How [Un]Comfortable Are You...?

[Qlip]

That's very astute!

I suppose yet once again though it is personal. I've chosen to focus on other things so even though this is probably a logically actionable answer, it's an answer to a question that I don't ask all that often.

To me - and this is only me personally - it's like asking why you should play jazz when you could be playing jazz.

Maybe more like 'are you playing jazz right now and don't know it'? But, I get it.

 

[Beorn]

I really don't believe life is inherently meaningless. After all, life does actually come with a directive, to live. Life also comes with other directives depending on the circumstances of your birth, your genes, your surroundings, etc. We're a kind of melody, accidental or not, searching for a tonic.

People like to think that they are these wisps of absolute free will. I think this makes us feel powerful, but actually causes quite a bit of anxiety.

You're anthropomorphizing nature. If nature is disenchanted then it can't have a purpose in the same way humans have purposes. Nature just does what it does. There is no success or failure. There is no fulfillment of purpose in any significant sense. Sometimes life continues and sometimes it doesn't. Maybe life will continue for another million years or maybe we'll snuff it all out in a nuclear holocaust next year.

Take a hammer. You might say that the purpose of a hammer is to nail things, but that's just humans attributing significance to the hammer based on their own intentions. The reality is that independent of humans the purpose of a hammer is just to be a hammer. In the same way independent of any creative intent the purpose of life is just to be life and not necessarily to be alive as it may do whatever it might do just as a hammer might.

 

[Qlip]

You're anthropomorphizing nature. If nature is disenchanted then it can't have a purpose in the same way humans have purposes. Nature just does what it does. There is no success or failure. There is no fulfillment of purpose in any significant sense. Sometimes life continues and sometimes it doesn't. Maybe life will continue for another million years or maybe we'll snuff it all out in a nuclear holocaust next year.

Take a hammer. You might say that the purpose of a hammer is to nail things, but that's just humans attributing significance to the hammer based on their own intentions. The reality is that independent of humans the purpose of a hammer is just to be a hammer. In the same way independent of any creative intent the purpose of life is just to be life and not necessarily to be alive as it may do whatever it might do just as a hammer might.

Lol, I'm not talking about nature in general, I'm talking about you and me. You are actually accusing me of anthropomorphizing people (anthros) here. I'm sorry Beorn, we can't have a conversation at all if there is no us to discuss things.

And honestly, taking my statements more generally as 'nature' i.e. living things, I don't really see all that much difference except we have a layer of cognition reflecting on our cognition. That's the thing that trips us up and causes us to quest for meaning.

 

[Beorn]

Lol, I'm not talking about nature in general, I'm talking about you and me. You are actually accusing me of anthropomorphizing people (anthros) here. I'm sorry Beorn, we can't have a conversation at all if there is no us to discuss things.

And honestly, taking my statements more generally as 'nature' i.e. living things, I don't really see all that much difference except we have a layer of cognition reflecting on our cognition. That's the thing that trips us up and causes us to quest for meaning.

Sorry I misunderstood you. Plenty of folks make this claim so you can't blame me for the misunderstanding.

But, now I don't know what you mean by "life" it would seem to me the way you're using it is as a construct, so...

 

[Qlip]

Sorry I misunderstood you. Plenty of folks make this claim so you can't blame me for the misunderstanding.

But, now I don't know what you mean by "life" it would seem to me the way you're using it is as a construct, so...

I guess maybe I can see where the confusion is. You maybe are thinking that I'm saying that Life provides a meaning, as in it's an intelligent force. This is a similar discussion that I had with sprinkles. I'm not necessarily saying that at all. What I am saying is that all that is available to us is to find meaning within what Life has provided us, it has left us unique circumstances and the drive to attain a satisfaction.

How this is different to me than being existentially lost, is that we have started in a specific time, place, circumstances with specific abilities in order to attempt to achieve fulfillment.

 

[Beorn]

I guess maybe I can see where the confusion is. You maybe are thinking that I'm saying that Life provides a meaning, as in it's an intelligent force. This is a similar discussion that I had with sprinkles. I'm not necessarily saying that at all. What I am saying is that all that is available to us is to find meaning within what Life has provided us, it has left us unique circumstances and the drive to attain a satisfaction.

How this is different to me than being existentially lost, is that we have started in a specific time, place, circumstances with specific abilities in order to attempt to achieve fulfillment.

I don't understand where you get the bolded from? That's the logical link I'm missing.

Yes we all find ourselves in the midst of different construals that are impacted by concrete things, but I don't understand how anything you are saying is anyway different from just saying that life has no inherent meaning and we just apply meaning to it.

 

[Qlip]

I don't understand where you get the bolded from? That's the logical link I'm missing.

Yes we all find ourselves in the midst of different construals that are impacted by concrete things, but I don't understand how anything you are saying is anyway different from just saying that life has no inherent meaning and we just apply meaning to it.

