Sum up the meaning of life in one sentence.

Post Reply New Topic

I've come to the determination that Sand is always correct, no matter what. And there can never be any doubt about his/her correctness.

I think realizing this, will make a lot of people much happier.

EDIT: Fixed for correctness.

Last edited by Philotix on 27 Dec 2009, 10:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

Actually I'm rather far to the left.

*smiles and nods* of course! I have corrected the error!

lol!
There was no error Philotix - the word you chose was accurate in this context. It just so happens to have more than one meaning and was interpreted other than the intended meaning incorrectly (and jokingly I assume!). If it were me I wouldn't have replaced it! lol Sand was rather wrong with his 'rather left' which evidently makes him not always right! lol However in my opinion being 'rather far to the left' is better than always being correct.

Life is a condition that exists in some complex systems characterized by the ability to take in information and materials from the external world in order to power itself and adapt to changing circumstances as well as to create seperate complex systems.

But I suppose you wanted something more philosophical eh?

Again, I know that's how this feels. We seem to have the choice to walk either the moral high road or the low road, take advantage of our talents if we choose to, work to even overhaul and change who we genetically should be if we find ourselves so much at odds with what society tries to peg us as (I've found myself as both of the former), you also have people who for whatever reason are given to apathy, nihilism, or even criminality of which doesn't seem either neurologically or hereditarily necessary or productive to their best interests. At the same time though, with all of the above, the motivational core of each person out there is a series of steps and processes. We all have our own filters, we all have our own subconscious priorities that are so fundamental that they can take what one sees of the same physical and scientific world and make their vision completely alien to another person and vice a versa. However, I firmly believe that the active seeking of choices that are either aimed at moral high-ground, or heroicism, or criminal shortcuts, or even the Marquis De Sade types who elevate short term gain as something sacred to them and damn the long term consequences as side effects unworthy of breaking their stride - these are all some of many major issues out there, types go on forever just about when you can consider the amounts of impression and stylization that our perspective and emotional worlds can take on.

All of that considered though - we're all wrought of the same process, the same DNA, the same 1:1 universe with a serial reality in time marching forward where, everything about us is set on precedent and our conscious weighing things out as well are all on precedent. I'm not at all saying that the alcoholic can't join AA and successfully give it up, I'm not saying that the man or woman who seeks abusive relationships can't get help and turn their lives around, I won't say that the petty criminal can't turn around do great in college and live a life from that point on much the contrary. I'm just saying, at our highest and lowest and even most surprising changes in self - I still don't think that its ncesessarily free will. Intrapersonal economics build up to certain thresholds which cause life epiphanies for positive (or negative) change, when confronted with hard moral decisions most of our sitting on the fence when its hard is rarely because we don't know what's right but because what's right is a bitter pill and the other option is much more alluring - if a person cares what's right they'll do what's right in that situaion no matter how many times they rewind it, its just a matter of them sitting down and coming to grips with how much even having to make the decision sucks and comes to a lose/lose. On the other hand the person who would cave in that moral decision has other dynamics at play which would change the ultimate economics, and that comes down to what in their reality (their motivational and subconscious core) they have the furthest up their heirarchical chain of priorities or truths/values to guide their own lives by. This is why, while I agree that it looks quite messy, I really believe that free will is - while a compelling illusion - its an illusion nonetheless.

I even tend to doubt that. Most suicides are from paradigm shifts in life and reality that are so nasty that suicide actually becomes one with that 'best choice' path.

Like it says in a science fiction book, Tambu, "all decisions should be B.A.D. decisions", where "B.A.D." stands for "best available data", so that the conclusion one comes to is based off of the most likely to be true information. However, people tend to colour the available data according to their belief system/ideologies/preconceived notions. In terms of committing suicide, it may be the "best decision" for someone who has determined to themself that it is not morally wrong and that life will be too difficult if they don't. For murdering someone, the "best decision" may be based upon them justifying that the ends of no longer having to deal with someone outweighs the consequences which they may question. For committing adultery, heck, this society as a whole has decided it's acceptable to freely run around hurting the feelings of loved ones, so long as there is fun and it is mutually consented to. For stealing, an individual may come to terms with their desire to get items for free "which shouldn't cost so much anyway". It's all a matter of perspective. For accepting or rejecting God, there are many factors, such as how anything which speaks positively of God is colored negatively, and anything which speaks negatively of God is colored positively. Also, one must weigh the freedom from a conscience which they would lose once God is in the picture. So, really the 'best choice' based on the 'best available data' also have to be factored in with the desires of the individual.

I have to laugh because you've brought another array into the equasion - what does the extent to which a person chooses analytical means or tactile/instinctive means of decision making actually of their own choosing? I know exactly what your saying, people can come to wildly different conclusions by being more emotively given or more analytically given, just like people can either make horrible mistakes in early life through emotion and decide that analytical thought is superior or, you can have a guy or girl who's stuck as a 30 or 40 year old virgin because they were analytical and they feel they need to throw it out to rectify the wrong they've done to themselves against nature's incorrigible sexual disgust with logical thought. It can flip back and forth even many times in a person's life time.

Still, I think that these are all factors controlled by fate just like the timing of decisions to change based on floating economic variables and at what point an earlier held belief has to be discarded to go on with life - or - when a person feels that they're so far at the end of the rope that they have to do something almost surreal and as ancient as the day is long. I'll admit, there could be something I'm not thinking of but, if there is, I don't believe that I'll find that kernel evidenced in human behavior as its all completely subject to matter, genes, environment, and possibly souls jumping in and out of this world if that's a variable. Even if there's a divine, I'm not sure how spirits or even God would have free will in any sense beyond what we do. True, if God exists he's part deity and part Houdini, anything's possible but on current scales I would wonder.

