Comments on Did a guy named Phil start Philosophy?: What is the Meaning of Life?

I couldnt agree with you more. I do feel there is ...

2008-01-12T19:44:00.000-08:00

I couldnt agree with you more. I do feel there is no meaning to life except what you give it. Like in the cheeseburger example, any object has a purpose as long as something else gives it use. for instance my telefone is for speaking. but if i dont know how to speak or if there is no one to use it or able to, then that object is useless. Therefore, useless for me, meaningless because its meaning, the way it was created was for a use. no use, no meaning. Now, we were created for just the use of being alive, and that should be it.

Get a meaning if you'd like, but i see that there is no meaning to life if you define meaning in the same sense you would define a telephone.

guice,It seems as if you are describing a justific...

2007-11-21T10:42:00.000-08:00

guice,

It seems as if you are describing a justification for your moral code. Just like any behavior or choice has no divine meaning to it. The only meaning you bring to your actions in the backdrop of a goal or objective you constructed. For example, if I am playing soccer, dribbling the ball has meaning, in that it will lead me to win the game.

Why should moral behavior stand out from any other action we have? As humans we have an innate survival instinct. Our bodies want us to survive, the actions we do to keep us alive are meaningful in that sense. Being an ethical person may not directly affect your survival, but it does so indirectly. With common ethics in a society, the society has a better chance of surviving, and man cannot exist without a society. Ethics could just be something we evolved with; societies that don't kill each other don't die out.

I think you're leaving out a quite big aspect here...

2007-11-17T13:40:00.000-08:00

I think you're leaving out a quite big aspect here. I do agree with you about your cheeseburger-reasoning, and you seem like a reasonable guy about objective reality. Therefore, don't forget that everything that exist also exist as something. Everything has and acts according to it's nature, including life.

Every living organism struggles to preserve it's nature, i.e. it's life, although humans have the choice not to, meaning every human being should struggle to preserve it's life. Every action, when we're speaking of moral volition, is morally and practically acceptable when it's beneficial for our nature.

When an individual has her life intact, she's also able to value. This is where I agree with you, since without reasoning life, no values can exist. To choose to live, and to have reasonable values from there, is the moral goal of our actions, which also makes it the philosophical guide through life. Agreed, nobody else (i.e. God) has put a meaning to our existence, but still it's in our nature to live, which is why I see sustaining life itself and to act beneficial for yourself from there as the meaning of your existence. That's all from me.

Ema,I think you are missing the point of my articl...

2007-09-16T19:05:00.000-07:00

Ema,

I think you are missing the point of my article. You cannot even begin to answer the question of whether life has meaning. You might think that you can answer, but you are only giving yourself an illusion that your life possess meaning. Just like you give meaning to a cheeseburger, you can give meaning to yourself. The meaning for the cheeseburger is just as artificial as the one you give for your life!

Of course Life has meaning.It has the meaning you ...

2007-09-16T18:45:00.000-07:00

Of course Life has meaning.

It has the meaning you give it, the meaning you bestow it when you breath life into the things you care about.

You create your own life, and you are responsible for how meaningful or meaningless your own life is, by your own actions, by your own interactions with other people, and the greater world around you.

If you do not give meaning and value to the world around you, the the world WILL be meaningless and valueless for YOU.

Your world is what you create for yourself, and others, even if you start with a god-forsaken desert, or a blasted and deserted battlefield.

Unfortunately for some, the world only has meaning if they destroy and kill and murder and pillage and plunder their fellows. The path through such madness and transcending such madness means creating something worthwhile for all

Well of course we can impose meaning on others, ju...

2007-09-16T18:17:00.000-07:00

Well of course we can impose meaning on others, just like we do to a cheeseburger. But remember, imposing meaning is just the way you perceive that friend. The same way you can smell, feel, or hear him, you can also impose meaning on him. The meaning you impose on others is artificial (made by you) and could be different through someone else's point of view.

If you believe in God it only means you *think* there is a meaning to life. Contradicting that assumption I would have to get in the discussion of why there is no God, but I guess I'll leave that for another blog entry.

I do believe there is a God, so I guess that means...

2007-09-16T18:03:00.000-07:00

I do believe there is a God, so I guess that means there is meaning for my life. However, what do you think about people imposing meaning on each other. I mean, if we can impose meaning on a cheeseburger, what is to stop us from doing the same to our fellow humans? I kind of liked what you wrote, yet, I can't help but think you did not finish the thought.