The Question:
What Is The Meaning Of Life?
JH wrote on July 25, 2007:
Wouldn’t it be ironic if the meaning of life was to ponder about the meaning of life?
In that case, as we’ve asked ourselves the question already, wouldn’t that mean that there is no purpose for us anymore?
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The Question:
What Is The Meaning Of Life?
[Editorial Note: this question sparked a small philosophical feud, if you will, on the Facebook group. Below are the entries relating to the said feud:]
TB wrote on June 28, 2007:
“But this beckons the question: how did people come up with these questions in the first place? It would seem illogical to waste ones time thinking about things that have little to no value in terms of survival.”
That’s the definition of being human. We have a over-capacity, too much consciousness. But only nihilists suffer from it. The rest? Well, what is the size of the population again and how much cleavage have I seen on Facebook?
MB wrote on July 9, 2007:
I guess you subscribe to the Nietzschean “Ubermensch” theory, where humanity is something to be overcome. Although I do believe the theory has some merit, it seems to be all too convenient to those who wish to give their ideas some importance. I see ideas more as a currency in a communal market of concepts. An idea is valued the more it is believed in. Or in other words, the more an idea is believed or cherished, the more “truth” it has. Although this does mean that truth is defined by democratic means, which is not always a good thing, it determines how “important” that idea is.
Ideas are in constant competition with each other, in a metaphysical sense. The ideas that are valued the most by the most people are those that we must consider true. However, since ideas are constantly being generated, the concept of truth is always in flux. For instance, the belief in a supernatural god, which has a colossal following, is in a global sense the “truth”. As members in this global think-tank, we must defend and advertise the ideas which we deem to be true.
So in this sense, it does not matter if you think of things relating to philosophy or society. As long as you believe in something and advertise your belief, you are helping to make your idea the global “truth”. This is why religion and political groupings will always exist.
This idea doesn’t only apply to matters that relate to activities such as philosophy. According to Kuhn, even science, logic and reason are suspect to this type of thinking. Science is prone to “paradigm shifts” that revolutionise how we see the physical world. One only needs to think of quantum and relativity theory to see how this works.
Enough said, this is an idea that is up for debate. The more people that think this idea has merit, the more it will have some grain of truth in it. The balance between those who come up with ideas and those that support them is vital. Some people may never come up with a thought or a movement that will garner any major support, but without the masses of people who give an idea credibility there would never be any great concepts for people to think about.
So any thought by any person can be the next big thing.
TB wrote on July 12, 2007:
Your assumptions are totally wrong.
If this was a philosophical group, people would think instead of masturbate their own quasi intellect. You don’t know how to categorise my philosophy because you haven’t been trained to catogorise that particular philosophy.
Use your head, become a philosopher. If I wanted high school cliches I would ask Britney Spears.
MB wrote on July 12, 2007:
I’m sorry if I offended you with my previous post. That wasn’t my intention. What I try to do when I write posts is to not only give my opinion on a subject but also give some insight into why I think the way I do. If it sounds pretentious, I apologize. I am the first to agree that my style can seem somewhat confrontational at times and I am working on a style that would be more accessible.
Every time I write here on these boards I try to explain something that has been bugging me or expand a topic into some other direction. That way a discussion doesn’t get stale or boring. That may make my posts long and most likely rambling, but it helps me air out issues that I’ve been interested in and have been giving a lot of thought on.
Also about how I categorized your philosophical thought, I found it had many parallels with Nietzsche and the “superman” concept. If I got the wrong impression, sorry. It just seemed like that was what you were talking about.
But anyway, I hope this doesn’t deter you from posting.
JP wrote on July 19, 2007:
If I wanted High School cliches, I could just as easily read your first post:
“And it has a classic answer; there is no meaning to life. But conscious people become nihilists because they ask for the meaning behind everything. Since this cannot be fullfilled homo sapiens spends it’s time trying to overcome his surpluss of consciousness. The human being is a paradox in other words. It is trying to not be human.”
Classic example! I’ve yet to see any originality from you on this thread, yet you accuse Martin of “not being trained to categorise your philosophy?”. I beg your pardon, I’ve yet to come across this philosophy that you advertise, as it is directly at crossroads with the previously mentioned originality of yours. I do suggest you either:
A) learn not to attack people on such hefty basis.
B) stick to YOUR high school cliches, seems like you use your head the way Britney does.
C) do something productive like producing Swiss army-knives, I’m in need of one as it is.
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The Question:
What Is The Meaning Of Life?
MB wrote on June 27, 2007:
I would agree that people may spend too much time and effort on trying to come up with greater means to the “greater” questions in life.But this beckons the question: how did people come up with these questions in the first place? It would seem illogical to waste ones time thinking about things that have little to no value in terms of survival. However, I believe there may be an answer to this when thinking about this problem in terms of social interaction.
Being social creatures, we are drawn to things that have social significance. After all, it is an evolutionary trait. By engaging in these practices we are strengthening our stand in a community, which would translate to protection or help from other members of that community. By looking at the behavior of other social creatures in nature, we see that they have their own practices that strengthen bonds such as grooming, sharing food and sex. However with humanity’s ability to make such practices obsolete: farming produces a surplus of food, cities have removed the fear of predators and increased our knowledge of hygiene, etc, people were no longer as connected as they once were, although it would be stupid to say people have overcome their need for each other. Rather, people had more spare time to enjoy in activities not related to survival.
