I mean, there is no meaning in nature, it was man who invented it, and often it appeared because of a scarcity, for example, the point is in a beautiful woman, because you are unlikely to find another one as beautiful, right?, or can you find a person who will support you and accept you as you are, like your loved ones? The examples are not the best, but I hope you get the idea.
In addition, I will say that about a year ago I watched the film “The Seventh Seal”, and now sometimes I feel in the place of a character named Antonius Block. I dismissed the inevitable by refraining from suicide as a teenager, thinking I could find the meaning of life, but what was to be expected, nothing worked out. But especially now, how shall I put it… in the age of AI, it is impossible to escape the truth, self-deception no longer works, at least for me personally.
Chess Game with Death:
I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.
I think everyone goes through this… well, most people, anyway. Such is the burden of intelligent awareness--you know other animals don’t worry about this shit. And, therein lies a clue.
Such is the burden of intelligent awareness–you know other animals don’t worry about this shit. And, therein lies a clue.
I’m not completely sure about this.
The lack of meaning isn’t really a problem unless you make it one
And what if this problem, as a living being, comes to you against your will?
You have the choice. Do you be sad and mope about it? Or find something positive to do and have fun?
Oh shit, you mean it’s just like depression ? You can just decide to not be bothered by it ?
Why is nobody talking about this? it sounds like a revolution for mental health, this could wipe out the need for therapy entirely.
The choice is relative.
Relative to what?
As in you’re bothered by the lack of meaning? Figure out why it’s so important to you to have a purpose, and then choose a purpose for yourself. It’s quite freeing in my opinion, you can’t really mess up your life in a wider philosophical sense. You succeed just by doing things that make you happy (and depending on your morals, don’t make anyone else’s life worse).
The real meaning of life is to reproduce. We are here because some funny molecules have a tendency to replicate themselves, that’s really all there is to it.
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they want you thinking this way so you give up and succumb to the altman overlords and pay a subscription for knowledge. Fuck that. Its not ai. Its llm slop, and its hyped up bullshit. We are old enough to know bs hype when we see it. Its unsustainable. Will it stick around, unfortunately yes but in a far smaller capacity.
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Go do things away from tech. Stop reading the news. It will help you. The world is not “ai” (again, ai doesn’t exist, its a marketing term). The world is humans and community and how you process it.
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I agree. Theres no point to life. So do what you want and can do (legally or morally), and fuck the rest.
Existential crises are far older than the AI boom, but I’d agree that capitalist parasites do like to take advantage of isolation and despair for their own gain.
Part of the “cure” (at least from my experience) is definitely touching grass and remembering that at the end of the day we’re a group of talking monkeys on a rock with a bunch of other living things and this line of thinking goes beyond what our little brains are meant to do. Abstract thought in excess short circuits us in a bad way.
It’s okay to chill out and dumb down a bit. We don’t owe anyone “meaning,” and enjoying life where you can, however small, is a balm.
Yep very true !
This is probably the most prolific constant battering of propaganda though since “cloud” or even the dot com boom. (Side note, funny how every advancement in tech is just “someone else’s computer”. they really hate that we own anything). Its very tiring knowing most humans will fall for it completely while we fight to preserve what’s left of the internet and human creativity. It will all fall to slop in a decade though, then I’ll just get rid of using the internet for anything except work and email, ha.
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My life has meaning. It has meaning for no other reason than I say it does, and no one gets to decide that for me. I do not purport to speak for your life, or the lives of those I care about, or my cat’s life, or my neighbors, the birds, trees, grass, germs, or any other living thing. I do not assign meaning to society, civilizations large or small, or things that have been built to benefit me. I can only speak for my life. And I say that my life has meaning. Nothing that has happened to me, nothing that has been said, done, built or destroyed, can take that meaning away from my life without my permission.
A life has no meaning in the same way that a blank piece of paper has no meaning. I give that piece of paper meaning by writing, sketching, coloring, folding, tearing…and perhaps ultimately destroying. Now that piece of paper has a unique history imprinted on it. It can be shared, displayed, hidden, or thrown away. But the whole reason I did anything to the paper at all was because it was meaningful in the moment for me to do so.
Is that chess scene from The Seventh Seal? Always enjoyed seeing that clip pop up.
In terms of finding meaning; try out as many hobbies and practical skills as you can. When you find one that makes you lose track of time, run with it.
Make it your goal to improve that skill as far as you can, and allow that to provide you a meaning to the regular day to day life.
The same way I live knowing that free will is probably an illusion. Beer still tastes good, my friends still make me laugh, I’ve still got to work to keep a roof over my head.
