The Search for Meaning!
The question of the meaning of life is one of the most important questions that face humans living in this universe. Every individual should reflect on this question and answer Why/How this world has meaning and what makes life worth living.
The answer to these questions effects every move we make. Many of the decisions we make with regard to Careers, Leisure time, Moral dilemmas, and other matters depend on how we answer the question of the meaning of life.
The question is not an easy one with simplistic answers, and the majority of people I find cannot be bothered, or even care about tackling the question. This is the problem with our world, we cry out that we have so many problems, but we don’t care about the most important questions of life. When it comes down to the most important questions, we are not interested. We must not be scared or overwhelmed of asking such deep questions about life.
The great Philosopher Plato, following socrates, once said, "That the unexamined life is not worth living". Plato’s simple statement is profound and grounded in the starting point for us to seek for an answer to the meaning of life. Unless we examine life, how can we know that life is worth living. Is life worth living just because I think or say it is worth living? People believe many things.
In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus writes,
"I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them reasons for living (what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions."(O’Brien, trans, The Myth of Sisyphus, p. 1)
Camus demonstrates a good point to think on. Do our beliefs or thoughts answer the question of wither life is worth living?
What we believe shapes how we live life, and we must have a foundation for "Why we believe, what we believe". What is our justification that the universe is indebted with meaning or is meaningful, or has a purpose or goal to achieve.
The question "What is the meaning of life" opens the doors to asking any of the following inquiries,
1.Why does the universe exist
2.Why is there something rather than nothing? Is there some plan for the universe?
3.Why do humans exist? Do they exist for some purpose? If so, what is it?
4.Why do I exist? Do I exist for some purpose? If so, how am I to find what it is? If not, how can life have any significance or value?
Some may be quick to think after reading these four inquiries that I am slowing drawing them in to a conclusion that will make them have to get into "God talk". I say this as I find as soon as one feels they are being directing to hear about God, they pull away and put the book down. This is not the case, I am looking at examining the world, as Plato said. I will be looking at the question by examining life and the universe, and this will include looking at the Theist response that God exists. But I will also be looking at the response of the Atheist for the meaning of life. Let us not be arrogant and try and keep safe without wanting to deal with examining both sides, and any other options.
We must come to an answer after examining all the data from its conclusions. To pull away from the inquiry is to show intellectual dishonesty.
E.D.Klemke in his chapter "The question of the meaning of life" in the book "The Meaning of life" gives an outline of the two approaches to the question,
"*According to the theistic answer, the meaning of life is found in the existence of a god-a supremely benevolent and all-powerful being, transcendent to the natural universe, but who created the universe and fashioned man in his image and endowed him with a preordained purpose. In this view, without the existence of God, or at least without faith in God, life has no meaning or purpose and hence is not worth living…
*The nontheistic (or humanistic) alternative, of course, denies the claim that the meaning of life is dependent on the existence of a god. According to this alternative, since there is no good reason to believe in the existence of a transcendent god, there is no good reason to believe that life has any objective meaning or purpose-that is, any meaning that is dependent on anything outside of the natural universe. Rather, the meaning of life, if there is one, must be found within the natural universe. Some adherents of this view go on to claim that there is no good reason to think life has any meaning in any objective sense, but there is a good reason to believe that it can nevertheless have meaning in a subjective sense. In other words, it is up to each individual to fashion or create his or her own meaning by virtue of his own consciousness and creative activity.(Klemeke, The Meaning of Life, p. 3)
Klemeke gives us some data to reflect on. I will latter on brake down these two views and examine them both critically. But for now I would like to just reflect on where these two views hold that they have meaning for life.
For the Theists,
"In this view, without the existence of God, or at least without faith in God, life has no meaning or purpose and hence is not worth living."
For the Nontheist (Atheist),
"But there is a good reason to believe that it can nevertheless have meaning in a subjective sense. In other words, it is up to each individual to fashion or create his or her own meaning by virtue of his own consciousness and creative activity."
Both views claim that they have meaning. For the Theist it is based on Gods existence for an objective meaning and the Atheist is based on that God does not exist, so there is no objective meaning, but one can have a subjective meaning. This is created fashioned for ones own life. This reflection can be broken down even more to two points for each view.
