Re: What do you think is the purpose of life in general?
Original question:
There obviously is no single or correct answer. But maybe there is a good answer. I would like to simplify it as just, to live how we should live. Any more detail may be trivial and not apply to life in general. Any less I feel would leave out an important aspect of life.
Nowhere in that statement is happiness explicitly mentioned, because I think that it is inappropriate and somewhat unuseful to recommend that someone simply "be happy." (I say somewhat unuseful because "be happy" may be profoundly meaningful to some, and not at all to others). I think that the items mentioned will consistently lead to happiness when applied with personally relevant details. In that way, happiness may be one of the primary goals, but not simply the endgame. The components mentioned may evoke emotions, benefits, and levels of being, beyond simple happiness.
To apply those things to myself, I would say that the purpose of my life would include a combination of passionately living and experiencing, understanding myself and others, and using that understanding to improve myself as well as to help others improve. This may change as I progress in life, but it is where I stand as of now.
It is difficult to specify scale for the concept of purpose in life. I think that it can incorporate any permutation of personal, social/communal, and universal components. I prefer to measure purpose in life on the personal and communal levels. Universal purpose is abstractly elusive.
My motivation for doing simple and small things is largely based on entertainment. My motivation for doing greater, longer-lasting, future-affecting things is based on my current perceived purpose of my life. That and survival, desired lifestyle, and all those other boring things.
What do you think is the purpose of life in general? Of your life?This seems to be the question, especially of our time. More and more people wonder about this kind of thing, and we have the luxury to be curious about it.
At what scale do you measure purpose in life?
What motivates you?
There obviously is no single or correct answer. But maybe there is a good answer. I would like to simplify it as just, to live how we should live. Any more detail may be trivial and not apply to life in general. Any less I feel would leave out an important aspect of life.
Nowhere in that statement is happiness explicitly mentioned, because I think that it is inappropriate and somewhat unuseful to recommend that someone simply "be happy." (I say somewhat unuseful because "be happy" may be profoundly meaningful to some, and not at all to others). I think that the items mentioned will consistently lead to happiness when applied with personally relevant details. In that way, happiness may be one of the primary goals, but not simply the endgame. The components mentioned may evoke emotions, benefits, and levels of being, beyond simple happiness.
To apply those things to myself, I would say that the purpose of my life would include a combination of passionately living and experiencing, understanding myself and others, and using that understanding to improve myself as well as to help others improve. This may change as I progress in life, but it is where I stand as of now.
It is difficult to specify scale for the concept of purpose in life. I think that it can incorporate any permutation of personal, social/communal, and universal components. I prefer to measure purpose in life on the personal and communal levels. Universal purpose is abstractly elusive.
My motivation for doing simple and small things is largely based on entertainment. My motivation for doing greater, longer-lasting, future-affecting things is based on my current perceived purpose of my life. That and survival, desired lifestyle, and all those other boring things.
posted by Ted Miin at 11/03/2006 12:41:00 AM
8 Comments:
Isn't it obvious that such a question is nonsensical? Isn't it clear that things simply are and that any attempt to posit a meaning is a result of some foolishness? Of course saying there is no meaning actually traps one more deeply in this circuit (because one assumes that there is no meaning when actually meaning is something that is constantly assumed and therefore must be sidestepped).
Now of course there is a qualitative leap when you go to the question: what do you want for your life? (or the life of your community). Because then it is a question not of meaning per se but of desire, which after all is the same thing, as desire is what determines meaning.
To say that the question of "what is the meaning of life" is the question of the day is to argue that alienation from desire, from purpose, is precisely that which defines our time. And indeed, in a world without communities but only falsely autonomous individuals dominated by power and ideology this makes a lot of sense.
Though it is not particular something I'd like to see continue...
What thinks you?
Assuming purpose and meaning are the same in this context, I don't think this question is nonsensical at all. To question the purpose is to seek the why. What is the purpose of life, is simply why do we live. If we have and take control, this is just a question of how we should choose to live, which is the reasoning for the manner in which I responded to the initial question.
This is closely related to what you mention about how meaning and desire are the same thing. Explaining meaning is done by explaining desire. This best applies on the personal level, but can apply to community as well, depending on how you look at humanity.
I don't think that consideration of "what is the meaning of life" implies alienation from desire and purpose. The thought directed in that area arises from more than just fuctional rationale. Although that may commonly be the case today as you mentioned, the question does not require those precursors in order to be asked. If we are simply discussing the implications of the generalization made about that question being foremost in our time, then I would agree fully. Autonomy is a spark and catalyst for that kind of thinking.
I too would like to disassemble autonomy.
Nice thoughts... although I sometimes feel that you guys think too abstractly about things. I think that sometimes it's worth considering things from a more concrete perspective, so I wanted to add in one thought here.
One thing you guy didn't really specify, but implied, was the sense in which you analyzed the question - very much the philosophical sense, but I guess that's what you're about. My personal philosophy includes the idea that different senses in which you can look at an issue are related. So, one might garner some perspective into a question like "what is the purpose of life" by choosing a sense (or arena) in which the question is very basic, instead of very complex.