The thing that shook me out of the existential crisis of understanding nihilism is that life had as much meaning before I was born as it will after my death.
Or in other words: we are the universe exploring itself - in playful exploration and/or aesthetic creation.
To me that gives license to do something interesting with the short time, resources and attention that I have available. I find experiencing new things or in new combinations fulfilling, as do I to help others make a positive contribution to the human experience (be it through positive societal change or practicing kindness).
I have a family who loves me, and I bring joy and happiness to their lives. I can make their lives better, by being their for them. That’s the meaning of my life. It’s not what the world can do for me, but what I can do for the world.
I’m working hard to give my family a life I did not have, and I didn’t have my family, I would not have a meaning with my life. I don’t care for wealth or buying fancy things, I just care for improving the lives around me. I couls try to find more meaning in life itself, and I am trying to, but for now, this is enough for me.
I guess it doesn’t matter to me? Why does there need to be a meaning beyond right here and right now and existing?
I’m glad there isn’t a meaning to life. If there was a meaning, then I’d have to be doing that thing or be failing at existence. If no act matters, then I’m equally valid for doing my goofy nonsense as I am working hard or whatever.
I find it simultaneously sad and relieving that nothing we do will matter in a million years. Every embarrassing thing I’ve done or will do, everything I’ve fucked up or will fuck up, eventually it won’t matter. Yes, I’m sad that my achievements also won’t matter in the really long run, but there is an upside
Every embarrassing thing I’ve done or will do, everything I’ve fucked up or will fuck up, eventually it won’t matter.
This comes much earlier than the heat death of the universe.
As we get older, the people who were present and aware of these embarrassing fuck ups not only has bad memory of their own, but these people pass away and with them, the only repository of the embarrassment ever happened remaining is ourselves. You will likely live to be the only one alive that know these embarrassing moments ever took place. Don’t continue to torture yourself when you’re the last witness.
nothing we do will matter in a million years
But it will still be the truth.
Maybe what we do won’t matter in the sense of having a discernable effect, but there is something eternal about every bit of us anyway. In a million years it will still be true that once there was a fresh parsnip on this strange small platform called lemmy, hitting buttons on a keyboard and communicating with people from all over their little wet rock of a planet, attempting to connect and to understand. Every kindness of you, every act of bravery, everything you’re proud of in your past is now as true as it was then and as it will be next year. And that will never go away. F o r e v e r.
(Of course, this is also correct for everything we’re ashamed of - but if we try to make the best of it, that too becomes a universal truth about us.)
Over the course of eternity, nothing means anything. But on a human scale, we can still profoundly (and not so profoundly) affect one another’s lives, and I think meaning exists there.
We build things that won’t last so others can build new things after us. We change each other in ways we often never see or get credit for, but that doesn’t make those effects any less real or meaningful.
Subjects grant meanings, objects are assigned meaning. I create meaning for myself because I am a thinking agent, setting goals and tasks for myself to accomplish based on my own values and decisions. Just because an event ends doesn’t undermine it’s importance or meaning while it’s occurring.
And even if there could be some object or set of circumstances that assigns meaning, being assigned some universal or objective meaning would be oppressive, undermining my own subjective meanings to be replaced with some forced or necessary objective. Just because some of us have an intuitive desire to be assigned an objective meaning due to a desire for our lives to follow a narrative structure with closure like fiction doesn’t mean otherwise there is no meaning. If anything the meaning is more important if it comes from you and isn’t assigned to you.
“Here’s squire Jöns. He grins at Death, scoff at the Lord, laughs at himself, and leers at the girls. His world exists only for himself. Absurd to all, even to himself. Meaningless to heaven, and of no interest to hell.”
I mean, there is no meaning in nature, it was man who invented it
Humans are of nature. Any meaning we find is the answer.
Sounds like you’re in the Pessimistic Nihilist stage, you just need to process things and then progress yourself to either Absurdist Nihilist or Optimistic Nihilist
Myth of Sisyphus is a great book if you want to lean into the absurdism
yeah imperialism provided cheap money to workers through high demand for human labor. that’s decreasing now, so workers go through the five stages of grief:
- denial (AI can never replace human workers)
- anger (it’s the billionaire’s / AI company’s fault)
- bargaining (we’re yet to see this step develop, my guess is tax reforms)
- depression
- acceptance
depression is actually a theme throughout the whole process, so not limited to the 4th step, that’s just where it’s most intense. at the end however is probably the nihilistic optimism stage.
