I’m so sorry Jonathan, I was so rude! I didn’t intentionally ignore your kind message, I simply overlooked it in the midst of so many intense responses.
But now it has shone out like a star and I am, for the moment, following it. As to what you said; part of the reason for my despair is indeed the fragility of human existence. My thinking is that when people die we are expected to carry on and within a certain, often not considerable, amount of time supposed to have ‘got over it’. This is what I cannot accept. I feel that human life is meaningful only because of other lives that surround it. One lives for the comfort, joy, burden, stimulation that others offer one. I am only alive for the people around me. Thus the meaning and purpose of life for me is divided up and attached to these people. However, when somebody dies, who used to constitute a large portion of your meaning, how is one supposed to ‘get over it’ and not sink into nihilism? I find the common attitude of getting over it with time, coarse and inhuman. It devalues what little purpose we have on this earth and insults the value attached to those who remain around us. How are we to trust others to love us, if we know that within a few months they will have ‘got over’ your death. I feel in my heart that true love is stronger than this. Hence I may lose my footing on this earth, but I shall fall into the abyss with a full heart… one of the few things which contains it’s own indubitable truth.
As to Christianity, I am uncertain Johnathan. I certainly see the implicit logic of Christology but unfortuanately many Christians do not give rational account to their convictions, but rather believe blindly. This I find a shame because firstly I feel there is logic to be revealed and secondly because dogmatists come to the forefront of Christian publicity. Conviction without rational justification is a dangerous thing and I think the true essence of Christianity is blighted by it.
I would define objectivism like this:
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The existence of a total structure that have more impact on the parts that exist within the structure then those parts within the structure have on the total structure.
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The earth IS a globe (maybe a little flat on the top and bottom).
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I can have an opinion, and this may be right or false, it can not be both.
Draw a line between objectivism from a subjective/human perspective, and objectivism from a objective perspective. It’s often here the misunderstandings occur. If we talk about objectivism we must first make an objective metaphysical model, after this we can discuss how we gain subjective knowledge about this model, and if it is possible at all. Any alternatives to objectivism does not exist in my opinion.
I’m not accepting the statement: If we don’t know everything we can’t know something. Untouched parts of everything contain objective information. Only humans are able to distort objective information.
- Question: Is it wrong to kill?
Answers:
Religious objectivism: It’s wrong to kill, God says this.
Materialistic objectivism, with separate individuals: It’s not wrong to kill, animals says this.
Total relativism: I can do what I want as long as it gives me pleasure (not any other meaning then pleasure because no objective law gives it meaning, this becomes absurd).
After this I would add another alternative:
Holistic objectivism; only one field with one separated dynamic awareness: Nothing dies; the form only changes, and “killing” is just one form of development in some parts of the nature. Dying is a natural process. It’s right to kill but only for the right reason. Humans however never kill for the right reason, or they are indoctrinated by some patterns that they are observing.
Maybe I just could have added the #1 above, but I clarified some aspects.
Johan
I’m still not getting this objectivism vs subjectivism stuff.
I haven’t read all the responses mostly because I’m tired and somewhat excited to be back and just want to talk. So anyway my recent pondering has lead me to this…
I’m not concerned about the meaning of life as much as the insignificance. It’s so small and so irrelevant. It may very well be that I believe this because the idea has been impossed upon me by other people but still how important is life? It’s another question that makes me question whether or not death is meaningful or not. I wonder though. If death itself was so unimportant why would we fear it so much? We fear something. We feel pain but what is the point of pain if its not protecting us from anything? Pessimistic it may seem but denying the fact that our life isn’t even a mere speck on a timeline is some what convincing that we aren’t important. I suppose this is just another way of looking at the whole “what is the meaning of life” question. So I figured I’d put it here.
Hi Cba,
Yes, those are my feelings, ponderings etc too. I think what ‘throw me a rope’ is trying to sus out is the appropriate response to those feelings. Everyone comes at them from a slightly different angle. So far there is Johan, with his objectivism (and also his rather novel ideas about holistic fields etc), then there is Ben, with his existentialism, Johnathan with his Christianity and Pocky with her undecided grappling (sorry if I left anyone out). Each person has tried to give significance to this tiny thing called ‘human life’… each in their own way. We must all search for the truth because the truth will always, to some extent, be our own truth. Borrowing another’s will not do but others can always give us clues. I’m still far off my own truth and the insignificance of it all does still bother me hugely. I tend to think it’s merely my biological ego which inclines me to the idea that my life does have significance. But to stamp down upon this ego would be to squash my life like a fly. This is not to say that squashing my life is wrong or significant. It is simply to say, ‘hey!, I’m still writing this, still questioning, still living’. My ego is as bloated as ever and, whilst it is, my radar is still looking out for my truth.