This is where I think philosophy comes in. Using one’s spare time does not require one to engage in activities that are social.This is bad in terms of reproduction, as you need to be able to meet people to get a partner to “tango” with. Thus, in this sense, philosophy came in to bring people together. Our complex brains became capable of thinking of abstract thoughts and with this new found ability we could start thinking of things that are not found purely in the physical world.
Perhaps philosophy is what made the human race flourish. By not thinking of philosophy’s substance, but rather it’s function, it would seem that it is a social activity with the purpose of making people come together. Thinking about it in today’s world, where free time is abundant, it may be the sole activity where people look each other straight in the eyes and talk.
“fallaces sunt rerum species”
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The Question:
What Is The Meaning Of Life?
TB wrote on June 27, 2007:
And it has a classic answer; there is no meaning to life. But conscious people become nihilists because they ask for the meaning behind everything. Since this cannot be fullfilled homo sapiens spends it’s time trying to overcome his surpluss of consciousness. The human being is a paradox in other words. It is trying to not be human.
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The Question:
What Is The Meaning Of Life?
MB wrote on June 25, 2007:
Since I have put this off for so long, I have decided to post a small synopsis of what I think is the meaning of life, if one was to be so optimistic as to believe there actually is one.
Quite simply, I believe the only purpose people exist is to reproduce and to engage in activities that make it possible, i.e eating and fucking. The practice of these activities have allowed civilization and society to continue on, and so in some sort of anthropic way allow us to engage in conversations about these subjects. Or in layman’s terms, since we continue society, we have the ability to talk about it.
Although this type of Darwinist concept of life may seem bleak, making any deeper thought on philosophy trivial, I do believe it has some merit and can be used to explain why we take pleasure in certain things, and more importantly, answer “why we do the things we do”.
For example, looking into what people like to do and what people enjoy can illuminate why I think like this. Although it is obvious that enjoying the finer offerings of gastronomy and participating in the physical acts of love are
enjoyable by most, these hedonistic practices always seem to overshadow other more vital points in this argument. I intend on expanding this concept to include that all our actions, from things as diverse as thinking philosophically and reading poetry are in fact completely connected to Darwinist competition.Most people would agree that debate and discussion is the lifeline of philosophy. Without this we could not have the vital “dialectic” that allows for the construction of more complex arguments. More simply, without someone to argue with, you couldn’t come up with more interesting ideas to talk about. Think about it in this way: debate at its core is trying to convince another person that your position is the right one, and so implying that the other persons idea is wrong. This is quite simply competition. You attempt to “sell” your position to another person so that he or she would abandon their own. In this way you make your ideas “correct”, since by having the most people agreeing with you, you can have leverage in convincing others. This is what I mean by saying that philosophy is related to Darwinist competition. It would seem that philosophy, or any activity where people disagree, is simply an extension of competition, its goal to get more people to agree with so as to make your position in society more secure and powerful, and in this sense make it easier for you to do what people do best: have sex and eat.
Since this has gone on for quite a bit, I think I will write more on this subject in a later post, since I didn’t get as far as I wanted to. Think about it and post if you want to, after all debate is the key here I guess. I am also sorry about making this thing sound really scary with all of the big words and stuff, I just have a habit of thinking this way. So until next time.
“In vino veritas”
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The Question:
What Is The Meaning Of Life?
IR wrote on June 15, 2007:
To live it to the fullest. Now, that may vary from person to person; many people are perfectly happy in their mundane lives, and some are not. Our purpose for being here is to live, and learn, and make merry, and be good people. Make a difference. That is the meaning of life to me.
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The Question:
Creation vs Evolution: Which Do you Believe In?
JH wrote on July 24, 2007:
I believe in science, the cold facts and the theories. Remember that evolution is referred to as the theory of evolution, meaning that unless it is proven true or false, it’s a theoretical concept.
Do I believe we evolved from monkeys? Very likely. Hell, look at the other alternatives we’ve been given! Either we we’re planted here by aliens, or God made us in his image 4000 years ago.
Monkeys, God or Aliens…
There’s no concrete proof that God exists. There’s no concrete proof that aliens exist. We’ve got monkeys in Zoos. Case closed.To believe in Creation is to renounce all science and scientific methods. If an archeologist carbon dates a bone to be say 3 million years old, give or take a century, is he lying or using faulty equipment?
The theory of evolution believes that through time, a lot of time, humans evolved from other primates. The story of creation suggests, and is trying to prove, that the God created the Earth 4000 years ago, the so-called “Young Earth Model”. (there’s actually a “scientific journal on creation” in America, trying to prove the Young Earth Model with “hard data” and “scientific fact”. Um, right… Good luck…)
That said, I won’t go so far as to believe that the theory of evolution is not a theory, but rather a scientific fact. It’s still a theory, and I’ll believe it as a theory until it is completely and comprehensively proven to be a fact or a logical alternative arrives.
