our own little pocket of experience… we tend to think the bullet stopped because of something we’re meant to do… we tend to think we got cancer because of something we did…
We keep thinking nature governs itself with the same rules and motivations that we experience in our little minds.
Note that “life” is not the same thing as “nature”. The purpose/goal of life might not be the same thing as the purpose/goal of the Universe… most of the Universe is dead, non-life. For all we know, the Universe might actually move towards death as its ultimate goal, and we are actually “the baddies”, we might be the ones who fight against the destination the Universe might be moving towards, the ultimate maximization of entropy and the peaceful state of equilibrium where things stop exchanging electrons and we reach a cold thermal death.
I don’t think the Universe “cares” about whether we see faces in the clouds, or what we think about the bullet/cancer hitting/missing us. Life might have the purpose to preserve itself… but that’s because we have been shaped by evolution to be that way (and we had to!). We had to use those same thermodynamics the Universe moves towards in order to perpetuate ourselves, sometimes thermodynamics are on our side, but not because the Universe willed it so, but because we adapted ourselves so that it is so (we would not have survived otherwise). I feel there’s a lot of “survivor bias” in most of the existential questions humanity makes itself. We ask ourselves “Why are we here?” while forgetting about the astronomical amounts of trial-and-error that happened to reach this point… it’s like someone wondering “why did I pick the right door?” after having chosen every single other door before that one and failed.
Let me end in a happier note:
I feel most problems become meaningless when we sit back and see things from a broader perspective. We often put too much value in things we believe are valuable, when in reality, they only are valuable because we ourselves place that value on them.
Being able to sit, relax, and just enjoy your time (without being stressed about the things you are NOT doing) is not a bad way to pass your life. In the grand scale of things, we are insignificant, don’t worry too much, it’s not worth it.