Meaning of life

General Philosophy
41

Again, this doesn’t follow. “There’s lots of disagreement” doesn’t imply “the truth is indeterminable”.

The fact that you draw on empirical considerations to support your claim doesn’t make it empirical. You can’t observe or test the indeterminability of metaphysical truth in the way that you can observe or test the boiling point of water.

This seems like a step in the right direction.

So you were not saying that people should practice tolerance, or that social harmony is better than disharmony? You were just making some kind of empirical point with no universal ethical or moral implications whatsoever? That seems inconsistent with your earlier suggestion that tolerance and intellectual honesty are “the only resolution”.

That’s not the ironic part. But more to the point, I agree that the onus is on the person making the claim to justify it. Which is exactly why I have been challenging you on your claim that metaphysical truth is unprovable and indeterminable.

But you have said “there is no X”. Right in post 14 you wrote:

So you are now softening your claim, and that’s fine.

It’s not required that I offer a demonstration, because I haven’t asserted that such truths are determinable. I have simply been challenging your claim that they are not. And so far, I don’t see that this challenge has been met.

42

Is it possible that the need for meaning predates consciousness entirely?

It manages what consciousness costs.

43

What I have been arguing basically boils down to this: we have very little certainty in our beliefs, apart from those which are mathematical and logical principles and truths,
simple matters of fact and direct observations. There is a difference between what we can reasonably be certain about and beliefs that people have and do feel certain about which are outside the empircal and logical domains.

I don’t see those as metaphysical truths, but as logical or semantic principles.

Of course it doesn’t and I haven’t said or implied that it does. That there is and has been no universal agreement about the meaning of life does imply that the meaning of life has been and remains indeterminable. I don’t know how many times I am going to have to correct you on this misunderstanding of what I’ve been saying.

While not absolutely ruling out the possibility, I cannot see how this situation is likely to, or even could, change. No one seems to be able to offer an account of how there could be universal agreement and certainty about metaphysical matters, and specifically, in regards to the topic of this thread, the meaning of life.

44

OK. Except that in the very next sentence you write:

So there’s a disconnect here. I have been pointing out that the inference from “lack of agreement” to “indeterminability” is not valid. This is easy to show. For example: some people think the earth is flat, and some people think the earth is spherical. Does this imply that the shape of the earth is indeterminable? Obviously not.

Disagreement may indicate many things: difficulty, confusion, bias, ignorance, lack of evidence, etc. But it does not, by itself, indicate indeterminability. So the demand for universal agreement is not reasonable. By that standard, practically nothing would qualify as determinable.

45

Well, what would be an example of a “metaphysical truth?”

The examples I gave are pretty standard. But your answers are telling as well. You labeled the teleological truths about the human good “pragmatic.” You labeled truths about mereology and causality “semantic.” But I am not sure how you get to: “basic principles of causality, mereology, and the Good are actually about language and logic, or instrumental reason,” without yourself having to make the exact sort of metaphysical commitments you yourself are saying are illicit. For to say claims about the human telos are actually instrumental claims, or that claims about composition are actually merely about language, is surely a metaphysical position, just a deflationary one.

What’s the relevance though if agreement isn’t the measure of truth. Actually, from ancient times to the era of mass politics, it was a fairly common rhetorical move to contrast the opinions of the “many” with that of the “few,” and not in favor of the many, on the grounds that the measure of wisdom was the wise. And if anything can garner widespread agreement it is that the wise are few and the foolish many (although agreement on who is who is another matter entirely!)

46

This is not an example of a metaphysical, but an empirical, claim. The Earth can be observed to be spherical from space. Give me a metaphysical example and I’ll consider whether it warrants changing my mind.

That there is a teleological truth in the form of an absolute human good is a metaphysical claim. I don’t claim that is no such thing, but that whether or not there is such a thing is indeterminable.

I haven’t anywhere said that metaphyscail commitments are illicit, i have said that their truth is uncertain. It doesn’t follow that you or I or anyone cannot feel certain about their metaphysical commitments. Causation is a good example―it is not known whether causation is real independently of human experience and judgement. Assuming causation, though, it is a logical principle that the effect follows the cause.

So, I haven’t said that people cannot, or should not, hold metaphysical positions―I am merely saying that one cannot be certain about them. Again feeling certain and being certain are not the same.

Also I haven’t said that agreement is the measure of truth. I have said that in the absence of universal agreement there is no certainty of truth. Even the so-called truths of science are all provisional―they may turn out to be wrong―it doesn’t follow that to hold (provisionally) to what seems most plausible is irrational. That said, one person’s plausibility is another’s incredulity.

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47

This misses the point, which was about the form of the inference you’re making. Pointing out that the example is empirical has no bearing on the efficacy of the logical point I raised.

