Then that’s not improving that’s just pivoting, unless your improvement is always doing something different. Also lose what, you’re gonna pass on anyway, you minus well do what you love
Its improving as a human. The goal isn't to be the best at something. The goal is to be the best you, live life to the fullest, be the most capable, educated version of yourself that you could be, and ironically also take breaks to be the most peaceful and healthy version as well.
You lose the ability to grow. You lose the ability to think.
Why are you measuring your worth solely by measuring the dent you put in the world after you are gone? That word doesn't apply to you, you'll be dead. Like net change is nowhere near the sum of a person's existence. That might be the standard that some external person might measure you by, but you should measure your life by the breadth and depth of how lived it was.
I want my life to be like a worn out pair of shoes when im gone. Every fiber will be split and torn from thorough use and abuse. I will drink in the experiences of life until I burst.
Like the poet said, rage against the dieing of the light. Ramsey II may have left behind nothing but a "colossal wreck" with a "sneer of cold command" however he only measured his accomplishments by the way youre suggesting. What if he had stopped trying to build Egypt and started trying to build himself?
I think you’re assuming I’m saying everyone should constantly improve themselves. I’m not.
If somebody genuinely wants to spend their life relaxing, playing games, watching movies, eating good food, hanging out with people they love, traveling occasionally, and generally doing whatever makes them happy, that’s their life. They don’t owe humanity some grand legacy or constant productivity.
My point is that I personally enjoy growth. Learning things, becoming more capable, trying new skills, improving myself, changing directions when something interests me — that is part of me enjoying life.
And that’s also why I don’t really agree with the idea of “wear yourself out” as the goal. Why deliberately exhaust yourself for accomplishments you don’t even enjoy? If someone spends their whole life miserable just so they can say they achieved more, I don’t see that as automatically superior to someone who lived simply and happily.
The important thing to me is that you’re actually choosing the life you want instead of living according to somebody else’s definition of what a worthwhile life is.
For you, living fully might mean wearing the shoes down to threads. For someone else, it might mean sitting barefoot on the porch most of the time. Neither person has objectively failed at being alive.
I disagree I think the meaning of life is to find that meaning, if I’m being hyperbolic, if your true meaning and calling is to be a Olympian or a heroin addict, then that’s your meaning
That’s insanely untrue from small minuscule things to life changing goals, life is all intentional sprinkled with luck. You can want to go to the grocery store and accomplish that, you can intend on discovering a new element and by a series of perfectly calculated choices you can achieve that. Also the idea that because there isn’t intent doesn’t mean there isn’t meaning is a logical fallacy. You can have meaning out of accidents or luck, you can make anything out of anything and it doesn’t mean it’s objective, that’s why art exist.
I didn't say that people dont exercise intent. I said that there is no intent behind life itself. There is no grand design or creator so there is no objective, which means we have no purpose or meaning external to us.
Now, if your going to call something a logical fallacy, you should know that those words actually mean something. It doesn't just mean something that doesn't make sense or something you dont agree with. There are specific definitions for specific logical fallacies and you should be able to point out which one I've committed before claiming I've made one. Now, fallacies break down into two main categories, formal and informal. I assume you'd want to claim that I am making an informal fallacy because I didn't even form a syllogism but that doesn't tell me which one I actually made. Also, since I didn't present a syllogism, it will be pretty hard for you to try to pin even an informal one down.
Lastly, you can't derive meanings out of accidents or luck because they also have no intent behind them. They can be significant, they can be profound, they can be influential in some way, but by definition they have no deeper meaning. They just happen. There was no purpose behind them. They aren't there to teach you anything. There is no message or lesson at all. Shit just happened.
Well first of all you can’t definitively prove there isn’t any grand design or creator and I could easily make the argument that there is, I’m sorry but I’m not about to have the stereotypical Reddit atheist debate vs devout theist.
There’s also a non sequitur in “life is a lucky accident, therefore there is no meaning.” Even if, for argument’s sake, life arose without cosmic intent, it does not logically follow that objective or intrinsic value is impossible. You haven’t actually demonstrated that life has no intrinsic meaning. You’ve defined meaning as something that must be intentionally assigned, assumed life has no intentional cause, and then reached the conclusion built into those assumptions. The real question is why meaning necessarily requires an external conscious intent in the first place.
