404 meaning not found.
Have you tried psychedelics?
this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2024
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Nobody knows anything. Philosophy is a fake study of subjective experience based on no evidence. Do what thou will. Anyone claiming knowledge about things they can't demonstrate is a conartist or sociopath.
Nop, you're not alone. Meaning is made up, it doesn't exist outside of our minds. You're going to have to create your own.
More than fair odds, life is a random fluke of chance, and it has no meaning. Some people see this as depressing, but I see it as an opportunity to create the meaning you want in your life.
Given that religion exists I'd say you're not alone in seeking meaning.
There are parts of your brain that exist for the sole purpose of identifying why things happen, imagine the advantage an organism has that can spot patterns in their environment and make predictions based off of what they've seen.
Unfortunately sometimes that hard wired part of the brain seeks to find deeper meaning in places that provide no meaning.
Shadows don't exist, but we see them, they have no purpose because they are nothing but an emergent phenomenon.
An asteroid travels through space for millions and millions of miles in the depths of nothingness between galaxies. It is never seen by a sentient being and is far enough beyond the range of gravitational affect of everything that it's influence is less than a single decaying atom. Why is that asteroid there, what is its purpose? It exists to exist.
You are a bundle of atoms destined to lose cohesion, revel in the beauty of it.
You are a bundle of atoms destined to lose cohesion, revel in the beauty of it.
I don't see beauty in any of it though. It's mostly ugly, and gross.
That's cool too, you're somehow 7-8 octillion atoms that collectively agree that they're ugly, neat
“I’ve struggled to find meaning” could mean quite a few things. You’re not giving people much to work with.
But here’s something with respect to one interpretation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx's_theory_of_alienation
I'd like to read what Marx had to say about this.
I suppose Marx's discussion on alienation is less about some ultimate meaning of life (which many people have already talked about here) and more about how people find meaning in their work, their humanity and the wider world, and how the way our society currently works alienates us from those things and from finding our own meaning, instead pushing us to act like cogs in a pointless machine. For example, if someone's waking hours are mostly spent making useless things for people they'll never meet, or denying people medical coverage, they're going to develop a very different sense of their meaningfulness than someone who builds houses in their neighbourhood, or who grows or prepares food for their family and friends. Both are labouring in order to survive, but the latter can see much clearer how their actions matter.
(I'm probably butchering it, this isn't a theory I know much about, so check to see if someone else has corrected me)
Makes a lot of sense. I can't help but feel like a lot of the work people do is completely detached from their own community. Which inevitably begs the question, if it's so detached is it even worth it?
Which inevitably begs the question, if it’s so detached is it even worth it?
That's a great point. At the end of the day, I'm confident saying that lots of jobs are not worth it, from the perspective of ourselves and our communities. Many jobs actively harm our communities. The people who create jobs are the people who have the money to pay people, and if you need money to live or to thrive, it's tough to avoid taking those jobs, so the work our society does is largely dictated by who has money, and especially by those approaching billions of dollars. And the solution must be to take away that owning class's power to dictate society's direction (easier said than done, of course!)
There's a whole world of world which has been labelled "bullshit jobs", named after the book by David Graeber. I haven't read the book, but even their article with some great examples and quotes from people with nonsense jobs and the wiki page I linked show a variety of these jobs not worth doing.
I know nothing, but to me, there is "why," and there is "how." The why can never be proven and the how is fact. Religious institutions try to tell you "why" you are here, but they can not. They can only tell you why they think you are here.
In 1 billion years, there is a very good chance that we will not exist, so what's the point to any of this? Literally that. YOU are why any of this has a point. If you want to sit and stare at the stars, then that is why you are here. But then that is me telling you why you are here.
Why will always lead to how, which will lead to why, which will lead to how, that leads to why, then to how....ad infinitum.
From the movie "City slickers". The meaning of life is one thing. And that is whatever you are doing.
Just the thoughts you were wondering about, from a stranger in the wires.