Questions tagged [meaning-of-life]
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Isn't Camus' philosophy just a violation of Occam's Razor?
The way I see it, Albert Camus' philosophy can be summarised in a dialog as follows:
Q1: What is the meaning of life?
A1: Life has no meaning. It is absurd.
Q2: Then, why living?
A2: To rebel against ...
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Life: Pessimism vs optimism
I was reflecting a bit on the history of philosophy and religion and how they view human life. My question is the following: Why does it seem ( at least from my readings and knowledge, I might have ...
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If any meaning to life is bad, then is all life bad? [closed]
If any meaning to life is bad, then is all life bad? What is the relation between the meaning of life and life?
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What do we gain from our labors? [closed]
"Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless. What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?"
What do we ...
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Why we haven’t observed any galactic civilization of III or IV type? [closed]
This question is scoped to natural philosophy.
The study of natural philosophy seeks to explore the cosmos by any means necessary to understand the universe
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
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What is most important in life? [closed]
So my journey with philosophy has been a perilous one with exestential crisis after exestential crisis, but my latest one is a particularly gnarly one.
Naturally I have an epicurean view of death ( ...
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Can a self defeating pro attitude make for a meaningful life?
Can a self defeating pro attitude make for a meaningful life?
I was thinking of "pro attitude" in the sense of when e.g. one "does what one believes to be really important" or one &...
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Absurdism is not the complete answer [closed]
After experiencing existentialism for a number of weeks,I embraced absurdism.
However, after a month of experiencing absurdism as my end all and be all meaning of life philosophy, I come to believe ...
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What should I read on a journey of self discovery?
This year my goal is to do some self discovery. To understand my values, purpose, goals, and desires better. I think philosophy can help me with this. Where should I start? What reading would you ...
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Can I fail to achieve my goals, and make the wrong moral decisions, but still live a meaningful and worthwhile life?
Can I fail to achieve my goals, and make the wrong moral decisions, but still live a meaningful and worthwhile life, and if so then in what way? Moreover, what does it say about me and how I have ...
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Arguments against the importance of happiness and possible substitutes
What arguments are there against the importance of happiness, by which I mean anything from a hedonistic mood or affect, through a world that might create feelings of happiness, and including human ...
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Is the meaningfulness of life a relative measure of the absolute suffering we could bear?
I have come across many ways of philosophically explaining the "meaning" of life, such as the one put forth by Camus saying that life is inherently meaningless, and it is by living that we ...
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Is wealth intrinsically meaningful?
Is wealth intrinsically meaningful? Do wealthy people, even misers I guess, necessarily have some sort of meaning to their life? If not, then what relation does wealth have to the meaning of life?
The ...
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How does Marxist 'alienation' map onto (a lack of) "intersubjective meaningfulnes"?
How does Marxist 'alienation' map onto (a lack of) "intersubjective meaningfulness", how close is the latter to any form of 'alienation'?
I take it that the latter is readily understood: we ...
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Given everything decays and falls apart, does anything matter forever?
Given everything decays and falls apart, does anything matter forever? It's an obvious question, but a no would be quietly sobering and arguably leave us with a variant on hedonism, seeing as what ...
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Is there a difference between the purpose of life and the meaning of life?
Is there a difference between the purpose of life and the meaning of life? I am asking because most of the time when people ask the classic philosophical question, "What is the meaning of life?&...
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When is an illusion liberative?
I was thinking about cinema and how it might encourage us to see ourselves as movie stars in our own narratives, maybe like existential literature but without the sense of being trapped in that, and ...
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Does self transparency mean that human like existence, and nothing else, can be intrinsically valuable?
Does self transparency mean that human like existence, and nothing else, can be intrinsically valuable?
I was thinking maybe it is, becasue humans are capable of positing themselves as valuable, while ...
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What is the purpose of living? [closed]
So I've asked myself this question once and now I'm always trying to find an answer to this question (to be honest I'm not sure if it's possible). So I asked myself: "What is the purpose of ...
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Why people are still so much seeking status, instead of simply fairness and happiness?
In liberal democracies, basically, people don't need to fear getting killed at any moment, being put arbitrary in prison, or dying in misery. They, basically, can follow their personal path as they ...
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Which philosophers have defended both the claim that any attitude can ground meaning and moral error theory?
Which philosophers have defended both the claim that any attitude (a pro attitude to anything) can ground meaning and moral error theory? It may even be the the received view among the population in ...
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When someone profits from injustice, is life less meaningful?
Obviously most philosophers (and lay people) would consider injustice morally wrong^, but does it debase the meaning of everyone's life, just the beneficiary, just those that lose out or no-one's?
I'd ...
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Can life have meaning when all your happiness is from a clear illusion?
When all your happiness is from a clear illusion, is your life meaningless? I am not talking about intentionally living a lie, because I don't mean lying to yourself about it, but feeling as if it ...
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If someone lacks the will to live, can there still be anything he is willing to pursue?
After reading some posts such as What is the motivation of all individuals to stay alive? and Why care for anything in life? , we'd like to pose a question in a different (perhaps more accurate) way:
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Should we feel shame for living a meaningless life?
Should we feel shame for living a meaningless life? What if it's due not only to factors beyond our control but something like virtue?
I only ask because I'm worried I will never escape the cycle of ...
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'I want to be with you in heaven'
If you knew that suicide is not immoral, would it be virtuous to kill yourself - not because you were in pain and needed to escape - but merely due to a wish to end yourself before you fell into vice?
