[b]All who dont feel like taxing yourselves, come have a look anyway..[/b]
[i]Inb4 42
Inb4 Tl'dr
Inb4 NEEEERRD[/i]
Suppose, The meaning of life is value creation. That does not mean that the meaning of life is value. Meaningfulness is to value as efflorescence is to flowers. Efflorescence flowers and meaning and value. Instead, just as the plant is efflorescent if it produces flowers, a life or an action or a whatever is meaningful if it's one that creates value.
Think of [i]Sisyphus[/i]. Sisyphus is the guy who the gods condemned to pushing a rock up a hill for all eternity, just so it could fall back down the hill for him to push back up again. For all eternity. That sounds like fun does it not Bnet?
His life is the epitome of meaninglessness and futility. Why? What is it missing? It wouldn't matter if the rock pushing was actually strenuous, or even if he got a small sense of satisfaction from pushing it up before the rock fell back down again. His life is meaningless because nothing of value will ever come out his activity. Forever.. sucks right?
His life sucks. And ours might, too. How do you know that Sisyphus cannot derive value from rolling the boulder up the hill? Because is there really anything out there we can do that is different in character from the meaningless pushing of rocks up hills such that something of actual value is created? Just because It seems to arbitrarily stipulate objective conditions for subjective value-creating does mean it cannot simulate a microsm of life in itself.
Would not this be the case? I'd think so. All art may be temporary, good times may be temporary, our loved ones may be temporary, and even our memories may be temporary. But in the moments we grasp them in our senses and cherish them - I think value is happening. Value might be like bubbles - sweet, beautiful and ultimately evanescent.
Yes, they ultimately pop, but what's important is that we fill our lives with as many of them as possible. Big ones. Long-lasting ones. Exceptionally unique and beautiful ones. But lots of them. And that we leave some of the best behind for the ones we love, too. Is this not superior to having no life what so ever athough you might be just valuing blowing bubbles or playing Video Games?
As for value, itself. It's definitely subjective. If it were objective, that would suck since life would be all about doing what the universe wants of you, rather than what you want of you. Life would just be a loop of that time you were having a great time with your friends but were forced to stop because of some list of chores. But it's not objective. Life is not a list of chores (Unless you follow a Kantian rule of the Catagorical nature of moral imperitves and duties).
Life is actually A Bunch of Opportunities to Do Something Awesome. Play some great games. Do something romantic. Scribble up the Mona Lisa. Build connections with people. Become the world's leading expert in something. Save someone from a moment of desperation. Make the perfect cake. Give. Whatever.
These opportunities can be ignored. Some opportunities can be emphasized over others. There is definitely an ideal - a perfect way you could and should organize your time and behavior such that value gets maximized. You should definitely aspire for it. You should definitely seek to get the most out of life. You definitely shouldn't be the sort of person who always fails at life. This includes not just losers and creeps, but also assholes and douchebags, Evil Human Beings and Basically Unpleasant People. These people suck. The most value they can extract out of life is the utter excitement of seeing a bubble pop. They don't just make life bad and meaningless for them, but also for us by destroying the systems of trust and goodwill we need make truly great and plentiful bubbles of value in the world.
Despite being subjective, what makes something valuable is independent of we think or even of what we want. The difference between things that are desired and things that are truly worthy of desire is straightforward. It might be theoretically possible for us to desire insufferable circumstances for their own sake, but by definition those circumstances are bad. To get precisely what one wants would be a tragedy in a very objective sense for the individual if what the individual ultimately gets from his wanting is suffering and suffering alone.
So even in a world where value isn't a list of chores, we still have to go looking for it.
We still have to figure out more concretely what to pursue and how to do it.
Even while avoiding the sort of paralysis that comes with thought about this issue.
Because every moment counts in the quest for a meaningful life. So here is my suggestion: that life has no meaning unless it reaches beyond itself. Which must mean that actions which have far reaching consequences are of the most value? In some cases; obviously.
Right?
[b]Chu think Savages?
Oyeah. I will give out a random [url=http://i44.tinypic.com/23w8rjc.jpg]Destiny poster [/url]to
someone who engages themselves. Bnet needs more actual decent discussions.[/b]
[u]UPDATE: Loving he disscussion here folks. I think I will post more of these types of threads if people want me to. Some of the posts I have got have already given me some more topics to bring up. Just follow me uf you want to be updated.[/u].
~Peace~
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Yup! The horse knows all.