I’ve been thinking about the philosophical meaninglessness.
I don’t think that when people say, “life is meaningless”, they actually believe it.
Here’s a thought experiment, let’s say “x is meaningless”, then I can say with authority that continue to do “x” or not is arbitrary to me, I can flip a coin to decide if I want to do “x” or don’t do “x”, because it is meaningless.
The problem is that when we put “life” as “x”, if you say “life is meaningless”, then you sure don’t care continue to live or not, then you would be able to flip a coin to decide to live or to die.
If you cannot go along with this game, then life is not meaningless to you.
Simple as that.
Any other different approach to this problem or philosophical tactic to avoid this must including redefining the word “meaninglessness”.
To me a living person saying “life a meaningless” is an insult to those who commits suicide due to the existential terror.
My point is, I don’t believe there is true nihilistic that is alive.
Philosophers probably need to invent new words to isolate the issue.
This is an interesting topic. I think there are a few more layers that would have to be considered. For example, biological drives for survival could override conscious thought about meaninglessness. So someone could truly believe life is meaningless on a conscious level but not be able to push past the baked in survival instincts. Also, even on the conscious level, you would have to fight with whether living a meaningless life was less terrifying than ending things and possibly no longer existing at all or enduring some new form of suffering. I mean there’s a chance you might also end up in some paradise or place without suffering, but that’s the fear, you don’t know.
Can you have “life is meaningless” but also “I don’t want pain” and “I don’t want to spend effort towards a painless death” not because you enjoy life, but because death is also meaningless? You have no more reasons to act to keep living than you do to bring about death.
So you follow the inactive status quo that is just living. And when the question of dying of hunger arrives, you say you eat to avoid pain.
Life has no meaning, doesn’t mean there is no meaning in life. It could mean the claimer has not found the meaning of life yet, hence he must try harder finding the meaning.
People are individuals living individual lives. Just because you cannot see from their point of view does not invalidate their way of thinking.
I know of at least two people that committed suicide for exactly that reason, They considered their life to be meaningless. And another that could not see why he should continue to suffer the pain of cancer that made his life not worth living.
Not exactly sure what you are trying to say here, you appear to be using “nihilistic” as a noun when it is an adjective. A true nihilist would probably not believe that life is meaningless simply because they do not believe that anything is real enough to be meaningless.
Nihilism doesn’t say you must kill yourself. Nihilism can mean you must try harder finding meaning from many possible sources of the meaning in life such as love, art, pleasure and knowledge via philosophy.
It is a grave misunderstanding to say that nihilism is the end of life, because there is no meaning in life.
Judging that life has no meaning or value? No, there are no real nihilist in practice. From whence did they experience life with no meaning or value? What does it even mean to experience life without value? Unless one was born a rock, nihilism is impossible in practice.
Why not? Belief and action are two different things. The absence of action that appears to be nihilistic says nothing of what one believes. The nihilistic can choose to continue living life as if it had meaning. There’s no reason not to do so, and if life is meaningless then having a reason to act all is unnecessary.
I’m treating it like a logical statement, life is meaningless or life is not meaningless, you can’t break law of contradiction, otherwise it is pointless to begin with.
If there is still meaning to be found in life, then why say “life is meaningless” in the first place?
Follow your logic, if someone choose to continue living, which means they can’t pass the coin toss experiment I proposed.
Then it would assume that they still attach certain value to life, whatever that “value” is, objective or subjective, it’s not null, so in this sense, you can no longer say it’s meaningless.
Only explanation I can think of is that so called nihilist are only partial-nihilistic, that they hold meaning subjectively deep down and view all non-subjectivity meaningless.
It only means from a pure objective view, they are entity with their own version of meaning, still, not meaningless afterall.
Agreed. The statement need to be logically demonstrated and proved as a truth before it can be declared. Otherwise, it is just a meaningless statement.
It sounds like a emotional or psychological statement with no verification, with just the statement alone without any backing clues and reasons why life is meaningless.
The argument of meaninglessness shoots itself in the foot, for to set forth the proposition, “no inherent meaning exists,” this statement, as it is, needs to contain meaning for it to possibly be true, or else it is just words strung together without any servable purpose, and so, in truth, some meaning actually does exist, and if it is the case that some meaning exists, then it cannot also be true that no inherent meaning exists, and so, from this, it follows that inherent meaning actually exists.
You seem to not understand something very basic:
They don’t deny that individuals may have feelings of meaning, but that such feelings do not correspond to anything ultimately grounded in reality.
Life is already a process toward death, and my suicide would not affect any ultimate truth. So why should my behavior change toward suicide?
You assume that recognizing meaninglessness would make our behavior indifferent, ignoring the fact that we do not have full control over our biology, instincts, or psyche.
Also, arguments based purely on semantics confuse linguistic meaning with metaphysical meaning. There is a difference between what we think the world is and what the world is independent of our judgment.
The claim that “life is meaningless” is not based on human judgment, but on the absence of any final purpose or ultimate justification in life itself.
The schematics of a nuclear submarine are genuinely meaningless to those unfit to commandeer let alone comprehend it’s power. No one chose to be born, of course. It isn’t their fault. Not really. As a species we must strive toward a better future where those worthy and capable of understanding and appreciating life are the only ones that hold it, and let those who would prefer to retire to nonexistence do so in a dignified manner that does not affect the rest of us. That is the only fair, balanced, and universally-humanitarian mindset to hold going forward.
I don’t wish to leave it at what is likely to be received as an overtly callous and unsympathetic doctrine. Let’s look at it this way. 99% of all animals that ever lived are now extinct. Allegedly. Of all the grand castles that were ever built, those that aren’t destroyed, not a single one of them are controlled by their heirs or the persons they were meant to be held by in perpetuity. All things physical will one day collapse and corrode, to make room for something else. Save for gold perhaps? Heh. Wouldn’t that be a sight to see in this world. A golden castle. Oh but how heavy the thing would be. Anyway, to circle back.
It’s a rational belief to acknowledge the transience of all things of a physical nature in a physical world. And if we fail to elevate ourselves as a species above this one-dimensional physicality, to recognize that in (allegedly) millions if not billions of years we are distinct in ways no other being that lives or has lived can say, introducing things such as mastery of the environment and even spacial travel, that we have become like the gods are ancestors worshipped, we are in fact doomed to meaninglessness. Absolutely. So. Whether one finds purpose or purposelessness, is truly contingent on one’s own outlook (or in my opinion, sheer and inexcusable ignorance).
“Life is meaningless.” is a personal statement, which is unfounded and vague in what it means.
When it is uttered, one has to ask to the claimer, whose life are you talking about? In what sense is it meaningless? But before that, what do you mean by the meaning of life? Without clear answers on these questions, it is not possible to progress the argument.
If “meaninglessness” just means something “do not correspond to anything ultimately grounded in reality” or has no “final purpose or ultimate justification”, then everything in existence applies to it.
Because your “reality”, “purpose” and “justification”, are all unknowable.
Which makes the word “meaningless” a worthless gibberish, because it loses the discriminatory power.
So can you give me an example of something that is “correspond to anything ultimately grounded in reality” and reflects “final purpose or ultimate justification”?
If not, that’s the problem I had with it in the first place.
That is down to each individual person’s personal goals and expectations on their own life. It is not something objective or standardised principle or truth.