Atheism and the meaning of life - what drives you?

[LadyForCamus]

But how do we give meaning to experience itself? To “I”? Some people leverage that experience for its own sake is the meaning, but I just don’t follow. I’m missing something.

I think I see what you're getting at, and now I'm confused too.  It's one thing to say "that was a meaningful experience," but what's going on under the hood?

Exactly. How can “I” assign meaning to “me”? That seems…I dunno. Circular? And is the statement, “experience itself has no meaning” necessarily nihilistic? Can it be psychologically acceptable to say: “I have no meaning; I have no way of assigning meaning to myself, but I’d still prefer to continue experiencing…at least for now”? And if, some day, I stop wanting to have experiences, is that necessarily pathological, or “bad for me”?


I’ll duck as you all throw the tomatoes. 🍅😛

[Fake Messiah]

When people start asking questions like in the original post I start thinking "Did you not watch 'City Slickers'"?

I mean here is a perfectly secular explanation

[brewer]

But how do we give meaning to experience itself? To “I”? Some people leverage that experience for its own sake is the meaning, but I just don’t follow. I’m missing something.

I think I see what you're getting at, and now I'm confused too.  It's one thing to say "that was a meaningful experience," but what's going on under the hood?  What is the mind actually doing when it perceives meaning?  Is it a particular kind of neurological connection, for instance, between certain brain regions?

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Put into context of reproduction and evolution, all life has meaning. But something tells me you guys want something more personal.

Yes, "my meaning" as opposed to a generic one.  Evolution seems to operate fine without it, but individual human behaviour often benefits from having goals, plans, purpose.

I don't think your daughter is generic, but I understand. Maybe you and LFC want some overall grand purpose, I'm not sure. For me, I get enough meaning from the little things, often quite mundane. If I'd get to much 'in the head' over meaning of life I'd probably make myself depressed.

[Spongebob]

I don't think your daughter is generic, but I understand. Maybe you and LFC want some overall grand purpose, I'm not sure. For me, I get enough meaning from the little things, often quite mundane. If I'd get to much 'in the head' over meaning of life I'd probably make myself depressed.

That is certainly a possibility and many people struggle with this.  The idea of just living/surviving from one day to the next, going to a dead end job, having no grand aspirations in life.  These are real obstacles for people feeling satisfied with their life.  I think this is why religion is such a draw.  Its proponents promise meaning and joy and an afterlife of great reward.  Of course these things are appealing.  They are also smoke and mirrors but I can understand why people get pulled into them and once pulled in, your own mind works to reinforce that what you are doing is in fact fulfilling this wonderful promise.  Fun fact, our mind/brain wants to fool itself so it won't get pissed off that we are doing something stupid.  It actually wants to believe that whatever we are doing is exactly what we should be doing, least we get depressed about it.  Talk about circular!

[brewer]

I don't think your daughter is generic, but I understand. Maybe you and LFC want some overall grand purpose, I'm not sure. For me, I get enough meaning from the little things, often quite mundane. If I'd get to much 'in the head' over meaning of life I'd probably make myself depressed.

That is certainly a possibility and many people struggle with this.  The idea of just living/surviving from one day to the next, going to a dead end job, having no grand aspirations in life.  These are real obstacles for people feeling satisfied with their life.  I think this is why religion is such a draw.  Its proponents promise meaning and joy and an afterlife of great reward.  Of course these things are appealing.  They are also smoke and mirrors but I can understand why people get pulled into them and once pulled in, your own mind works to reinforce that what you are doing is in fact fulfilling this wonderful promise.  Fun fact, our mind/brain wants to fool itself so it won't get pissed off that we are doing something stupid.  It actually wants to believe that whatever we are doing is exactly what we should be doing, least we get depressed about it.  Talk about circular!

Um....... no. For me it's more like whatever I want to be doing. There were plenty of thing's I did that I knew I should not (self destructive) but did them anyway. But that's a completely different psychological discussion.

Let me ask this, are those that are unsatisfied and struggling because they feel no sense of a meaning in their life have some underlying need to feel important, special? Those people might need to take a George Bailey perspective.

[Spongebob]

Um....... no. For me it's more like whatever I want to be doing. There were plenty of thing's I did that I knew I should not (self destructive) but did them anyway. But that's a completely different psychological discussion.

Let me ask this, are those that are unsatisfied and struggling because they feel no sense of a meaning in their life have some underlying need to feel important, special?