Furthermore, your argument is starting to go in circles. I’ve pointed out that your inference is invalid and you’ve replied, not by defending its validity, but my demanding an example that will meet your criteria. But those criteria are specifically designed to exclude anything that would invalidate your inference. So your demand for an example is a rigged game, because any example I give has either already been ruled out from the start, or will be re-classified as “not really metaphysical” after all. I can already see that dynamic playing out in your discussion with @Count_Timothy_von_Icarus.

In any event, the discussion is starting to get repetitive now, so I’ll leave it here. Thanks for the exchange.

48

You misunderstood the inference. It was that if there has been no agreement about metaphysical matters (which is patently true; in fact there has been ongoing disagreement among philosophers, and in fact that is what the history of philosophy looks most like: a series of different models) and if no one can say what evidence for the truth of one model or the other is, or would even look like, then the truth of metaphysical claims is not definitively determinable.

You say the discussion is going around in circles; if that is so I would say it is because you either cannot, or refuse to, see what I’ve been saying, and have been addressing straw versions of it instead.

Anyway I’m happy to leave it there…I won’t respond again unless you come up with something interestingly different.

49

Is that compatible with this?

50

No. I was looking at it from inside consciousness. From there it genuinely looks like consciousness adds meaning — I reflect, I interpret, meaning appears.

But when I step outside the assumption that consciousness is the source, what I see is this: consciousness adds the awareness of meaning. Not meaning itself.

Meaning is older than consciousness. Before the bacterium moving toward glucose and away from toxins, before anything we’d call life — RNA molecules already preferring certain configurations over others, crystals enacting differential response to environment, slime mold with no brain solving mazes, finding optimal paths. Nothing reflects, nothing asks, nothing constructs a narrative — but something already counts more than something else. The universe is already not flat to it. Some things serve life more than others. That differential response — that primitive mattering — is already running. Before awareness. Before reflection. Before any story gets told.

The further back I go, the more it looks like differential response isn’t a feature of life. It’s a precondition for anything persisting at all.

Consciousness didn’t invent meaning. It woke up inside a system already running it.

Then the reflexive turn happened. Consciousness folded back on itself — became aware of its own awareness — and inherited everything that came with that. The distance between what is and what could be. An enormous weight that the bacterium never carries.

So the meaning-machine amplified. Not invented — inherited and amplified. To manage what self-awareness costs. To compress the open-ended weight of being a self into something navigable. This matters, that doesn’t. This direction, not that one.

And when it has something real to process — genuine stakes, genuine resistance, genuine relation — it runs clean. No distance between me and the situation. The tool has a job. Life and meaning perfectly matched. Not meaning added to life. Life as meaning. The same motion.

But when nothing real is present it inverts. Starts manufacturing stakes. Turns on itself. Eventually asks the deepest question it can find — what is life for? What does it mean?

To me it looks like the wrong question. Not because it’s unanswerable. Because it has the structure backwards.

Life isn’t for meaning. Meaning is for life.

51

You’re right that universal meaning doesn’t exist — if by that you mean a meaning handed down, inscribed somewhere, owed to us.

But then you add —

That quiet order isn’t decoration behind the human story. It’s the same process that produces the human story. At the most primitive level the universe tends — particles move toward lower energy states, structures form when conditions allow, some configurations persist and others don’t. Life is what happens when that tendency becomes self-sustaining. A system that doesn’t just move along a gradient but actively maintains the conditions for its own continuation.

Your personal meaning — legacy, creation, leaving a mark — that’s not separate from the quiet order you noticed. That is the quiet order, at the level of complexity where it can tell stories about itself.

Stories that are already downstream of the meaning that is already running.

Which makes your closing line —

almost exactly backwards.

You don’t author meaning and then live it. You are a system that meaning was already running through — and at some point that system became complex enough to notice, and to narrate what it found.

The narration came last.

And I am very unsuccessful in pretending that I don’t see it.

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52

My goodness! That’s exactly the kind of thing that could turn anyone off philosophy!
Gentlemen! Іt seems you’ve lost track not only of the topic—the meaning of life—but even the point of your discussion has become impossible to grasp amid all this squabbling over terminology.

53

It seems to me that this is just a path from point a to point B. There is no meaning in life.

54

You and I wrote the same thing about the meaning of life — meaning lies in life itself.

I asked myself then: what is it about life itself that makes it the location of meaning?

I followed that question for a while.

What would you say about it — beyond: look around, it’s obvious?

55

We disagree on most points. But I agree that there is meaning without human involvement. The codons of DNA mean amino acids. Not everyone, here or elsewhere, agrees. But that’s my stance.

That’s a different kind of meaning than what we’re talking about, though. I take “meaning of life” to be about decisions. Given all the things I can do, why would I choose one over the others? What makes one more important?

56

Different kind of meaning, or the same meaning at a different level of complexity?

At what point did response become choice? And did the pressure to choose correctly arrive with the ability to choose, or did the ability to choose arrive because that pressure needed somewhere to go?