Creation is not that alternative.
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The Question:
Creation vs Evolution: Which Do you Believe In?
LV wrote on July 24, 2007:
I thought the religious people got smart and decided to combine the two, say that God started evolution and that Genesis is an old fucking story? Or am I just being all naive and giving people credit for being smart?
I can’t understand how anyone can believe that some kind of magic power sat there and created everything, like building with playdoh. In Lucifer there was that nice bit where the angel chick created another world by thinking it, and then she had to try and maintain it. But that was a fucking comic book.
No, I don’t have an answer to, “so where did all begin?” No one does and no one will, so religious people need to back off and leave me alone cause they can’t back up their theory either. At least mine’s logical. …I should go debate on tv or something, I’d kick ass.
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The Question:
Creation vs Evolution: Which Do you Believe In?
DP wrote on July 12, 2007:
In short Evolution, but not as to why but as to how.
Evolution we can pretty much take as scientific fact and have monutains of evidence to back this. Further studies into genetics that have taken place for years and continue to do so as we unravel the mysteries about DNA have given us strong suggestions that we share common traits with other mamalls and are different because as we exist in different environments we have adapted in different ways, evolving into different yet similar species. I wont go into too much science as I am terrible at it.
Science however is an interesting thing for creationism. The purpose of science as most people see it is to discover the functions of our natural world, sure we know things happen but how do they or how did they happen is a question which has lead to the constant progression of mankind. Creationists, if we can call them that, seem to believe in presuppositions, or that we know how it happened it was the work of god and he did it like this, and then work to fit the science to that theory. This in my oppinion goes aginst science itself! In their defence creationists say it is better to have something to start with so you know how and why and can just fit things together, but this creates a bias and clouded judgement which could keep them from unlocking teh real secrets of the natural world. If your mind is biased and the “solution” is already in your head then ofcourse you will see only what you want to.
As for the bible it is amazing that somone can deny the progress of hundreds of years of science and discovery based on text written thousdans of years ago by men who had no such means of understanding the smallest details in teh natural world beyond the observation of what was happening around them. Perhaps the Bible is not the be all and end all to life on earth and how it came to be, but perhaps a metaphor for us to comprehend the magnificence of the world that surrounds us and a way of teaching to people morality, good an evil. Perhaps, if we looked at the Bible with a little bit more innocence.
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The Question:
Abortion: Are You Pro-Choice or Pro-Life?
Thus far, there have been five replies to this question. You can view them individually from the links below:
[Reply #1 by E.M.]
[Reply #2 by L.V.]
[Reply #3 by J.H.]
[Reply #4 by N.P.]
[Reply #5 by M.B.]
Alternatively, you can view all the posts on the subject here.
Surprisingly, all of the aforementioned replies have been siding withPro-Choice or leaning towards it. If you compare with the related poll, you’ll see what I’m talking about.
The poll has had 26 people casting their votes. The votes have been pretty evenly split, with 11 people siding with Pro-Life and 15 people with Pro-Choice.
Results like these demonstrate how heated of a debate abortion really is all over the world. But, as with any results, there are always many different underlying factors which affect the results.
Abortion being a global issue on many levels, it would help both sides of the argument to realize these affecting factors.
Religion:
This is probably the most influential factor determining a person’s stance on the abortion issue. The rule of thumb here is that the more religious one is, the more likely they are to being Pro-Life, in turn measured by their varying activism on the issue. Naturally, there are many exceptions between single religions, and more so between different religions.
Politics
Abortion is only really an issue in politics in regard to,
a) the religious beliefs of political leaders,
b) the religious beliefs of constituents, and
c) the religiousness of the state, regardless of the separation of church and state.
Take the United States for example. Even though there’s supposed to be a separation of church and state, the religious beliefs of the leaders, even presidential candidates, is very important for voters. Remember that the president has said that God has told him to do some of the political actions that he’s done…
Family & Friends
One’s parents’ beliefs are what provide the basis for a person’s own beliefs on pretty much enter issue. Whether or not a person’s beliefs in later life match or contradict their parents’ beliefs depends on their relationship with their parents as well as their own moral character.
Friends come to play on this issue from around one’s teenage years onwards. On such a heated issue as abortion, many people might hide or alter their beliefs to fit in or not be discriminated against.
Media
One of the least important influences on the abortion issue, albeit still a crucial one, media, as always shares peoples beliefs. The bottom line is that the particular viewpoint of the medium reenforces a particular audience’s views on the matter. If you’re for abortion, I wouldn’t suggest watching a Christian news show or reading a Christian article to get a better understanding of the issue, because you’d only acquire a biased view.
Personal Beliefs
Religion aside, abortion is an issue that is just as equally important for individuals. Generally, religious beliefs (to an extent) deem a person’s beliefs on abortion. Realistically, when choosing sides on the abortion issue goes outside religious and political views. An atheist may be pro-life, while a Catholic may pro-choice. On the personal level, views may also change due to experiences in life and life situations.
In the second editorial on abortion, I’ll cover the differences between Pro-Life and Pro-Choice.
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