Theist
1. God exists?
2.Our belief or faith says we have meaning.
Atheist
1.There is know objective meaning nor God.
2.We create meaning for our lives.
When I say objective meaning, I am saying that there is a meaning or purpose or goal prescribed to the universe from outside the universe. This includes for objects, events, people lives, in the universe. This is prescribe to the universe and only exists if God exists.
When I talk about subjective meaning, I mean a meaning (Given by humans) that is created for something that has know objective meaning for being here.
Science can tell us what something is, and why it has become something, but it cannot tell why the universe or we exist.
John Cottingham in his book "The meaning of Life’ says of science,
"While science claims to provide as complete and comprehensive a description as it can of the universe, no matter how successful and unified the theory it ends up with, it cannot explain why there should be a universe there to be explained. We collide with the ancient philosophical question ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ and it seems clear on reflection that nothing within the observable universe could really answer this. If there is a solution to the riddle of life in space and time, it would have to lie outside space and time."(cottingham, The Meaning of Life, p. 7-8)
Cottingham makes a good point, that for us to have a reason for the meaning of the universe and why we are here and what our purpose is we would have to seek an answer from beyond the universe. Meaning is contained in a mind so this would have to be projected or prescribe by God. If God is the source and creator of finite reality, then the world is an interpretation of God’s mind and plan. God is the rational mind behind the universe and give his fashioned objects its design and its interpretation (meaning). If there is know God, then there is no objective meaning for the following,
1.Why does the universe exist
2.Why is there something rather than nothing? Is there some plan for the universe?
3.Why do humans exist? Do they exist for some purpose? If so, what is it?
4.Why do I exist? Do I exist for some purpose? If so, how am I to find what it is? If not, how can life have any significance or value?
Science tells us that the universe came from the Big-Bang, if it has know reasons for being here or purpose, then there is no answers to these questions. Atheism says that we can have subjective meaning for our lives. We just create our purpose and meaning.
Can one create meaning, I believe this is not possible. The philosopher Protagoras once said, "Man is the measure of all things". This implies that man has the power to generate meaning for all things. But this is clearly false.
Cottingham in his book "The Meaning of Life" says of this view,
"Man, said the philosopher Protagoras, is the measure of all things; of what is, that it is, and of what is not, that it is not. Socrates had little trouble refuting that piece of pretentiousness. Pretentious it is, in its arrogance; the Psalmist’s cry ‘It is he that hath made us and not we ourselves’. Whatever one may think of the underlying creed, at least has the humility to acknowledge the basic truth that we exist in the universe as wholly contingent beings, dependent on a reality we did not create…We create our theories, certainly, but we can only delay, never ultimately prevent, their collapes when they fail to measure up to the bar of actual experience."(Cottingham, The meaning of Life, p. 16)
Cottingham says that we do not invent meaning, we discover that we have meaning in our minds because reality has it. Man is not the measure of all things. To a point, reality is the measure of man. Man can only have and be what he has been created to be, wither this is from God or evolution. Yes we may use our meaning to describe a path we have chosen for life, but this does not explain where conciseness meaning came from!
Nietzsche was another philosopher who thought one could invent meaning from within. Cottinghams writes,
"How does Nietzsche’s heroic attempt to generate meaning from within? By supposing the unaided human will can create meaning, that it can merely by its own resolute affirmation bypass the search for objectively sourced truth and value, he seems to risk coming close to the Protagorean fallacy. For meaning and worth cannot reside in raw will alone; they have to involve a fit between our decisions and beliefs and what grounds those decisions and beliefs. That grounding may, as some religious thinkers maintain, be divinely generated; or it may be based on something else for example certain fundamental facts about our social or biological nature. But it cannot be created by human fait alone."(Cottingham, The Meaning of Life, p. 17)
What grounds their beliefs, if this world is objectively irrational and meaningless. Also we are part of the universe, so what gives our thoughts meaning. In fact we are saying nothing about reality at all. Why should what we think be meaningful? We do not invent meaning, we discover that we have it. It is part of reality, the universe. This means that the universe can not be irrational or meaningless, but must be meaningful.
