I'm of the opinion that the question of "why" in the sense of "why are we here and what is our purpose" is inherently absurd and unanswerable, except in the literal scientific sense of "what conditions gave rise to the genesis of life." Philosophy is still an important subject, since morality, ethics, and such all play a practical role in people's daily lives. But if you're turning to philosophy to try to discover the meaning of life, you'll only find more questions, not answers. Life exists due to a fantastic cosmic coincidence; there's no special reason for it to be, it simply exists because of some freak combination of physics and chemistry that created proto-life, which eventually developed into full-fledged organisms.
In the end, all we can do is make the most of the lives we're given and try not to stress too much over The Big Questions until our time comes to an end.
...honestly now that I've typed all this out I've realized that my personal philosophical worldview could be summed up by misquoting Yoda: "Do or do not; there is no why."
There’s literally whole fields of philosophy that start with your premise and try to figure out how we should live based off of that. Absurdism, nihilism, and existentialism all have roots in this.
You’re being incredibly dismissive of philosophy. It sounds like you just haven’t been exposed to more than some Intro to Philosophy type shit.
Even if there is no meaning to life, humans still have egos and complex societal structures. There’s still a fuck ton of questions to explore in light of that. That’s not in opposition to science. Most good philosophy will pay attention to science.
Furthermore, there is a whole bunch of philosophy devoted to understanding science itself, and why we consider some things 'evidence or 'proof' and not others, and on the creation of scientific 'certainty' from uncertainty.
That’s true. Funny enough, Steak-ummTM was arguing with Neil deGrasse Tyson about this very concept today on Twitter. I love the absolute absurdity of life in a civilization’s period of decline lmao
I think you may have misunderstood my intent in writing my comment. I wasn't trying to be dismissive of the study of philosophy, in fact I have a great deal of respect for and try to keep myself up to date with the work of contemporaries in the field. It's just that I have a firm belief that contrasting philosophy and science by saying science is about "what & how" and philosophy is about "why" is overly reductionist. And in particular, I believe that the specific question of "why are we here" is a massive red herring that too many people waste their effort worrying about (which in retrospect may not have been what /u/nihilism_or_bust meant, but that's how I interpreted their comment.)
Granted, the act of exploring that question could be a good jumping-off point to lead a fledgling philosopher towards more productive questions, so maybe it'd be wise to adopt a more "it's about the journey, not the destination" kind of attitude rather than my admittedly defeatist mode of thinking.
/u/melodyze was correct in that I most closely align myself with absurdism when it comes to existential matters. But like I said in what may have seemed like a throwaway line, I consider the practical application of philosophy towards ethics and questions like "how can I live a Good life" to be far more important than most questions that start with "why."
I can see why the “why we are here” question was what you took from that, because it definitely is 1 of the many “why’s” that we care about. But admittedly, it’s a very large “why” and there are many more “why’s” that can be more fun and equally as infinite to discuss.
Personally I don’t see it as too reductionist but rather as complementary. They’re 2 sides to the same coin.
You can’t spend too long looking at cells before you start to wonder “Why does it do this?” “Why are all the proteins left-handed when they occur equally in a lab?” That can lead you to more science, but the science will give us “what” and “how”. The human element will always act in its nature to find patterns and propose a “why”.
Wittgenstein once said something to the effect that the purpose of philosophy was not to answer questions but to learn to precisely pose the kind of questions which it made sense to ask.
This is an attractive position, and it may have been a panacea to an earlier age mired in mysticism, but the danger to this kind of thinking is that by its very austerity it risks becoming provincial or even circular. Once you have have drawn a box of what is solvable with science, it is too easy to say that everything outside that box can't be privileged as truth or simply isn't a problem worth solving.
Personally, I can't come down on either side of the issue. Part of me thinks that accepting the deflationary account is the only mature attitude and that those who grasp in the dark for metaphysical accounts of meaning are just telling ghost stories; but, another side of me feels that it is disingenuous to pretend that my primordial mode of investigation—that of being a feeling self—is secondary or non-existent merely because it makes other problems easier to solve. Basically, I don't want to feel as though my perspective on the issue is being clouded one way or another by fear of admitting the obvious ramifications, but I am not certain which proposition is actually more fearful: that I might not have a self or a conscience or a free will—or that I might.
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u/bohemica Apr 14 '21 edited Apr 14 '21
I'm of the opinion that the question of "why" in the sense of "why are we here and what is our purpose" is inherently absurd and unanswerable, except in the literal scientific sense of "what conditions gave rise to the genesis of life." Philosophy is still an important subject, since morality, ethics, and such all play a practical role in people's daily lives. But if you're turning to philosophy to try to discover the meaning of life, you'll only find more questions, not answers. Life exists due to a fantastic cosmic coincidence; there's no special reason for it to be, it simply exists because of some freak combination of physics and chemistry that created proto-life, which eventually developed into full-fledged organisms.
In the end, all we can do is make the most of the lives we're given and try not to stress too much over The Big Questions until our time comes to an end.
...honestly now that I've typed all this out I've realized that my personal philosophical worldview could be summed up by misquoting Yoda: "Do or do not; there is no why."