The secular meaning of life

[rousseau]

So maybe what you called "the world" here just is whatever it is we seem to understand. In this case, no need to assume knowledge. Some hallucinations may give you the certainty that you understand how the world works.

What about tangible evidence that your understanding leads to consistent, positive outcomes and a more enjoyable, flourishing life?

Hallucinations.

Hallucinations look just like tangible evidence. And you just can't ignore them.

I'm not sure how "positive outcomes and a more enjoyable, flourishing life" is necessary for understanding the world. But anyway, hallucinations can make your life looks enjoyable and flourishing.
EB

Not sure what you're trying to say here. Is seeing a car drive down the road just a hallucination, and not evidence that someone figured out how to build a motor? Obtaining the outcomes that you desire is evidence that your understanding of how to reach those outcomes was correct. And so positive outcomes, and an enjoyable flourishing life for a person is evidence that they know how to get what they want out of life.

Granted, yes people only know what they know, but that's the whole point. Enlightened naturalism would assume the world is knowable and that increasing one's knowledge about it would lead to a better life.

What is that part of the Buddhist eight-fold path? Right understanding.

Or in Taoism: wu-wei

 

[Speakpigeon]

Well, David Deutsch's book "The beginning of infinity" may be regarded as suggesting a non-religious cosmic meaning to life. We may be on the road to infinity. Potentially boundless possibilities. Understanding without limit. Life itself without limit. We probably can't really understand the idea very well right now, but we may be on our way to understand it!
EB

I haven't read his book, but I would suggest that there is nothing inherently, objectively meaningful about infinity, or anything else for that matter. It may be nice to have unlimited understanding if there is someday the means to achieve it, but I maintain such an outcome would be a man-made pursuit of meaning.

Some scientists say similar things about the survival of our species, as if it imbues us with a solid basis for our lives that is more fundamental than emotional. But this too is mistaken. Just because something has been happening for a long time doesn't mean it needs to keep happening, and just because something is very big doesn't mean it's worth working towards.

By the same token, all of this would still be true even if there was a God. Being maximally powerful and intelligent does not grant God the ability to dictate the meaning of everyone else's life. We would all still be free to invent and follow our own values, and they would be no less meaningful than God's values.

I wasn't trying to suggest infinity could be meaningful in itself. Meaning is an idea inside our heads that happens to give a focus to our lives. I thought we all agreed here on that.

We are largely autonomous for a good chunk of our schedule, short term to long term, so we naturally think in terms of what it is we should do of it, which leads to the idea of what we should do with our lives. Whatever we come to think we should do long term, possibly across generations, is what we see as meaningful, what gives meaning to our lives. Nothing mysterious. It's just like being busy but long term.

Now, since we also generally tend to think in terms of how a function evolves if pushed to the limit, we also come to have the idea of something meaningful beyond just our own life and even that of humanity itself, leading us to the idea of a metaphysically absolute meaning. And that's where we may get stuck. Some people invent a god or something spiritual to fill this gap. Probably not a very good idea.

So, seeing our life and humanity itself as being at the beginning of infinity I think does the same job. And it seems trying to understand what reality is certainly seems an interesting journey. And one that makes sense if we think we might well have an infinite amount of time to do it. It seems to me we're already spending a lot of energy to understand the universe and human nature. And we're not done yet. It seems to me we're only at the beginning of it. So, I suspect may come a time when we try to stop competing with each other and get serious about understanding reality. If we don't self-destruct before.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Not sure what you're trying to say here. Is seeing a car drive down the road just a hallucination, and not evidence that someone figured out how to build a motor?

I grant you t's a particular kind of hallucination, but definitely one you take as evidence that someone figured out how to build a motor.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

Is anything changed in your chant if you exchange hat for hallucination? On the other hand if something consistent results from doing things a certain way don't we at least have verifiable evidence of that. Just trying to separate phenomenon from verifiable instance. Actually I'm trying to put your hallucination in a cocked hat.

Are you suggesting we could prove that it's not possible to have hallucinations that remain consistent?

Me, I think the human mind is just that. Hallucinations that happens to work. That would work, obviously. Perfectly logical.

I'm no expert on Lewis Carroll's memorabilia but I suspect he must has slipped something about that in Alice. Look at "hatter". "Mad hatter", I think.
EB

You probably shouldn't. Think that is. Things are clear for some that Berkeley's conjectures begat Carroll's stories that begat Burton's movies. Like I said, "In a cocked hat".

 

[Lion IRC]

Secular = atheistic = life is short then you die.
Yeah. Really 'meaningful'

Religious = life is short = you believe in life after death = then you die.
Yeah. Really "meaningful".
EB

Except you left out the actual afterlife.
And I know why you deliberately did that.
Because it would in fact constitute a huge difference between one worldview - atheism - and the opposite of atheism.

The permanent end of conscious awareness versus enduring existence. We aren't debating which belief is true. We're debating which would be more meaningful/significant if true.

 

[rousseau]

Honestly, the endless debate about Christianity at this forum is nauseatingly boring. I get that it leads to conversions in an indirect way, but it's just so fucking boring to talk and hear about.

Religion and the afterlife are nonsense. Can we talk about something interesting now?

 

[Lion IRC]

Lots of non-religious threads here;
https://talkfreethought.org/search.php?searchid=732118&pp=&page=1

 

[Juma]

Secular = atheistic = life is short then you die.
Yeah. Really 'meaningful'

Religious = life is short = you believe in life after death = then you die.
Yeah. Really "meaningful".
EB

Except you left out the actual afterlife.
And I know why you deliberately did that.
Because it would in fact constitute a huge difference between one worldview - atheism - and the opposite of atheism.