It's important not to generalize because people can be in very specific circumstances and their mind has various ways of dealing with them.  But the mind absolutely does work to deceive you and you are generally not aware of it.  It takes a lot of self-examination to understand when this is happening to you and that is just not a normal thing for most people.  Therapy can help you understand this.  If you ask yourself, am I happy, do you believe that your assessment is truly genuine?  Highly likely it is not.

To answer your second question, yes that can certainly be at the core but it only begs another question, why is it so important for them to feel important or special?  Most people do want to feel that whatever they are engaged in has some purpose, whether its a job, a relationship, a hobby...etc.  And again, the mind can trick you into believing something is important when it really isn't.  But of course many people seem content in menial work through long periods of life and it begs the question, how do they do this?  How do people survive incarceration?  Lots of fuel for psychologists there.

I can tell you this, I have had periods in my life where I struggled with the value/meaning of my work life or direction in my life.  I spent about 2 or 3 years in deep self-examination and it was during this period when I received therapy.  At this point now I feel released from this previous desire and can find great value in some of the most mundane things and it feels extraordinary.  But I certainly can't explain it.  And yes, I'm aware that even now my mind is telling me I'm happy when I have no idea if I really am.

[The Grand Nudger]

Exactly. How can “I” assign meaning to “me”? That seems…I dunno. Circular?

More an observation than an argument, self designated goals and value are still goals and value, at any rate.  Things have meaning to you, it stands to reason they can have meaning for you, and that you can be one of the things that means something. 

And is the statement, “experience itself has no meaning” necessarily nihilistic? Can it be psychologically acceptable to say: “I have no meaning; I have no way of assigning meaning to myself, but I’d still prefer to continue experiencing…at least for now”? And if, some day, I stop wanting to have experiences, is that necessarily pathological, or “bad for me”?


I’ll duck as you all throw the tomatoes. 🍅😛

I don't think it's necessarily nihilistic - more like vague.  I can see how "experience itself" may have no meaning.  Experience is a thing, a utility, it's circumstantial, and without a referent ..meaningfully empty.  For most of life there is no such thing as experience. I'm not a professional, obvs, but suicidal ideation or feelings of worthlessness and a lack of meaning tend to be interpreted as signs that a person is having a rough time.  

I'm not too concerned with it's acceptability, but I wonder about it's accuracy.  Is it really true that you have no meaning and have no way to assign meaning.  Is that not something you feel and do?  It's one thing to feel and do x and have questions about it, or reservations about it, to wonder about the justifications or epistemic limits of a given notion..... quite another to say that you don't have and can't do x.  

If you don't have and can't do a thing, then it's not really an issue of arguments or justifications about that things existence.  It wouldn't matter if there were meaning, and meaning all around, if it were truly inaccessible or a completely empty set to you.  Most of life is in the same situation, just without the benefit of any experience or realizations to that effect.  

I'll give you a fun example, and pick a bone with misanthropy at the same time.  From the grasses point of view, the plow isn't for humans to grow crops to eat.  It's for one draft animal to manage another draft animal to prepare a seedbed for the grass.  The tools we have for working the land are all designed to benefit some other species.  Their shape and composition are determined by that other species.  From the grasses point of view, we're not an unnatural scourge destroying the land, but the most competent natural force for disseminating grass seed.  We have a similar relationship with livestock and structures, and at the macroscopic level with all of these variables and complex supply chains.  What beavers are to lakes, we are to grassland (and life is to us..we're also a tool in the shape of a niche).  Now, we don't think that grass has a point of view, that it experiences, but even so..all of this is going on in mere reality all round it. If people went the way of the dodo it would be unfortunate for the same reasons that the dodo going that way were.  To put a fine point on it, we've been neglecting this category of meaning for so long (and so hard) that it's become an existential crisis.  Does it mean something that we've shit the bed this hard?  If it doesn't..if there's no meaning - no harm no foul.  We can continue along as ever until the last one of us chokes on air we can't breathe under a sun we cant stand on a planet we can't even fully express our natural selves on.  Where all those threads of relationship have been broken and so, by definition, there can be no meaning to life in and of itself then, even if there was some meaning before.

[brewer]

Um....... no. For me it's more like whatever I want to be doing. There were plenty of thing's I did that I knew I should not (self destructive) but did them anyway. But that's a completely different psychological discussion.

Let me ask this, are those that are unsatisfied and struggling because they feel no sense of a meaning in their life have some underlying need to feel important, special?

It's important not to generalize because people can be in very specific circumstances and their mind has various ways of dealing with them.  But the mind absolutely does work to deceive you and you are generally not aware of it.  It takes a lot of self-examination to understand when this is happening to you and that is just not a normal thing for most people.  Therapy can help you understand this.  If you ask yourself, am I happy, do you believe that your assessment is truly genuine?  Highly likely it is not.