The answer to these questions effects every move we make. Many of the decisions we make with regard to Careers, Leisure time, Moral dilemmas, and other matters depend on how we answer the question of the meaning of life.
The question is not an easy one with simplistic answers, and the majority of people I find cannot be bothered, or even care about tackling the question. This is the problem with our world, we cry out that we have so many problems, but we don’t care about the most important questions of life. When it comes down to the most important questions, we are not interested. We must not be scared or overwhelmed of asking such deep questions about life.
The great Philosopher Plato, following socrates, once said, "That the unexamined life is not worth living". Plato’s simple statement is profound and grounded in the starting point for us to seek for an answer to the meaning of life. Unless we examine life, how can we know that life is worth living. Is life worth living just because I think or say it is worth living? People believe many things.
In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus writes,
"I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them reasons for living (what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions."(O’Brien, trans, The Myth of Sisyphus, p. 1)
Camus demonstrates a good point to think on. Do our beliefs or thoughts answer the question of wither life is worth living?
What we believe shapes how we live life, and we must have a foundation for "Why we believe, what we believe". What is our justification that the universe is indebted with meaning or is meaningful, or has a purpose or goal to achieve.
The question "What is the meaning of life" opens the doors to asking any of the following inquiries,
1.Why does the universe exist
2.Why is there something rather than nothing? Is there some plan for the universe?
3.Why do humans exist? Do they exist for some purpose? If so, what is it?
4.Why do I exist? Do I exist for some purpose? If so, how am I to find what it is? If not, how can life have any significance or value?
Some may be quick to think after reading these four inquiries that I am slowing drawing them in to a conclusion that will make them have to get into "God talk". I say this as I find as soon as one feels they are being directing to hear about God, they pull away and put the book down. This is not the case, I am looking at examining the world, as Plato said. I will be looking at the question by examining life and the universe, and this will include looking at the Theist response that God exists. But I will also be looking at the response of the Atheist for the meaning of life. Let us not be arrogant and try and keep safe without wanting to deal with examining both sides, and any other options.
We must come to an answer after examining all the data from its conclusions. To pull away from the inquiry is to show intellectual dishonesty.
E.D.Klemke in his chapter "The question of the meaning of life" in the book "The Meaning of life" gives an outline of the two approaches to the question,
"*According to the theistic answer, the meaning of life is found in the existence of a god-a supremely benevolent and all-powerful being, transcendent to the natural universe, but who created the universe and fashioned man in his image and endowed him with a preordained purpose. In this view, without the existence of God, or at least without faith in God, life has no meaning or purpose and hence is not worth living…
*The nontheistic (or humanistic) alternative, of course, denies the claim that the meaning of life is dependent on the existence of a god. According to this alternative, since there is no good reason to believe in the existence of a transcendent god, there is no good reason to believe that life has any objective meaning or purpose-that is, any meaning that is dependent on anything outside of the natural universe. Rather, the meaning of life, if there is one, must be found within the natural universe. Some adherents of this view go on to claim that there is no good reason to think life has any meaning in any objective sense, but there is a good reason to believe that it can nevertheless have meaning in a subjective sense. In other words, it is up to each individual to fashion or create his or her own meaning by virtue of his own consciousness and creative activity.(Klemeke, The Meaning of Life, p. 3)
Klemeke gives us some data to reflect on. I will latter on brake down these two views and examine them both critically. But for now I would like to just reflect on where these two views hold that they have meaning for life.
For the Theists,
"In this view, without the existence of God, or at least without faith in God, life has no meaning or purpose and hence is not worth living."
For the Nontheist (Atheist),
"But there is a good reason to believe that it can nevertheless have meaning in a subjective sense. In other words, it is up to each individual to fashion or create his or her own meaning by virtue of his own consciousness and creative activity."
Both views claim that they have meaning. For the Theist it is based on Gods existence for an objective meaning and the Atheist is based on that God does not exist, so there is no objective meaning, but one can have a subjective meaning. This is created fashioned for ones own life. This reflection can be broken down even more to two points for each view.