I never claimed that an individual's judgment would result in the most beneficent result. "Best" is relative to the chooser's viewpoint which may or not be distorted according to the general consensus of what is best. It's all relative, as is Einstein's time and space. Religion claims moral absolutes but there are none and although environment and culture undoubtedly declares absolutes they are mere man made standards. You cannot escape the inexorable forces of the universe for you are part of it. The mind, as everything else, is totally embedded within it.So called "higher" realms are just loony fantasies.

Actually, I'd be compassionate enough to offer that if they're really that driven toward it - perhapse it was what was best. Some people, under enough strain, can see the possibility of themselves either devolving into mere shells of who they were or even worse, into monsters of sorts.



The really strange thing, if we look at free will as an illusion, is that we find ourselves in an interesting situation looking at anything that comes along in human history or anything that humanity saw as something of a useful guidepost. IMO if the universe generated humanity and ultimately all human interaction from the beginning to the end is le destine - I hope I'm not going to far in this assertion but the universe didn't just create stars, planets, galaxies, nor did it just create plants, insects, mammals, and humans; it also created regional identity, cultural quisine, the seven wonders of the ancient world, the great artists of the renaissance, it created the Harlem Renaissance, it created jazz, it created rock & roll, it created everything from sci fi and horror movies to romantic comedy, and last but not least (the crux of what I'm getting at) - it also created religion. Just like if I write a piece and post it online thinking I did well enough on it to do so, whether I did well or whether it was complete crap, the universe was ultimately responsible for that piece - myself only a subset of the universe. I'm still trying to sort out exactly what that means in a broader sense, it could mean a lot - it could mean very little.

Our souls speak through us in dreams. If we choose one way in a dream, we don't necessarily choose that same thing upon waking. Same way, in our waking state, we may not choose the same thing that our soul aligns for us. The realizing person is the lucid person. Lucidity requires awareness + will.

Stop trying to give the universe awareness and a sense of right and wrong. It also created all sorts of human monsters like the recent dictators and the as*holes that are now running the world. The universe just makes all sorts of stuff and humanity has to sort it out and turn wolves into dachshunds and wire hair terriers. That we are part of the universe doesn't disable us, it merely makes us one of the forces that are active within it. We may think we are independent actors but we are not but we are still actors.

I'd just say that my outlook on whether there's any sort of universal awareness or substructure is largely ambivalent - I'm not out to prove it or disprove it, may have my proclivities to think it now or then, not sure where that's exactly poisonous or quite as patently absurd a possibility as some might argue. Likely we won't know until we're dead, if there is any ability to know anything at that point, what leads up to that is just us floating through life trying to sort things out to the best of our abilities.

I have to edit this to add one more thing though; on whether or not we're disabled by predestiny, when you think about it that's pretty much the definition in a nutshell. Its not to say that people can't individually be great, just that what they are or were or will choose is pretty much direct result of the thermodynamic relaxation of the big bang - in every way. In that sense I'm not sure that we can pick or choose what we have credit for, we essentially have full credit and no credit at the exact same time (credit for the shlepping but no credit for the decision-making processes or creativity, which is so because those things are action and action is all derivative of whatever first cause set it in motion, whether that first cause be divine or completelly and uterlly mundane).

Last edited by techstepgenr8tion on 27 Dec 2009, 10:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.

BTW, I'm up to about page 170 in that Paul Stern book on Jung. I can actually relate to his childhood and dual persoanlity a lot, though I think of it like this - society has a tendency to strongly label anyone, take one facet of a person and surgically discard the rest as garbage. People who are multifaceted by nature and to the face denied right to existence for those facets of self will have similar problems to what he had, not sure about seeing 'spirits' or going far enough off the deep end to have something of their own Pan's Labyrinth experience in waking life but - its there an its interesting. I think the way it fascinates me though is in a rather spiritually agnostic sense - that cernal he calls the soul, while its real, its still open to debate whether that's anything more than matter and chemicals; still its of vital importance to look at it especially if its giving you a lot of rocky feedback.

I will have to look into dream analysis just because, in the sense of the subconscious assimilating new data taken in throughout the day and sorting out how to deal with future scenarios, it might be wise for me to know if a dream means a lot about my current state of mental health or if it shows that I'm hiding from some aspect of myself to an unhealthy extent - things like that apparently can sneak up on you if you're not careful.

The notion of a soul is disconcerting for me. We have a mind and a body and potential. Whether that potential is to be a better person tomorrow or throughout infinite time - it doesn't matter because I know that it is certain to an extent. Whereas the only answer I have for the question of a soul is that it makes sense to some people but not to me. And that's okay for me.

I think the significance of dreams is unreliable and can cause less distress by ignoring them. lol! They are afterall - illusory.

Magnus - I love your last sentence about the requirement of both awareness and will. This is sort of what I've been trying to say as well. - If we are influenced by intelligent decisions, it increases our ability to exert more 'will'. Take for example a man who wishes to escape from prison. He very much has the will to do so. He spends time learning the routines of the prison guards and the locations of their surveillance. Eventually, with the development of this wisdom he is able to make wise choices thus enabling his will to become free.