questions without answers

I think this is an interesting point. But I don’t think necessarily you have to assume a directing mind for meaning or purpose - although many people will do so, of course. You could also see it as questioning how to work negatively-perceived events into your own self-made meaning and purpose consistently.

I don’t think it’s a bad thing to come to terms with death… but trying to do so by being intellectually dishonest about it, seems cheap… don’t ask “why do we die”… ask “how should we deal with death?”…

But to take it further, if we are honest about the physical facts and accept the narratives that we create are really our own homegrown intersubjective truths that we use to make sense of the world, I don’t think it’s intellectually dishonest to say (e.g.) “People die to remind us that we are still living”. I wouldn’t recommend this particular example as, for among other reasons, it confusingly applies intentionality to the dead, but it’s not a religiously-based abdication of truth, just a narrative we supply to ‘place’ death in a meaningful context to our life. It’s certainly not a causal claim appropriate to a “how” question, though, and the point I’ve been trying to make is that it doesn’t need to be.

Edit: I think actually that that echoes what you say.

I see no problem and find myself in perfect agreement with what you just said… so long as it is understood the way you meant it… the danger is, of course, that it might invite misunderstanding.

Knowledge in what sense? If you have a list of things that bring you a lot of fulfillment a greater knowledge of them might bring you even more.

Zorba has it both ways. He lives his life and then, from time to time, he contemplates it. Basil, however, is there to find a new answer. And there is never only one.

The problem, of course, is this: In living our lives we sometimes smash into the lives of others. Then we have to figure out the least dysfuntional way in which to do so. And here there is never one answer either.

And if human existence is a blink of an eye on the scale that is evolution, just think how insignificant it must be when the scale is of cosmological proportions.

But everything is necessarily linked to the bigger questions I suppose is where my point was leading. You can’t search for knowledge but consciously put a cap on it and go ‘that’s enough’, curiosity is too powerful.

Yes, to bigger and bigger questions, indeed. We can start with, “what is existence?” And we can end with, “what is the relationship between all that exist and ‘I’?”

Yup! And we never get a fully satisfactory answer to these. Some might say they are unanswerable…

Nice link to the OP there, I thank you.

I have . . .
but I also think ‘evolutionary’ works at bigger scales than this here on earth

True, but when most folks use the word evolution they are referring to the evolution of life on earth. Yet this is but an infinitesimally tiny speck in the evolution of the universe itself.

And what if the universe is but a speck in the evolution of something even more unimaginably gigantic still?

Fanflamingtastic, that’s what I say.

Can you spot me anywhere? .
.

Why do the young live? Why does anyone live? Tell me!

You don’t know?

What’s the use of your damn books…

(Would your response be to die to the fullest?)

I believe that you misunderstood what Zorba’s real question was. If death means non-existence, then why exist at all? Everything you know, everything you learned, all your memories, who you are, what you are, is going to cease to exist when you die. Nothing will be left of you but your corpse and even that is not permanent before it turns into dust. So what is the point of living if you are going to lose it all in the end anyway? In other words, why does anyone die is really asking why does anyone live if they are going to die? What is the point of life when we are all going to die anyway regardless of the cause of death? This is the real question that causes a lot of people agony.

Basically, it’s the same thing.

In other words, a question in which there are many, many completely conflicting and contradictory answers. No one answer is really any more reasonable than any other. But, as always, we can easily convince ourselves this is not the case at all. We can choose one answer and believe it is more reasonable than all of the others. And then, for us, it is.

a woman gave me the “zorba the Greek” book
a wise friend said “she restored your faith in living”

Wow, this thread takes me back.

Back then I, among others, used to post a lot of “new topics” in the philosophy forum. And that is because back then there were considerably more folks who actually chose to exchange philosophy at ILP. However we might have construed what that entailed.

Now, of course, the place is veritably overrun with the Kids and the huffers and the puffers and the retorters. And the bullshitters.

But thanks for the memories. :wink:

iambiguous,

Is there a reason for that - an answer?

Perhaps the Second Law of Thermodynamics explains it. Entropy.

Sure, most of us will have an opinion about it. But to pin down the reason, the answer…

The difficulty for me has been that over and again many venues in which folks broached philosophy in a more or less substantive manner have gone defunct: some of the old yahoo groups, the Ponderer’s Guild, ephilosopher etc.

And then there are sites like Philosophy Forums – forums.philosophyforums.com/ – venues where the sort of Kidstuff antics that go on here is simply not tolerated; but they go too far in the other direction: banning [for life] posters like me.

Or maybe we just live in a wholly determined universe. Which gets us all off the hook.

Iambiguous,

Aside from what I previously said, let’s not go and throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Sure, there are a lot or mundane threads and posts in here; for instance, talk of breakfast, lunch and dinner. It seems that all over the internet, people are fascinated with food, what they eat and what others eat. Perhaps those tidbits are simply mini vacations from the mind.

Let’s not forget too that we are social creatures and ilp is in some respects a social forum. Can someone talk philosophy all of the time without at some point becoming a bit unbalanced and feeling like something is “missing”?
I myself am guilty of some 8-[ or more than just some of those mundane threads.

BUT then again, there ARE also some fine philosophical discussions going on in here - intelligent questioning threads…although many are replications of others but still they are resurrected/replicated.
Just how many original ideas/thoughts can come through the human mind.

Remember the past and the philosophers who were here then - some of whom may still be here though undercover - like Tab, Sawelios (sp) Three Times Great, Amor Fati, Faust, Oughtist, Wonderer, Fabiano, just to name a few.

ILP’s landscape has more than changed but it’s still there.
But I do think that there ought to be more quality than quantity.
Life goes on and it changes - it flows and it ebbs - just as the sea does.
But I still think that philosophy is alive and well - sometimes it just needs a kick in the pants.

Entrophy I think.

It’s difficult to find a balance - how much to allow, how much to lose.
There is just no black or white in these things.
I can’t recall the name of the philosophy forum - in that forum you were not even allowed to misspell a word. You couldn’t even give a hint of an insult, et cetera.

I didn’t think that way even when i believed in a personal god or any other god.
I would hate to think that arc who intuits herself to be a pretty autonomous being, or at least strives for the most part to BE one, despite her somewhat and sometimes set patterns and unconscious leanings and behaviors, which she strives to be aware of, is a puppet.

If what you say above is even true on some level, why would it get us off the hook?
Then we would simply have to strive to re-create our lives and universe in self-determined ways. …tumble that determined universe on its derriere. …which when you think about it, doesn’t history already show that we are doing just that?

Down with the Puppeteer God[s] - Carpe Diem! :laughing:
Seriously though.