Theist
1. God exists?
2.Our belief or faith says we have meaning.
Atheist
1.There is know objective meaning nor God.
2.We create meaning for our lives.
When I say objective meaning, I am saying that there is a meaning or purpose or goal prescribed to the universe from outside the universe. This includes for objects, events, people lives, in the universe. This is prescribe to the universe and only exists if God exists.
When I talk about subjective meaning, I mean a meaning (Given by humans) that is created for something that has know objective meaning for being here.
Science can tell us what something is, and why it has become something, but it cannot tell why the universe or we exist.
John Cottingham in his book "The meaning of Life’ says of science,
"While science claims to provide as complete and comprehensive a description as it can of the universe, no matter how successful and unified the theory it ends up with, it cannot explain why there should be a universe there to be explained. We collide with the ancient philosophical question ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ and it seems clear on reflection that nothing within the observable universe could really answer this. If there is a solution to the riddle of life in space and time, it would have to lie outside space and time."(cottingham, The Meaning of Life, p. 7-8)
Cottingham makes a good point, that for us to have a reason for the meaning of the universe and why we are here and what our purpose is we would have to seek an answer from beyond the universe. Meaning is contained in a mind so this would have to be projected or prescribe by God. If God is the source and creator of finite reality, then the world is an interpretation of God’s mind and plan. God is the rational mind behind the universe and give his fashioned objects its design and its interpretation (meaning). If there is know God, then there is no objective meaning for the following,
1.Why does the universe exist
2.Why is there something rather than nothing? Is there some plan for the universe?
3.Why do humans exist? Do they exist for some purpose? If so, what is it?
4.Why do I exist? Do I exist for some purpose? If so, how am I to find what it is? If not, how can life have any significance or value?
Science tells us that the universe came from the Big-Bang, if it has know reasons for being here or purpose, then there is no answers to these questions. Atheism says that we can have subjective meaning for our lives. We just create our purpose and meaning.
Can one create meaning, I believe this is not possible. The philosopher Protagoras once said, "Man is the measure of all things". This implies that man has the power to generate meaning for all things. But this is clearly false.
Cottingham in his book "The Meaning of Life" says of this view,
"Man, said the philosopher Protagoras, is the measure of all things; of what is, that it is, and of what is not, that it is not. Socrates had little trouble refuting that piece of pretentiousness. Pretentious it is, in its arrogance; the Psalmist’s cry ‘It is he that hath made us and not we ourselves’. Whatever one may think of the underlying creed, at least has the humility to acknowledge the basic truth that we exist in the universe as wholly contingent beings, dependent on a reality we did not create…We create our theories, certainly, but we can only delay, never ultimately prevent, their collapes when they fail to measure up to the bar of actual experience."(Cottingham, The meaning of Life, p. 16)
Cottingham says that we do not invent meaning, we discover that we have meaning in our minds because reality has it. Man is not the measure of all things. To a point, reality is the measure of man. Man can only have and be what he has been created to be, wither this is from God or evolution. Yes we may use our meaning to describe a path we have chosen for life, but this does not explain where conciseness meaning came from!
Nietzsche was another philosopher who thought one could invent meaning from within. Cottinghams writes,
"How does Nietzsche’s heroic attempt to generate meaning from within? By supposing the unaided human will can create meaning, that it can merely by its own resolute affirmation bypass the search for objectively sourced truth and value, he seems to risk coming close to the Protagorean fallacy. For meaning and worth cannot reside in raw will alone; they have to involve a fit between our decisions and beliefs and what grounds those decisions and beliefs. That grounding may, as some religious thinkers maintain, be divinely generated; or it may be based on something else for example certain fundamental facts about our social or biological nature. But it cannot be created by human fait alone."(Cottingham, The Meaning of Life, p. 17)
What grounds their beliefs, if this world is objectively irrational and meaningless. Also we are part of the universe, so what gives our thoughts meaning. In fact we are saying nothing about reality at all. Why should what we think be meaningful? We do not invent meaning, we discover that we have it. It is part of reality, the universe. This means that the universe can not be irrational or meaningless, but must be meaningful.
posted by Rich7 at 5:11 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home