As an Atheist, I am often puzzled by the theist view that the Meaning of Life comes only from God. It seems very narrow, bleak, and heavy handed.
Do you find value in discussion of the Meaning of Life?
What do you think the meaning is?
What value do you think knowing the Meaning of Life brings?
The super computer, Deep Thought, in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy said that the answer to life is 42.
The 42nd character in ascii is an asterisk (*) which is typically used for wildcard entries.
Therefore the meaning to life is whatever you want it to be.
The 42nd character in ascii is an asterisk (*) which is typically used for wildcard entries.
That is fascinating!
Is there evidence Douglas Adams intended that? Really cool regardless.He sort of answered this question in a few interviews, basically the same way anytime someone brought up the meaning of 42. Here’s his answer on an online message board:
The answer to this is very simple. It was a joke. It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one. Binary representations, base thirteen, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense. I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought ‘42 will do’ I typed it out. End of story.
Best,
Douglas Adams
He has at other times said there was a full story behind it, but preferred to keep it to himself (legend has it he told Stephen Fry, who promises he’ll take it to the grave). He didn’t intend for there to be a deeper spiritual or mathematical meaning, but he was tickled by all the theories and equations people would share with him, so he always encouraged that.
It’s better left unexplained, because then we can fill in our own meaning.
Well, the question that lead to the meaning of life is ‘what is six times seven’ so probably not the asterisk thing.
Even if this wasn’t what he was thinking, it doesn’t matter. If this interpretation makes sense to you (and it does to me), it’s correct for you.
Therefore …
Your conclusion does not follow from your premises.
There is no inherent meaning of life. Humans, and probably a lot of animals like whales and dogs, create meaning through what they do and how it is perceived by others.
Yep, the correct question is “why do people think there must be a meaning to life?”
And I’m not really sure what the answer is, but it’s probably related to religious lore.
Seconding this; any meaning life has is created by the beings living it.
I always liked the Lakota answer. The meaning of life is to live. Just as the trees and the buffalo, no need for a higher purpose other than what matters to you.
Nihilist: “Life has no meaning 😞”
Absurdist: “Life has no meaning 😃”
The universe is under no obligation to make sense, lets go spend some time by a lake that thinks its a gin and tonic.
Assuming that there must be a meaning to life is falling into a trap of letting theists frame all the questions. Leading the question like that right from the jump is already getting off to a bad start. Religious types use this as if it’s some kind of “gotcha,” as you have observed, and it’s silly to even play their game.
Life is what you make it, not anyone else.
I suspect people rarely consider the Meaning of Life, so it has little value. We exist. We can aid others. Suffering, above the amount dealt by life and luck, is unnecessary.
Word games as philosophy are uninteresting.
Edit: clarified my view on suffering. Too many people beat on others only to cause suffering.
Your not really going to get more than word games or psudo-philosopical references to books about towels and spaceships.
The whole point of the “meaning of life” question is less of a search for an objective answer (42, LoL), and more of a subjective search (what does life mean to you). There are those who will find a religion to answer it for them, those who will seek an answer themselves and those who are content to leave the answer blank.
As for suffering, that is an inevitable part of life. The only thing you can really do about it is lessen it for others and yourself.
As someone who doesn’t believe in the supernatural, life has no more meaning than any other chemical reaction.
Nothing in my experience has indicated that life could have meaning, or that I would benefit from pretending that some human idea I like is a goal or lesson from life.
But I recognize other humans’ experience is different and some seem to really want this kind of thing.
But a life isn’t just a chemical reaction it’s hundreds of thousands of them in an environment that also developed alongside that life
Nihilism is tautologically true and the concept of an external source of absolute meaning is ill-defined. Even if God was real, the choice of pleasing him as opposed to displeasing him would ultimately be arbitrary. I can think of no hypothetical universe in which external, absolute meaning exists.
Have you tried being born into a religion, and never ever questioning any of this? /s
Ah!
<insert head slap meme>
I don’t think there is one to begin with.
The phrase “meaning of life” is loaded with assumptions, the primary one being that there is one objective “meaning.” If there is “one objective meaning,” then there must be an arbiter of what that meaning is.
There’s not, and there isn’t.
You are the universe with momentary shape & consciousness, just so you can appreciate the universe itself. All of it is a show and all the rules are made up.
In some sense it’s true. If life wasn’t intentionally created (by some God), then there’s no meaning behind the existence of life. How can something have a meaning if it wasn’t intentional?
Is the meaning of life important? I don’t think so. What’s important is to find fulfillment in life, which you can find without a meaning of life.
Here is some good reading. We used it in an upper level philosophy course by the same name
https://www.abebooks.com/9780195127034/Meaning-Life-019512703X/plp
I go with the its about the journey kind of thing. That we have to create our own meaning.