‘What is the meaning of life?’ wouldn’t be such a cliche of a question if it were an easy one to answer, or even a straightforward one to research.
mean of you to say that. im more of a nihilistic existentialist but i decided against spreading my futility around…
so well, dear seraph find your meaning… your reason and will to life.
to quote my fav lines frm Thus Spoke Zarathustra :
you are not yet free, you still search for freedon. you are worn from your search and overawake. you aspire to the free heights and your soul thrists for the stars… to me you are still a prisoner who is plotting his freedom
true we love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving. there is always some madness in love but there is also some reason in madness.
cba you wrote :
[size=75]but still how important is life? It’s another question that makes me question whether or not death is meaningful or not. I wonder though. If death itself was so unimportant why would we fear it so much? We fear something. We feel pain but what is the point of pain if its not protecting us from anything? Pessimistic it may seem but denying the fact that our life isn’t even a mere speck on a timeline is some what convincing that we aren’t important[/size]
compared to the universe, our earth is merely a grain of sand on the vast beach. man is even less significant… the universe can do without the existence of man, it is indifferent to us. why then are we here?
some things i picked up from TSZ
[size=75]on the preachers of death : they say ,’ life is refuted. but only they themselves are refuted and their eyes, which see only one face of eistence. shrouded in thick melancholy and eager for the little accidents that bring death, thus they wait with clenched teeth’.
A fool who stays alive - but such fools are we, and this is surely the most foolish thing about life.
O despisers of the body. Your self wants to go under and that is why you have become despisers of the body! For you are no longer able to create beyond yourself. … You are no bridge to the overman![/size]nietzsche. words that resound in my head when feeling nihilistic and existential. so what of our insignificance? and of inevitable death that renders all futile. seek yourself and make a meaning of your life. for one who has a ‘why’ can bear any ‘how’.
i sound like a suicide helpline. ahahhahaa
Dear Pocky,
I really didn’t mean to be mean! I feel that a state of undecided grappling is an admirable state to be in. One isn’t complaisant or ignorant. Only a privileged few have found their meaning and can defend it comprehensively. Thus to be in an undecided state is the next best thing. It is no small task; being open-minded to the numerous question marks of our existence. Many refuse to be so openminded and live by dogmas. Pocky, you are far from being a dogmatist!
Seraph
why thankyou seraph! your words actually put a smile on my face…
Not true. You have to deal with social restraints as well as personal barriers that are almost impossible to break free from. As well as natural reactions that we are all subjected to. We all feel pain assumably for a reason. We also have physical limitations. Personally I don’t think we are capable of giving life a meaning. We can’t do a lot of things why not that? If not that then life itself isn’t meant to have a meaning. It may just be a flaw in our logic that makes us believe that there is a reason for what we’re doing. Personal goals and ambitions aren’t a reason for life. They may be a reason for your life but not life itself. Certainly not existance as a whole. But like you said… who cares? Which to me is one of the more pessimistic concepts anyone has ever thought of.
I agree with you cba. How should we be able to give meaning to something that have no meaning. Meaning can not be made up; it must be found in the existing patterns that created us, and exist within us and outside us. Only people that are blind to those patterns are able to give life another meaning and feel joy doing it. From the objective perspective this is pathologic and it will make you sick and also the world we live in sick. Our culture is mostly made up by meaningless substitutes.
Practical hint: Drinking a lot of water have a meaning. Water pollution has no meaning, and therefore it’s immoral to act in a way that causes pollution.
It’s not that easy though:
What if I gave you 1 million dollar if you empty a bottle of chlorine in the ocean? How would you act?
Or even more complicated: If you empty a bottle of chlorine in the ocean I will not empty two as a reward. Will you do it?
It seams that as long as someone is acting immoral in our surrounding it will put us in those dilemmas. What is the solution?
Johan
oh yes. thus rendering our existence absurd. NAUSEA. 
johan :
satre said something about the need to live subjectively… you however implied that real meaning is only attained objectively.
yet we alone are responsible for the ‘reality’ of our world created. and thus, or meaning. if our respective realities are subjective, then arent our meanings, too, subjective?
all i can say that is, despite our absurd existence… meaning or sans meaning, we are condemned to be here. and thus, are responsible for each of our own essence. seek be the overman! 
Yes; this is correct: If you create fiction within the reality then you have your own personal meaning. If it’s too weird however they will lock you in. But if you can get some other people with you on your idees then they will not lock you in. Now you only have to fear war.