For instance, in the biological sense, the purpose of life is very simple. In this sense, life is an ordering of things which results in the replication of itself. The purpose of life, biologically, is to produce more life.
Of course, this doesn't mean the purpose of an individual's life is to produce more life, since this is only looking at the issue in one sense. However, based on my philosophy, I think there's something to be learned about the overall purpose of life from even this simple component.
What do you think?
When I first read the original question, I only thought about it in the philosophical sense. I assumed that the question was asked in accordance with contemporary popular inquiry. I may have been thinking too simply.
Though I think that the biological perspective is still closely related to db's "things simply are" statement. To draw the connection, I would say that the production of more life could be simplified as maintaining or continuing existence. Worded in that way, purpose as existence feels a lot like to "simply [be]."
I don't really think about this question biologically because I think that humans are breaking/have broken a lot of the conventional rules of biology. An example that I would like to discuss is natural selection.
Natural selection, as well as evolution in general, in some ways as applied to the human race is oddly incongruent to the science as applied to other organisms of study. To analyze biologically, we have developed practically incomprehensible (for now) systems of mate selection, and obey many biologically suboptimal rules expressed in cultures and religions.
It would seem as if our developed mental abilities have introduced complexities that biology can no longer accurately account for.
That, and a scientific approach feels oddly unfulfilling, as its scope is so limited by calculated reliability. But that could be just me.
Your thoughts?
There is no natural purpose. Reproducing life is not a purpose but a description. Saying that this is purposive is to say that apples fall because they want to, i.e. it is making a mistake between description and religion, i.e. assigning purposes to things. The fact that religion is implied in how we talk doesn't mean we should make this mistake.
Desire and meaning are not the same thing; wanting creates meaning, yes, but meaning is nonsensical without wanting. Therefore to say the meaning of life is to reproduce life is meaningless if I don't want to reproduce life.
Meaning and purpose are not the same thing, purpose is action with meaning, meaning is an abstract quantity that is attached to things, and is nonsensical without purpose. If meaning and purpose are not the same thing, for example if the meaning of life is life and there is no purpose in life, then everything falls apart. Praxis (theory with pratice) is essential.
I think the purpose of life is to be the revolution...which of course means finding many more people.
db
For ted, yes, the scientific scope is very unfulfilling, but it was never meant to be the extent of the analysis - just some food for thought. I agree that our mental capabilities have apparently introduced complexities that biology doesn't account for.
As for db: "meaning is nonsensical without wanting"... "purpose is action with meaning"... when combined, these imply that purpose is also meaningless without wanting. Which means that most of existence is without purpose. Is that what you're trying to say?
Also, you think of purpose in a very explicit manner, by defining it through meaning. What do you think of a more implicit manner - that is, that purpose is defined by the actions that one takes?
I think the question of purpose as what you do through action is precisely the mistake that you are making. While one might define one's purpose through what one does, or reflect back on what one has done and define one's purpose that way, or realize that one's purpose is already set out, purpose is not something that things have. Apples do not fall for a purpose, they fall, human action happens and we assign purposes to it.
This is both to say that purpose is an essential part of how we operate but also one to notice and be wary of, as in the biological argument--that is NOT a real purpose--life does NOT exist to reproduce itself, though it does seem to DO so. There is an important difference between doing and doing for a reason.
Existence, if that was somehow separable from language, ideology, processing for meaning, i.e. how we give things purposes, would be without purpose. However as these things are fundamentally part of us what is important is to not be fooled by bad arguments, either in politics or in life, and noticing this difference is a important way of doing so.
Another thought:
Maybe a practical issue here is proper authority.
We are speaking of purpose very abstractly, separating inherent universal purpose from assigned purpose. That assigned purpose may be all that people care about. All that people can usefully care about at least. And people that ask the question "what is the purpose of life" may be considering it in that more practical manner.
Some things may still get nowhere with this consideration. "What is the purpose of the color purple," for example. (Maybe someone could come up with something interesting for that question). And if we want to just toss "what is the purpose of life" into this undefinable objects category, we can immediately and efficiently end all thought about it.
But consider it from the design standpoint. "What is the purpose of a resumé" for example. The author created the object for a specific reason, and it only has a few real purposes for the creator. The item itself may find other uses and meet other descriptions, but those would merely expand the variety and scope of the resumé's purpose. It would be unreasonable to claim that the document now "simply is." It has a purpose. It is reasonable to define its purpose because we are discussing it in the context of the proper relevant authority.
The purpose of more complex but not inscrutable things may not be as simple, but is also not impossible to analyze. We may not have direct communicative contact with the proper authority in the matter of life, but we can analyze and infer. Biologically, living things notably exhibit genetic and behavioral mechanisms that all especially promote survival and reproduction. (Living things up to but not necessarily including humans). That does not mean that these are the purposes of those living things, but it would not be unreasonable to say that they are among the set of items that might describe its purpose.
So who or what is the proper authority on human lives? Ourselves? God? Science/nature? Society? Thinking about purpose within those contexts may be what people are looking for, purposes that are not as abstractly elusive.
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