What I'm saying is that life has inherent meaning according to individual circumstances. We don't impose meaning, we reveal it.

The 'in order to' applies to people's inherent drive to do this.

 

[Beorn]

What I'm saying is that life has inherent meaning according to individual circumstances. We don't impose meaning, we reveal it.

The 'in order to' applies to people's inherent drive to do this.

Your inherent meaning just sounds like action - reaction. It only confirms my initial assessment. Life is what it is. You apply this stimulus or withhold that stimulus and it does this or that. That's not a purpose that's just being. The fact that there's consciousness involved and external reality makes no difference.

From your description there doesn't appear to be a difference between imposing and revealing purpose.

My assessment only changes if you somehow think consciousness is enchanted.

 

[Qlip]

Your inherent meaning just sounds like action - reaction. It only confirms my initial assessment. Life is what it is. You apply this stimulus or withhold that stimulus and it does this or that. That's not a purpose that's just being. The fact that there's consciousness involved and external reality makes no difference.

From your description there doesn't appear to be a difference between imposing and revealing purpose.

My assessment only changes if you somehow think consciousness is enchanted.

Sure there is, there's a huge difference in knowing that meaning is to discover and not create. That's what words are for to differentiate, there's a huge difference in approach, and expectations.

All I can say is that if anything is worthy of the word magic, consciousness is it. If not, free will is the one illusion that makes my life better to believe, and also more... natural.

 

[Beorn]

Sure there is, there's a huge difference in knowing that meaning is to discover and not create? That's what words are for, there's a huge different in approach, and expectations.

I understand the difference between the two words.
What I fail to see is how there is a difference in how you use them in reference to our consciousness and individual construal.

You seem to be labeling whatever comes out of our individual consciousness that directs us as our purpose. Again that's a purpose, but it's a mechanical purpose without significance. A flowing river creates smooth pebbles that's just what it does there is no significant purpose there. You seem to be treating what emanates from our minds as a purpose because that's where the buck stops. But again in disenchanted materialist world the mind is just doing what minds do and so consciousness (and subconsciousness) are just chemical explosions and neuro transmitters firing off and who knows what else, but it's just a system doing what it does and whatever it does it is doing.

All I can say is that if anything is worthy of the word magic, consciousness is it. If not, free will is the one illusion that makes my life better to believe, and also more... natural.

Well, yeah logically I think you're left with a choice: either you believe in a deterministic material world or you believe some aspects of this world are enchanted and there is inherent meaning.

We live in world where those two ideas are in tension with each other and the presumption seems to be that there is no heaven above and no hell below and so we concoct our own meaning because we don't want to look into the abyss.

One more picky note. If you are speaking from a disenchanted materialist perspective than there is no such thing as "more natural" as everything is nature and nature is everything. "More natural" would only make sense if there is an inherent moral order within nature which it shouldn't be deterred from.

 

[Cellmold]

There might be meaning behind everything. It may not be human meaning however.

 

[Qlip]

I understand the difference between the two words.
What I fail to see is how there is a difference in how you use them in reference to our consciousness and individual construal.

Discover is a more accurate word than create to the situation.. more below.

You seem to be labeling whatever comes out of our individual consciousness that directs us as our purpose. Again that's a purpose, but it's a mechanical purpose without significance. A flowing river creates smooth pebbles that's just what it does there is no significant purpose there. You seem to be treating what emanates from our minds as a purpose because that's where the buck stops. But again in disenchanted materialist world the mind is just doing what minds do and so consciousness (and subconsciousness) are just chemical explosions and neuro transmitters firing off and who knows what else, but it's just a system doing what it does and whatever it does it is doing.

Yes, and the disenchanted materialist would most likely continue on with his life as if he had purpose anyway, following his own nexus of cause and effect, to live comfortably, to rock the boat, to do something original, etc. If this is whole the truth, and I don't really care if it is, it's extraneous to being a person...

Well, yeah logically I think you're left with a choice: either you believe in a deterministic material world or you believe some aspects of this world are enchanted and there is inherent meaning.

We live in world where those two ideas are in tension with each other and the presumption seems to be that there is no heaven above and no hell below and so we concoct our own meaning because we don't want to look into the abyss.

One more picky note. If you are speaking from a disenchanted materialist perspective than there is no such thing as "more natural" as everything is nature and nature is everything. "More natural" would only make sense if there is an inherent moral order within nature which it shouldn't be deterred from.

See above, it's more natural, is more conductive to how we behave as individuals and what we expect from other individuals. I do understand there is a different framework from which determinism takes on utility, but this is a type of abstract fact to acknowledge, not a knowledge we live within as individuals.

I do get annoyed when people are so sure that other's turn away from knowledge because of some sort of fear. This is sometimes the case I am sure, but I feel like most of the time it's just an accusation that makes one's self feel more powerful. It may be that some knowledge has no relevance to an individual.