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If it doesn't matter to you whether something is AI, then do you matter?
If it doesn't matter to you whether something is AI, then do you matter? I won't bother clarifying every inference (there's a few) that is being made there, if only because the conclusion is very ...
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What is the best metaphor for not being able to die?
There does seem something out of the ordinary, strange, about having thoughts and feelings, let alone mine. Allow me to say that my rarity makes me valuable.
So dark matter - which makes up 27% of the ...
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What would be a reasonable response to this take that we shouldn't ponder abstract propositions about the meaning of life?
X says: “That moment when you realise that you've spent your entire life endlessly pondering abstract propositions about the meaning of life instead of actually feeling like you've led a meaningful ...
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I am struggling to believe there is anything good in humanity: can you help?
I feel neither like a sinner nor sinned against, but I am struggling to see any good in anyone or myself. I am reminded for the 100,000th time of "mankind is a bridge", and that's what we ...
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Is "what's the point?" the same as asking "what is the meaning of life"?
Is "what's the point?" the same as asking "what is the meaning of life"? I know I said both phrases, so I should know right? But I feel the former much more than the latter. Is it ...
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was Camus right in saying 'There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.'?
I think he was saying 'What makes life worth living?'. I do think that's important, but aren't other questions 'serious' too?
For me my topics I care about are meta/norm ethics, theology, metaphysics. ...
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Did Kierkegaard believe that we should live seeking meaning and not happiness?
Before I pose my question I want to say two things:
I have no formal training in Philosophy
I searched for similar questions but found none, please excuse me if this is a duplicate
I saw a YouTube ...
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A newbie's highly thought-upon plan for starting philosophy [closed]
How's it going guys, I hope you're all having a great time!
Greetings, to all the great minds here!
I would really appreciate your help with my entrance to the infinite world of philosophy.
First, I ...
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Any neuroscience-informed takes on the meaning of life?
Can science tell us objectively what the meaning of life is?
Are these the fellows to unlock the mystery?: dopamine, oxytocin, cortisol, seratonin, endorphins
I'm not sure of the status of ...
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Can a desire to leave a legacy be a form of 'other-worldliness' which should be subject to scrutiny?
I know of Nietzsche's criticism of afterlife-thinking.
I think Nietzsche himself may be guilty of this thinking -- not in terms of a Heavenly afterlife, but with desiring influence of his writings ...
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An Eternal Reward for Our Actions - Are There Strong Incentives to do Anything
I'm wondering:
Humans are mortal. Death seems to nullify any gains made by the self to the self.
Humans are subject to natural impulses towards actions (for example, we are compelled by natural ...
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What does it mean to truly fail at life?
What does it mean to truly fail at life? I only ask because I suspect I have. It is not that I am immoral or even inauthentic, but it seems that all I can do is encourage attitudes and behaviours, in ...
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Is it correct to say that all work is only an instrumental value and therefore it matters not whether or not someone can do it?
Another follow up Q to this series:
If all work is automated, what will humans be able to do?
Do humans need some agency over the world around them for their lives to have some sense or purpose?
It'...
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Is there a universal, timeless and deeply compelling reason to pursue anything?
Don Jack has a job, a few friends, often goes to the gym and has ambitious dreams of participating in life. Often he finds himself questioning whether he continues to pursue these things. The chain of ...
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How much suffering is needed for an overall happy life?
Premise: I have not studied Philosophy, and maybe I am out of context.
My question arises from two simple considerations:
Empirically, there seems to be no true happiness without some suffering (...
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Is the very idea of having objective meaning a logical contradiction? [closed]
Meaning by definition cannot occur unless it is subject to one's mind. But if something is subject to one's mind and interpretation, how can any sort of meaning be objective?
Even if every person on ...
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What to make of "time" and "time rightly spent" in the context of "the purpose of life"?
Friedrich Nietzsche in his Thus spoke Zarathustra told us a man should become a "overman" or "ubermensch" i.e. someone who believes in nihilism of universe (believing that life has ...
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Do humans need some agency over the world around them for their lives to have some sense or purpose?
This is a follow up to this question I was told to revise: If all work is automated, what will humans be able to do? After consideration I think that the only way to salvage that question is to break ...
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What is the difference, after death, of a 90-year-old and a one-year-old?
If there is a person who died at the age of 90 and a baby who died at one year old, what is the difference between them afterwards? They are both in a state of nothingness, they cannot remember or ...
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Should one abstain from a behaviour because they know why they engage in it?
I'm 16, I don't study psychology in college, only biology, chemistry, physics and maths, but I find evolutionary psychology incredibly interesting, because it's the only psychological theory that ...
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How to know what life is?
What we call ‘our life’ is about a period of time from birth to death. During that period, some might like to devote themselves to certain virtues, some to the religions-promised afterlife, some to an ...
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The definition of life
The prevailing biology of the modern era describes life as a system. A system is defined a set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an interconnecting network. The NASA definition of ...
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Were there philosophers who viewed nihilism in a positive light?
I’d like to know if there were philosophers who proposed the basic presupposition of existential nihilism as the reason to live life passionately. Put otherwise, were there philosophers who explained ...
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Outstanding allegories/definitions of body and life
The most famous definition of the human body is Plato's soma-sema, a prison, a tomb, a burden, then an archetype of perfection, a tool by which to reach balance: many are the allegories used by ...