The permanent end of conscious awareness versus enduring existence. We aren't debating which belief is true. We're debating which would be more meaningful/significant if true.

It is totally meaningless to discuss which of two beliefs that would me most meaningful/significant if true since the most important factor to be significant/meaningful is that it IS true...

But then there really isnt an issue since we KNOW that there isnt an afterlife.

 

[Lion IRC]

Why so many instances of the expression "we all [insert trope here]" on a Freethought board?
I would expect that on a fundy board.
Here, it just comes across as herd mentality group-think
...or multiple personality disorder

 

[steve_bank]

Except you left out the actual afterlife.
And I know why you deliberately did that.
Because it would in fact constitute a huge difference between one worldview - atheism - and the opposite of atheism.

The permanent end of conscious awareness versus enduring existence. We aren't debating which belief is true. We're debating which would be more meaningful/significant if true.

It is totally meaningless to discuss which of two beliefs that would me most meaningful/significant if true since the most important factor to be significant/meaningful is that it IS true...

But then there really isnt an issue since we KNOW that there isnt an afterlife.

We know there is no Santa, we can trace the history of the myth. We can not know there is no afterlife, we can say is we see no evidence.

 

[steve_bank]

Why so many instances of the expression "we all [insert trope here]" on a Freethought board?
I would expect that on a fundy board.
Here, it just comes across as herd mentality group-think
...or multiple personality disorder

Because all us unbelievers feel the same pressure of the majority Christians who presume to act out random quotes in scripture on others. We are demeaned as less than moral. And so on.

Is that not clear to you after all this time on this forum, or do you simply ignore what it is like on the receiving end of your religion?

As to a real afterlife, I take great comfort in the company of my imaginary cat, but I know it is imaginary. Perhaps your afterlife is but a comfort while living?

 

[Lion IRC]

Some atheist billboards declare that it's the existence of the afterlife which should cause worry.
They say stop worrying, there's probably no afterlife, enjoy your hedonistic life free from fear.

 

[steve_bank]

Some atheist billboards declare that it's the existence of the afterlife which should cause worry.
They say stop worrying, there's probably no afterlife, enjoy your hedonistic life free from fear.

One of those nasty characterizations by Christians. Without Christian morality all atheist are out of control wanton hedonists consumed by lust and pleasure. See what I mean by being on the receiving end of religion?

Some people are hedonist as a philosophy of life, Hugh Hefner surrounded himself with sex and lived in a bathrobe. One can be hedonist and be moral, it depends on what moral means. Clearly many Christians to me are not moral. It is Christianity in Europe that turned sex pleasure into something to be treated as a corruption..

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Some atheist billboards declare that it's the existence of the afterlife which should cause worry.

Not a single one (and there are probably only about five “atheist billboards” in the entire world) says anything like that.

They say stop worrying, there's probably no afterlife, enjoy your hedonistic life free from fear.

What a sad existence you must lead to always see everyone else having fun—free from fear—which evidently is the only thing keeping you from enjoying your own “hedonistic” life. You will have lived your only existence in fear all because some ignorant sheep herders from thousands of years ago told their children a magical boogeyman will get them if they don’t obey their parents.

You are a grown man who is literally afraid that Santa Claus will bring you a lump of coal for being “naughty.” That’s one of the most tragic things I can possibly imagine. A completely wasted life based on Grimm’s Fairy Tales..

 

[Lion IRC]

So if Santa isn't real I don't have to worry about a lump of coal for being naughty?

Man that atheism/hedonism thingy is looking better by the minute.

 

[untermensche]

One can live as a free entity.

One can choose how one will live.

One can choose to do good or harm.

Or one can live as a slave to an invisible tyrant.

And do harm because it is commanded.

Persecute homosexuals and witches because it is commanded.

 

[Jobar]

Secular = atheistic = life is short then you die.
Yeah. Really 'meaningful'

It depends on how you define your self, your life.

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwDNXgrNECw[/YOUTUBE]

 

[steve_bank]

" What is life but ti dance" From the movie Zorba The Greek. An entire philosophy in a few words.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Except you left out the actual afterlife.
And I know why you deliberately did that.
Because it would in fact constitute a huge difference between one worldview - atheism - and the opposite of atheism.

The permanent end of conscious awareness versus enduring existence. We aren't debating which belief is true. We're debating which would be more meaningful/significant if true.

It is totally meaningless to discuss which of two beliefs that would me most meaningful/significant if true since the most important factor to be significant/meaningful is that it IS true...

But then there really isnt an issue since we KNOW that there isnt an afterlife.

Maybe we are in the afterlife.

And yet we still wouldn't know?!

I have a sense of déjà vu*, not you?
EB

(*) Please try to pronounce with a French accent if you can.

Also,

Show

On a gagné! Allez les Bleus!!!
(again, French accent here.)

 

[Juma]

Except you left out the actual afterlife.
And I know why you deliberately did that.
Because it would in fact constitute a huge difference between one worldview - atheism - and the opposite of atheism.

The permanent end of conscious awareness versus enduring existence. We aren't debating which belief is true. We're debating which would be more meaningful/significant if true.

It is totally meaningless to discuss which of two beliefs that would me most meaningful/significant if true since the most important factor to be significant/meaningful is that it IS true...

But then there really isnt an issue since we KNOW that there isnt an afterlife.

Maybe we are in the afterlife.

And yet we still wouldn't know?!

I have a sense of déjà vu*, not you?
EB

(*) Please try to pronounce with a French accent if you can.

Also,

Show

On a gagné! Allez les Bleus!!!
(again, French accent here.)

Dream on...