Personally I love to flip coins with marmalade on one side, and after work I meet other people that have this as their hobby. We have certain rules how the coin must be flipped. If a member of our group do not follow those rules they will be kicked out and can not buy the clubs special marmalade anymore (we have developed an excellent marmalade that sticks to coins perfectly). I could write a book about this amazing club that right now is spreading around the world , but now I must run.
Johan
How about this one. The death of people is essential for the birth of a new generation. Unless we are destined to rape the land we live on of every resource and move on. Even so that would result in more death. You need death. It’s important and to me not immoral. So does that make polluted the water amoral? Complications are fun 
It is possible that medicines that make us a healthier people is immoral because of overgrowth. The Earth cannot inhabit the growing population. If population continues to increase at the current rate, then by the year 2750 each human being would theoretically have a mere two-by-two foot patch of land in which to live. If we defeat all deadly viruses that normally would regulate overgrowth this is a likely scenario. Solution = pollution of the water (and nature), and those that survive will have a new setup of genes that can handle the new environment.
Johan
…just a marmalade tosser.
You’re a funny guy Johann! I will be wary not to get locked into a fictitious world of marmalade tossing… or for that matter, tin can collecting. But, oh it is so tempting…
ps; do you do it in a really cool way, like in a little shady coffee shop, whilst wearing black polo neck jumpers, and bohemian hats and talking to each other with accents of many different european languages?
Too cool, for me…
Yea; that’s right, are you sure that you do not want to join? I’m sure you find it as interessting as we do. The more members we are the more meaningful it will get. When I first started all by myself it felt a little stupid, but hey someone has to start, right?
The true existentialist
Yes, I imagine it was like the first time I decided to take the eye balls out of a fish and dance around the house with them. Someone has to start, I said to myself, as I felt a little silly…
I still feel a little silly, for nobody else has been brave enough to shun all etiquette for the pleasures and meaning found in eyeball collecting…
But it was a moment of acute insight, heightened perception and extended view (sighs nostalgically)… not least because four eyes are better than two.
There is truth to be found in fish eyeballs.
just to rain on your parade.
on subjective meaning:
“man places values in things to preserve himself - he alone created a meaning for things, a human meaning. Therefore he calls himself “man”, which means : the esteemer.”
“A thousand goals have there been so far, for there have been a thousand peoples. Only the yoke for the thousand necks is still lacking: the one goal is lacking.
Humanity still has no goal.
… if humanity still lacks a goal - is humanity itself not still lacking too?”
i just enjoy rubbing this in my own face
Hi, I’d like to make add a comment on what started as a really good topic before it turned to chlorine and marmalade.
I used to be very nihilistic, seeing everything as being meaningless.
It occured to me one day that my views stemmed from examining the world for what can be proven to exist. This leads to seeing all meaning and emotions as figments of your mind, and defining ‘reality’ as what is real to everyone, even if there were nobody there to experience it.
My least depressing conclution so far is that you have to be aware of each different aspect of existance and keep them completely seperate.
My current model for this is that you, being your consiousness, live in your world. Your world is where you actually live. Here emotions make everything important and everything is meaningful. ‘Your world’ though is entirely in your physical mind which feeds reality into your world via your body. Your body physically lives and interacts with reality, but you do not, no matter how alike reality and your world are.
This may sound like wierd and pointless rambling, but the point is that reality IS actually meaningless, but you don’t actually live in reality.
A fair bit of this may end up resting on how you define different terms, but a year ago, I personally found this stuff really helpful. Hope you find something to relate to.
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hmmm. i must say that the chlorine part is worth thinking about and thought the marmalade was pretty random, it is indeed meaningful.
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but what about existence as a whole? for the whole of humanity?
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while one lives in subjective reality, we do not know ‘reality’ outside out minds. rather, while our subjective reality might not be meaningless because we make up our own subjective meaning… the objective reality (which you refer to as the one that we dont live in) is meaningless - like you said.
thus and therefore the only meaning is that of what we make up. otherwise, we are condemned free meaningless souls.
My basic response to the question “Why”, as in “Why Exist?”, “Why Do anything?”, “Why Create?”, “Why Live?”, is a simple “Why Not?”. If there is no meaning to anything then there is equally no meaning in the opposite. In my opinion the negative basis for this question has more to do with emotion, than it does with reason. There is no reason to choose “Why” as the question over “Why not”, other than a personal negative outlook. (interesting that the negative “Why Not” is the more positive question.)
Just my simple philosophy.