jthm post=18.73440.796303 said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism
I rather suspect that those of you who describe yourselves as optimistic cynics, pessimistic nihlists and most of you who put forth some pseudo philosophy like Anton Lavey's would find this link helpful.
Absurdist all the way.
Okay, looking at the table on your referenced Wikipedia page I can enumerate my philosophy quite well...
1. There is such a thing as "meaning" or "value" to be found in life
Yes, but it is only subjective and ephemeral (i.e. short-lived)
2. There is inherent meaning in the universe (either intrinsic or from God)
No. Incidentally, I do not personally believe in God, Jesus, the Devil, Buddha, Shiva, or Santa Claus. I try to live in
Reality...
3. Individuals can create meaning in life themselves
Yes, but inevitably this will be inconsistent with other people/groups who have other ideas. I have no morality, yet strive for good manners
4. The
pursuit of intrinsic or extrinsic meaning in the universe is a futile gesture
Ultimately, yes.
I can also explain why:
When people ask the question "What is the meaning of Life?" they are looking for the
definitive answer to the question they have in mind even though one person may want to know why the Universe exists and another may want to know the ultimate goal for our species. The very large number of conflicting answers to this question implies that there is a difficulty with it, but it isn't that it can't be answered. Rather, the problem is that it can't be
asked. Just look at the question grammatically and you will see why.
There is no problem with the words
LIFE,
MEANING, or
THE; although most of the problems would go away if you were to rephrase the question as "What is a meaning of Life?" - however, it is the definitive, ultimate, eternal answer that is sought.
The actual problem is with the word
OF.
Just think about it for a moment. When you ask a smaller (answerable) question, such as "What is the url of the Escapist?" you are talking about the intrinsic qualities of an entity/object/system that is
in the Universe and part
of Life. Everything under discussion lies within the totality of everything that could potentially be referred to by language. Yet
LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING is such a large 'set' that you can not put yourself conceptually outside of it to ask the question objectively.
In other words, you can only objectively use
OF when you can ensure that you and the language you use form a disjoint set and as there can be no disjoint set to the universal set, there can be no fully independent point of view. Therefore, there is no
extrinsic meaning of life.
So, all attempts at an eternal, definitive, objective answer are futile. Yet, subjective, ephemeral, personal (consoling/motivating/etc,) answers are worthwhile provided that it is accepted that they hold no ultimate authority and are all essentially dead-ends in the long term.
5. The pursuit of
constructed meaning is a futile gesture
Not really, as I have explain in
4. the only meaning of life one can adopt is personal and subjective and flawed because it is necessarily ephemeral and not definitive, yet even without an ultimate meaning to live by I enjoy myself. Accept these limitations and you will realize that you have to be tolerant of other people's 'concepts of ephemeral meaning' whilst being able to be wary of people of faith whose often fundamentalist 'concept of ultimate meaning' is the only way things can be despite being fundamentally untenable.
So, I suppose it boils down to three things:
Good manners. Tolerance. Avoidance.
Or in the wise words of Bill S. Preston, Esquire:
'Be excellent to each other.'