Because if it’s the second, then meaning isn’t what guides the choice. It’s what the machine generates to justify whichever choice gets made. The output, legacy, decisions, justifications, the story of who one is and where one is going, doesn’t feel generated. It feels found. Like truth. Like discovery. That’s what full identification looks like. Not having meanings. Being them.

But the machine can be seen.

And once seen, something shifts. Same architecture, same pressure, but there is a difference between being the output and watching it appear. Between meaning feeling like truth and recognizing it as something the machine produced.

Not freedom from the machine. Less grip on what it produces.

In that there is no fundamental difference between any of us. Just different degrees of grip.

When the grip loosens, something remains. Not emptiness. Not numbness. Not the void that opens when the machine stops and there is nothing underneath.

What remains is just - being here. Moving. Responding. The differential response that was running long before consciousness arrived to narrate it. Not meaningful in the constructed sense. Not justified. Not pointed toward legacy or God or gold.

Just alive.

The machine was covering it. Not creating it. When the grip loosens you don’t lose anything real. You just stop confusing the cover for the thing itself.

The question then isn’t how to decide.

What’s actually there is the direction with more life in it - before the machine frames it, justifies it, makes it safe or noble or meaningful.

It’s whether you can afford to trust that.

57

@Chelydra.
As I already admitted in my previous post in this thread about the meaning of life, having no philosophical education, I do not consider myself sufficiently capable of understanding specific philosophical terms . Therefore, I may not fully understand your question about “location.” So I’ll try to answer this way:
If by “location” you mean a place within the person themselves, then I think it’s sensation, reason, consciousness, and experience. If it’s a place in life, then, presumably, it should follow from examples.
Again, as I wrote, it depends on the person and the circumstances.
For some people, the idea of the meaning of life arises from some vivid sensation they experienced in a particular life situation. For example, they visited someone’s home, saw how nice, comfortable, and beautiful their house was, and wanted one just like it. Then this feeling turns into reflection, a decision matures, and the person begins to act purposefully to achieve this goal in life. For some, this takes years, perhaps half a lifetime.
The second scenario is when, by observing someone else’s example, a person sees how harmoniously a certain family lives, and how respect and love reign there. And she reflects on her own situation and begins to make changes in her family to achieve this goal.
Someone saw another person’s wealth and the advantages it brings, and also set a corresponding goal for themselves in life.
For some, life finds meaning in caring for their children.

These are examples of how a person, facing life, sets goals for themselves. Achieving them becomes the meaning of life for them. Meaning does not exist in and of itself; it arises in a person through the process of life from sensations, reason, interests, and experience.

People will surely object that all of this is material, mundane, and self-serving. I agree; to some extent, that is true. But that does not mean it cannot be the meaning of life for a significant number of people, or even for humanity. And, all the more so, there is nothing shameful about a person wishing for good living conditions for themselves and their family.

Again, people will ask, “Where are the lofty, noble goals?”
I also answered this question in my previous post—it depends on the person.
There are many people, mostly among those in creative professions, and especially among those with a philosophical mindset or true believers, who want and see their purpose in life as goals that are not at all material. For them, these are lofty achievements, most often in their creative work, through which they can bring joy not only to themselves but also to many others—perhaps even to humanity. For believers, it is service to God. Of course, such meanings can be considered far more worthy, noble, and lofty.
In all these examples, the attainment of these goals—goals of various kinds—becomes the very meaning of life. Just as goals can be more or less significant, so too can meanings vary.

I don’t know if any of my answers here address the specific point you were asking about. As you suggested, I “looked around” and saw it this way. If this isn’t it—please clarify your question.

I’d be curious to hear other users’ thoughts—what other meanings of life might there be?

And one more small question for the participants in this thread: I didn’t use a single specific philosophical term in my post.
Did that make my text less understandable?

59

.@Chelydra . I tried to reply to you, but the reply was sent not to you but to another user, dimexr. I’m sorry; please check the thread—my post is addressed to you.

60

Different kind of meaning, because response did become choice. Codons mean amino acids. But DNA doesn’t decide that it wants the information encoded within itself to be used to synthesize protein, allow itself to be unzipped, etc. It can’t choose to do something else with its existence, because something else seems more important. It can’t even wish it could do something else.

But we each decide, at least we can decide, what’s important to us.

61

DNA can’t choose, we can. I wasn’t disputing that. I was asking about the threshold. At what point did response become choice? Where in the continuum from codon to consciousness does something qualitatively different emerge?

Because if you can’t locate that threshold, then “we can choose and DNA can’t” is just pointing at two ends of a spectrum without explaining what happened in between.

I’m not sure response ever became choice in the sense of a clean crossing. What might have happened instead is that response became complex enough to experience itself as choosing. Consciousness becoming aware of its own awareness introduced something genuinely new: the distance between what is and what could be. That distance is what the bacterium never carries. And that distance is what choosing feels like from the inside.

Which means choice might be real - the weight of it, the responsibility of it, the authorship of it - without being a different kind of process underneath. Just response carrying the weight of its own alternatives.