The 'abyss', is a type of free fall, the existential crisis people experience is actually a fallacy. We see that everything is just a predictable progression of the movements of particles, then we wonder what we should do with ourselves. We are believing in one hand that there is no agency, no meaning, but then our crisis is what to do with our agency.

The real existential crisis is the feeling of the straight jacket of determinism, it's our father, our mother, the place of our youth, it's the configuration of our DNA. But, nobody really believes this, because our own perception of agency is impenetrable, it's integral to consciousness.

 

[Nicodemus]

There might be meaning behind everything. It may not be human meaning however.

Then it is not what we mean by 'meaning', hence without meaning.

 

[Cellmold]

Then it is not what we mean by 'meaning', hence without meaning.

That's why we imprint meaning onto it then. But what about the divide between human-centric thinking that gives us stuff like a flat earth and universe-centric thinking that shows us it is an oblate spheroid?

Why call it universe-centric if it is still essentially human in source and framing? The difference is that (and I admit my understanding and knowledge is limited here) it would appear that the scientific method attempts to bring some form of objectivity to our apparent reality, despite arguments that point out the potential futility in doing so, but knowledge changes with new information and science is cool like that. And also if the meaning has to be human in order to stand in importance to us, why do we care that there is no meaning since we can always invent meaning to justify everything, just like this whole topic in the first place.

The search for understanding is pointless if the meaning could never be ours. Still I don't know if it makes me uncomfortable or comfortable, I would say it actually makes me comfortable. It reminds me that through all the petty, nasty works and through all the meaningful, apparently fulfilling works it helps to remind me that we really do have no control and it makes reality as I perceive it that much more comfortable because I can sit back and enjoy the ride.....at least until my emotions try to trick me into objectifying morality.

Yet.....the brain still believes and hopes...even in the most hardened existential nihilist. That's probably just another defence mechanism though, I tend to look at my life as a means of preparing me for coping with death...or rather dying because that is interesting to me.

A singular answer would never be satisfying enough.

 

[sprinkles]

That's why we imprint meaning onto it then. But what about the divide between human-centric thinking that gives us stuff like a flat earth and universe-centric thinking that shows us it is an oblate spheroid?

Why call it universe-centric if it is still essentially human in source and framing? The difference is that (and I admit my understanding and knowledge is limited here) it would appear that the scientific method attempts to bring some form of objectivity to our apparent reality, despite arguments that point out the potential futility in doing so, but knowledge changes with new information and science is cool like that. And also if the meaning has to be human in order to stand in importance to us, why do we care that there is no meaning since we can always invent meaning to justify everything, just like this whole topic in the first place.

The search for understanding is pointless if the meaning could never be ours. Still I don't know if it makes me uncomfortable or comfortable, I would say it actually makes me comfortable. It reminds me that through all the petty, nasty works and through all the meaningful, apparently fulfilling works it helps to remind me that we really do have no control and it makes reality as I perceive it that much more comfortable because I can sit back and enjoy the ride.....at least until my emotions try to trick me into objectifying morality.

Yet.....the brain still believes and hopes...even in the most hardened existential nihilist. That's probably just another defence mechanism though, I tend to look at my life as a means of preparing me for coping with death...or rather dying because that is interesting to me.

A singular answer would never be satisfying enough.

Nothing is completely accurate (not even what I just said)

It's like playing darts some times. You just need to hit the target in the right place which is only a general area. Just about everything comes down to sufficiency, tolerances, and being close enough to be useful.

Understanding is not entirely perfect and probably can't ever be.

 

[Cellmold]

Nothing is completely accurate (not even what I just said)

It's like playing darts some times. You just need to hit the target in the right place which is only a general area. Just about everything comes down to sufficiency, tolerances, and being close enough to be useful.

Understanding is not entirely perfect and probably can't ever be.

Well I agree, my questions were rhetorical.

 

[sprinkles]

Well I agree, my questions were rhetorical.

Understood. I was talking for me as much as you too. (I some times need to remind myself of what I was just telling you)

 

[Cellmold]

Understood. I was talking for me as much as you too. (I some times need to remind myself of what I was just telling you)

It's a good reminder. Hey, do you ever find an intense frustration with how much more effort there is in refuting bullshit than propagating it? I'm not necessarily saying I do because I'm pretty scattered and not very reliable with my information, but...I dunno...the thought just struck me and I wanted to ask.

 

[Qlip]

Reading all this, It's very obvious that people are asking the big questions for different reasons. I'd like to say this was a cognitive difference, but I went through that 'hard truth' phase myself, wondering what really is is. Now I'm just reconciling it with how to have a meaningful human experience.

 

[sprinkles]

It's a good reminder. Hey, do you ever find an intense frustration with how much more effort there is in refuting bullshit than propagating it? I'm not necessarily saying I do because I'm pretty scattered and not very reliable with my information, but...I dunno...the thought just struck me and I wanted to ask.

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)