Life is not real, it is like a dream, just a temporary memory, it will be gone and never come back again, therefore, whether you are rich or poor, clever or stupid, whatever you are, life is still a meaningless thing. Life is fake.
Everyday, how do we live? We live on processing information in our memory. Without memory we can't do anything. When our bodies die, our memories also ended. Life comes to an end when the memory is gone. It is not something real which can exist forever. Therefore, life is temporary, built on the basis of memory. It has no ultimate objective, we are just afraid to die, and keep on living until we can't live anymore. This is meaningless.
Yet it appears to be meaningful enough to have generated rational conscious agents who can have thoughts such as the one you just expressed. If life is so meaningless, whence this ability to infer it's very meaninglessness?
My grandfather dies in 1975. He is no more, his body, his memory cease existence. Who is he? Who can remember him? Does this world need him anymore? No! He is gone, forever no more. So, what is his meaning of life after death? It is just meaningless, right? Everyone will be the same. Today I come to my office to work, why? Because I have memory, my memory enables me to continue my yesterday's work. My colleagues know me, how do they know? Because they "remember" me. So they won't look at me like a stranger. I also know them by my memory, we are just a machine with memory to process information. All activities in this world is based on MEMORY, no memory means nothing! So, when come to a person, when he/she dies, his/her memory is gone, and he/she has nothing to do with this world anymore, no life no meaning. Nothing! It is just a dream, a virtual dream.
Can't agree with you on this one. Are you trying to imply that the fact that we are rational beings means that OUR LIFE has a meaning? Is it not that, just exactly because we are rational we try desperately to find a meaning for our existence? I know it hasn't been addressed to me the question you have put, but still, i quite find myself wondering about just that, just like that chicken/egg paradigm. To note that i'm talking about our life specifically, not life in general, where i'm always despondent to think that has no purpose at all.
Reason is the ability to infer meaning. To make sense of reality. Are you saying reason and its ability to do this is just an illusion?
I'm saying our experience is meaningful because it is rational. Event A happens and causes event B. Or my daughter has a baby. That is a meaningful event to me. If life were meaningless, nothing would make sense to us and nothing would be meaningful to us. How can you account for the occurrence of meaningful events and thoughts and actions if life is meaningless? I don't think we experience reality in any other way than as being meaningful. The moment I awake in the morning I encounter meaningful experiences. I find myself pre-engaged in a world where I have a purpose and reason for being. I have commitments and obligations and visions for myself that assume myself as being a meaningful agent. Reason is a big part of this. I have the inherent capacity to understand myself and my situations as being meaningful and story-like episodes of my life. If life is meaningless as you say, why does life occur to us as so exuberantly full of meaning every day? Don't confuse purpose with meaning. I can find sudden meaning in a pink incandescent sunrise in the desert. But that doesn't mean it has a purpose. The experience of beauty and joy and tragedy and adventure and wonder are all powerful experiences of meaning without necessarily reducing down to some purpose needing to be fulfilled.
I totally agree with Paddoboy, which is unheard of. You can, in no particular order: Get laid Get drunk Get a career Shoot your family Enjoy your friends Make some money Spend that money Do good things Sleep Get laid and about 6 trillion other things. Shut up and enjoy yourself.
I don't agree we are just machines full of memories. We also have an immediate consciousness of the present situation. We see and hear and feel and taste a reality that involves us from the get go. And just because someone dies doesn't mean their life had no meaning and that they are no longer meaningful. The love we have for that person endures and becomes more refined as time passes. Their influence on us continues to be felt even after they are gone. So life is meaningful precisely BECAUSE the past never completely fades away but endures in the present. The effects you exert upon the world will persist forever. You have a real meaningful impact in what happens in the future.
What do you mean by the term "life"? What do you mean by the term "real"? Here you are talking only about our "perception of the things by our mind". It all depends how is your perception about life. What you think about your life? Do you think, it is fake?
We aren't talking about YOUR life, but life in general. Your life is a frame of reference within which it is possible to discern meanings. When there is no frame of reference, there is no ultimate meaning.
There's no such thing as life without a frame of reference. All life is subjective and individual and meaningful. It's just the nature of life.