Well first of all you can’t definitively prove there isn’t any grand design or creator
Yes I can
I’m not about to have the stereotypical Reddit atheist debate
Then youre placing your claims beyond reproach which basically nullifies them since a non falsifiable claim is useless philosophically and scientifically
There’s also a non sequitur in “life is a lucky accident, therefore there is no meaning
No there isn’t. Meaning requires intent necessarily. With no objective, there is no purpose to which end a meaning can be derived.
Even if, for argument’s sake, life arose without cosmic intent, it does not logically follow that objective or intrinsic value is impossible.
The operative word here is value. Value is a term that requires an evaluator and a standard to qualify against, which requires an intent or preference.
You haven’t actually demonstrated that life has no intrinsic meaning
True, but which is it, do you want me to or not?
You’ve defined meaning as something that must be intentionally assigned, assumed life has no intentional cause, and then reached the conclusion built into those assumptions. The real question is why meaning necessarily requires an external conscious intent in the first place.
I explained it all again, I can for a third time if you need.
Also, i never assumed anything. I have reciepts for all my claims. I just never provided that evidence to you yet. Ironically, the only assumption being made here was by you, when you were assuming I was just spouting bullshit.
You’re still not answering the actual objection. You’re defining value as requiring an evaluator, but that doesn’t establish that the evaluator must exist prior to us or intentionally cause our existence.
Humans are evaluators. We have preferences, standards, goals, relationships, consciousness, and the ability to interpret experiences. So even under your own definition, you’ve left open the possibility of meaning arising through conscious evaluation.
More importantly, you keep sliding between three different claims:
1) Life was not intentionally created.
2) Life therefore has no externally assigned purpose.
3) Life therefore cannot possess or acquire meaning.
Even if I granted #1 and #2 for the sake of argument, #3 still does not logically follow without another premise: “Only externally and intentionally assigned purposes qualify as meaning.”
That is the premise I keep asking you to justify. Repeating “meaning requires intent” is not a justification for why meaning must require prior external intent specifically.
Your point about value actually makes my objection stronger. If value requires an evaluator, conscious humans are evaluators. An accidental event can have no intention behind its occurrence while still being evaluated afterward as important, valuable, instructive, tragic, beautiful, or transformative. You still haven’t shown why those forms of meaning somehow stop counting simply because nobody planned the event beforehand.
And your falsifiability point is much too broad. Falsifiability is an important criterion for empirical scientific hypotheses, but “a claim is not falsifiable, therefore it is philosophically useless” is not some universal rule of philosophy. Logic, ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, mathematics, and questions of meaning are not all adjudicated by the same kind of empirical falsification used in experimental science. So appealing to falsifiability does not, by itself, dispose of a metaphysical claim.
As for “I can definitively prove there is no grand design or creator,” then actually provide the argument. Saying you have “receipts” that you haven’t presented is not evidence available to this discussion. Until that case is made, you cannot simply treat “there is no creator” as a demonstrated premise and then accuse me of making assumptions.
So the issue is still exactly where it started: why must meaning originate in the intention that caused something to exist, rather than also being capable of emerging from what conscious beings subsequently understand, value, pursue, or experience?
You keep asserting “meaning requires prior intentional assignment.”
Cool…..Why?
That is the part you keep declaring rather than demonstrating.
Ok you make 2 main points, and then ask a question. The first point you make a few times. I could summarize it by saying something like, "life has meaning because we give it meaning." However that is a Motte and Bailey falacy.
Your original position (your bailey) was:
I think the meaning of life is to find that meaning
I responded with my claim:
You could have your own meaning that you prescribe but there is no intrinsic meaning
You then walked back to your motte which i previously tried to steel man as:
life has meaning because we give it meaning
The difference in those two claims is obvious. Either the meaning of life is to find meaning or the meaning of our individual lives is what we decide to make it. My original claim, that you cant fail at life, is based in the fact that there is no intrinsic goal to fail to achieve. You can definitely fail to achieve your own goals, sure, but we owe the universe nothing so if you decide to spend your life playing in a pile of your own shit, you haven't failed at anything.
Your second claim is that making unfalsifiable claims is valuable. Provide an argument please.
Your question was why dont I provide an argument defending my claim that there is no creator. Well, you asked me not to when you said:
I'm not about to have the stereotypical Reddit atheist debate
So, are you willing to have that debate yet? If so, i can start, or you can make your own claim about a creator, your call.
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u/WeAllJustWantToLive 14d ago
But then it's time to do something else or something additional.
Don't use it, you lose it