Atheism and the meaning of life - what drives you?

[LadyForCamus]

Once you add referents, it's very explicitly about something, and wouldn't qualify as meaningless any longer..even if whatever meaning it has doesn't satisfy a category I'm starting to think is going to end up being True Meaning™.

I am referring to myself, lol. Maybe I just don’t understand what meaning is. If meaning arises from adding referents, then perhaps I’m thinking that in order for experience to have meaning, something else must be referring to it. Or that there must be a “next moment” in order for any reference to anything to be meaningful.

I suppose that I know that I do something; laugh with my kids, enjoy a nice glass of wine, go to the beach, spend time with my mom, etc. I’m just not sure that those things are the thing x that I doubt. Does that make sense?

and there it is.  You recognize that you're doing the thing.  It's not that you doubt that thing or doubt that apprehension or in fact have no access to it at all, it's just that all of that meaning (and whatever else we might come up with) isn't True Meaning™...whatever that is.

Yes, I find it unsatisfactory. That’s true. 

Maybe it isn't, but the position is no longer that life or experience has no meaning, but that it lacks some other thing, also called meaning.  Tell me more about that.

My mom mentioned to me today how she was visiting my grandma, who is in a nursing home and declining, and that she didn’t remember us taking her to Lake George last year with my kids, and how it was sad that we tried so hard to give her these nice memories and she doesn’t even have them anymore. My mom said, “at least she got to experience it at the time.” That felt so hollow. What is the value of any moment in time, if you don’t get to refer back to it from some other “present” moment? You said referents bear the fruit of meaning. What is the value of any single moment if it’s an inevitable eventuality that that chain of moments is going to be permanently broken? The moment my grandmother lost that memory was the moment it lost all meaning. Similarly, the moment my brain dies, it will be, to me, exactly as if I never lived a moment at all. If there is no meaningful difference or distinction between living 90 years to die happily in my sleep, and never having been born at all; and there can’t be; then how can I possibly say that life has meaning?

Not simply - alot would happen if we blipped out - things that..from the misanthropes pov..would be good...but does this make sense if there is in fact no meaning?

I mean, those would happen regardless of whether or not there was a consciousness around to assign them a meaning, good or otherwise.

It would be a very consequential fact for our little rock.  Universally meaningful?  The most important thing that ever happened anywhere anywhen, no...but still not lacking in meaningful content.

That depends on if there’s any subject still around who is capable of assigning meaning to the facts of that reality. I swear, I’m not trying to be…Hammy, Lol. And I appreciate the time and patience you put into going through this subject with me,
sincerely.

doubt that you'e crazy or wrong, just that you haven't found whatever satisfies you as True Meaning.  Maybe the world doesn't have any of it.

I suspect you may be right. 

I don't think that people appreciate what it means to suggest that life has no meaning, logically.  It's a very strong claim..that literally everyone everywhere and at all times is wrong with regards to any potential claim of meaning.

I think that’s what I’m claiming, yes. I’m still thinking on it. I’ve been thinking on it for some time. 

In sum..perhaps...you have your laughs with your kids, enjoy a nice glass of wine, go to the beach, spend time with your mother - all of this is likely to strike you as meaningful and its unclear why it wouldn't qualify as such, but there's something else you want, something else you seek, some other thing that would need to be in play before you felt that life had True Meaning.  Any ideas on what it is, even a hint?

Permanence. The ability to refer to those moments; to continue to be a subject who can apprehend events without an expiration date.