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How [Un]Comfortable Are You...?

Cellmold

Wake, See, Sing, Dance
Joined
Mar 23, 2012
Messages
6,266
Yes, that frustrates me. It frustrates me more that I'm not immune to peddling bullshit. It almost feels like hypocrisy even though it technically isn't (I don't intentionally flout my own beliefs, it's a weakness)

Yeah that sounds rough, in fact I'm similar but with less to back my information up because i'm pretty poorly educated. There are lots of gaps in my knowledge and it seems to be getting harder for me to retain it in a useful capacity.

I guess this is an odd tangent but I like to roll with those.
 

sprinkles

Mojibake
Joined
Jul 5, 2012
Messages
2,959
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INFJ
Yeah that sounds rough, in fact I'm similar but with less to back my information up because i'm pretty poorly educated. There are lots of gaps in my knowledge and it seems to be getting harder for me to retain it in a useful capacity.

I guess this is an odd tangent but I like to roll with those.

I feel like that some times. Hell some times I feel like my brain just plain doesn't work and I'm mentally trudging through mud to make the simplest connections.

But to me what is important is metacognition. This is thinking about thinking, essentially. Knowing raw information is some times less important than knowing what you're missing, and how to make a strategy to obtain it.
 

Fluffywolf

Nips away your dignity
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I am extremely comfortable with the notion that life has no inherent meaning.

I would feel extremely uncomfortable if it had a meaning of subsequent consequence. As that very notion implies lack of freedom and a transcendance of morals and values beyond rationality.
 

Such Irony

Honor Thy Inferior
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...With the idea that life lacks inherent meaning?

I.e., the idea that whatever meaning we ascribe to our lives results from what we accept from our various cultures or beliefs, or what we consciously choose to ascribe to our lives. I heard a radio program last night which touched on one of the philosophies which rejects inherent meaning, and when one of the speakers mentioned how uncomfortable this idea is for so many people, I found myself wondering just how much and many people find this idea uncomfortable.

So, my question is as the title: How [un]comfortable are you with the idea that life lacks inherent meaning?

I find the idea very unsettling. Why even exist if there is no inherent meaning to it?
 

á´…eparted

passages
Joined
Jan 25, 2014
Messages
8,265
I find the idea very unsettling. Why even exist if there is no inherent meaning to it?

I personally have no idea. Don't think I ever will.

Nevertheless, not seeing the point and subsequently not wanting to exist is associated with very poor mental health. For that reason I do my best to back off from that and look for day-to-day things to keep going forward. I've found that seeking happiness on a short term time scale works rather well.
 

ygolo

My termites win
Joined
Aug 6, 2007
Messages
5,988
Value is inherently subjective, I agree.

Who the subject is that determines the value is a very intricate and deep question by my way of thinking.

Meaning too is subjective, but this is most definitely a shared subjectivity.
 

Passacaglia

New member
Joined
Dec 7, 2014
Messages
645
I find the idea very unsettling.
Thank you for your simple and direct answer. :)

Why even exist if there is no inherent meaning to it?
If this is not a rhetorical question, there are a couple of ways to answer it. Philosophically, we all create (or accept from our cultures) our own meanings and reasons to exist.

On a more practical level, we each exist because we were born, and we continue living because we have a strong survival instinct honed by aeons of evolution. When you get right down to it, existence doesn't require any deeper meaning at all. Though I don't think I'd want to live a life completely devoid of meaning. :bored:
 

BluRoses

New member
Joined
Oct 16, 2014
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155
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Thank you for your simple and direct answer. :)


If this is not a rhetorical question, there are a couple of ways to answer it. Philosophically, we all create (or accept from our cultures) our own meanings and reasons to exist.

On a more practical level, we each exist because we were born, and we continue living because we have a strong survival instinct honed by aeons of evolution. When you get right down to it, existence doesn't require any deeper meaning at all. Though I don't think I'd want to live a life completely devoid of meaning. :bored:

I think that life is inherently meaningless and I used to be very uncomfortable with this.

However, it is my view now that it is what intelligent life forms DO with their lives that creates the meaning. Mankind is wondrous because we love, experience, act, and create.
 

Dr Mobius

Biting Shards
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Not in the slightest bit uncomfortable. My issue with inherent meaning is that it implies a grand design, but places no perspective on my part in it. Realistically the reason for my existence in a universe so large will probably be as simple as being somewhere at a particular time, infinitesimal changes on such a scale. I would much rather believe that I am the captain of my own fate, master of my own destiny. Thus meaning becomes something I, and I alone decide. The egotist in me prefers it that way.
 

Cimarron

IRL is not real
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I don't like it at all. It's just contrary to my gut (and few things are guided by my gut). But at least there's meaning we can bestow upon life, that's the second-best option.
 

OrangeAppled

Sugar Hiccup
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Im comfortable with it because I think meaning is created. That is a part of free will - what kind of meaning will we choose for ourselves?
Inherent meaning might mean something like pre-destination, which I disagree with. There's a permanance about "inherent" too, and I think meaning can be lost and destroyed.
I think there is right and wrong meaning and shades between, but none are inherent. We can choose to be animals or develop a higher spiritual nature. Depending on what we choose, our life can take various meaning or none at all.
 

chubber

failed poetry slam career
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I would be uncomfortable if I was to believe that there is no inherent meaning, luckily I can make myself comfortable by believing there is something. Both are beliefs if I am to understand it correctly.
 
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