To answer your second question, yes that can certainly be at the core but it only begs another question, why is it so important for them to feel important or special?  Most people do want to feel that whatever they are engaged in has some purpose, whether its a job, a relationship, a hobby...etc.  And again, the mind can trick you into believing something is important when it really isn't.  But of course many people seem content in menial work through long periods of life and it begs the question, how do they do this?  How do people survive incarceration?  Lots of fuel for psychologists there.

I can tell you this, I have had periods in my life where I struggled with the value/meaning of my work life or direction in my life.  I spent about 2 or 3 years in deep self-examination and it was during this period when I received therapy.  At this point now I feel released from this previous desire and can find great value in some of the most mundane things and it feels extraordinary.  But I certainly can't explain it.  And yes, I'm aware that even now my mind is telling me I'm happy when I have no idea if I really am.

That first paragraph kind of pisses me off. The use of 'you'. I'd suggest that you don't know me at all. Don't project.

[The Grand Nudger]

That is certainly a possibility and many people struggle with this.  The idea of just living/surviving from one day to the next, going to a dead end job, having no grand aspirations in life.  These are real obstacles for people feeling satisfied with their life.  I think this is why religion is such a draw.  

We've intentionally made our lives smaller and more focused to be more manageable.  We used to be generalists in a direct relationship with a much broader set of things..individually, but we were all poor, just...dirt poor. Trying to satisfy myself solely within the confines of the american dream could only ever be partially satisfying.  It's greater than me, still, and I served it with pride and humility and understanding for the people on the opposite end - but life is even bigger still.and religion (particularly the christian religion) has always been a pitch to captives of one sort or another. People who's horizons have been artificially narrowed by circumstance who nevertheless feel that there's more to it all - and more for them, and they're right.

[Spongebob]

It's important not to generalize because people can be in very specific circumstances and their mind has various ways of dealing with them.  But the mind absolutely does work to deceive you and you are generally not aware of it.  It takes a lot of self-examination to understand when this is happening to you and that is just not a normal thing for most people.  Therapy can help you understand this.  If you ask yourself, am I happy, do you believe that your assessment is truly genuine?  Highly likely it is not.

To answer your second question, yes that can certainly be at the core but it only begs another question, why is it so important for them to feel important or special?  Most people do want to feel that whatever they are engaged in has some purpose, whether its a job, a relationship, a hobby...etc.  And again, the mind can trick you into believing something is important when it really isn't.  But of course many people seem content in menial work through long periods of life and it begs the question, how do they do this?  How do people survive incarceration?  Lots of fuel for psychologists there.

I can tell you this, I have had periods in my life where I struggled with the value/meaning of my work life or direction in my life.  I spent about 2 or 3 years in deep self-examination and it was during this period when I received therapy.  At this point now I feel released from this previous desire and can find great value in some of the most mundane things and it feels extraordinary.  But I certainly can't explain it.  And yes, I'm aware that even now my mind is telling me I'm happy when I have no idea if I really am.

That first paragraph kind of pisses me off. The use of 'you'. I'd suggest that you don't know me at all. Don't project.

I meant that in a clinical way, not as a personal evaluation, so it shouldn't offend you, but what I said is basically true of everyone so I warn that you guard against rejecting the notion that you are unique among humans.  Accepting the reality that the mind is largely unknown to us and that we largely don't know much about what drives us is key to self-awareness.  People resist this knowledge at their peril.

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We've intentionally made our lives smaller and more focused to be more manageable.  We used to be generalists in a direct relationship with a much broader set of things..individually, but we were all poor, just...dirt poor.  Trying to satisfy myself solely within the confines of the american dream could only ever be partially satisfying.  It's greater than me, still, and I served it with pride and humility and understanding for the people on the opposite end - but life is even bigger still.and religion (particularly the christian religion) has always been a pitch to captives of one sort or another.  People who's horizons have been artificially narrowed by circumstance who nevertheless feel that there's more to it all - and more for them, and they're right.

This is fascinating and totally unexpected.  When you say "we" do you mean a group of specific people or are you referring to Americans in general?  I have to admit that I find myself doing this more and more but I wrote it off as just me getting older and less flexible with life, basically a coping mechanism.  I see some of my contemporaries who appear to be building more complexity into their life and it just baffles me.

That part about Christianity being pitched to captives certainly resonates with what I've studied regarding the early church and the Roman empire.  Christianity rapidly grew early on with those disenfranchised people largely because it promised a better life after this crappy one.