The Meaning of Life
Humans act all the time, which implies that they have preferences, i.e. persistent internal structures which say which choices they make in which situations. But humans aren’t usually very good at explaining their preferences. They instead find it hard to give a consistent abstract account that explains their choices. They can act, but can’t say what they want.
One of the things people sometimes say is that they make their choices to gain “meaning”. But they say many different conflicting things about what things actually give “meaning”, different not only between people but even within the same person. That is, people seem quite confused about the “meaning of life”.
If humans are at root pretty similar, then having any one person learn the meaning of their life would seem to be quite informative to everyone else about the meaning of their lives. And a substantial fraction of the many billions of humans who have ever lived have in fact tried to learn about the meaning of their lives. Furthermore, some of these people have claimed to have succeed in discovering this meaning.
Yet no one seem to have persuaded a substantial fraction of humanity to their view on this. Presented solutions to this key questions seem either overly vague or insufficiently supported by evidence in human behavior or words. What can we conclude from this key fact? Let us consider some possible explanations.
One possibility is that there is just no such thing. Human actions are induced by a complex mess of structures that is not reasonably summarized by any abstract coherent shared concept of “meaning”. When people have a feeling of having found “meaning”, that isn’t the result of their matching their lives to such a coherent pre-existing concept, but instead due to yet another complex mess of social and mental processes. We feel “meaning” when that seems to be useful to our minds, but there is no there there. We haven’t found it because it doesn’t exist.
A second possibility is that people have in fact discovered simple abstract expressible truths about the meaning of our lives. But these truths are mostly ugly, and thus not one they are eager to own and tell to others. And when they do tell others, their audiences mostly do not want to hear, and instead prefer to embrace the mistaken claims of those who do not actually know, but instead wishfully offer more aspirational accounts.
And a third possibility, is, what? My mind goes blank here. How could there be simple abstract truth on what gives us meaning, to explain our preferences, and yet either no one among the billions who have looked has ever found it, or when they all do find it they somehow can’t communicate it to others, even though to others this discovery would be quite unobjectionable and pleasing?
"Overcoming Bias" is a nifty title, but what if it were "Overcoming Prejudice" instead? How many people would instantly associate it with being the racial kind? I once shared Einstein's quote: “What a sad era when it is easier to smash an atom than a prejudice.” -- followed by: "The prejudice in Einstein's era pales in comparison to today." Some guy replied, "By any objective measurement, that is completely wrong."
I politely corrected him by explaining that Einstein's quote is about prejudice in all its forms. Prejudice is an ugly term -- and that's precisely why it needs to be used to define the ugliness it applies to. Most of America is prejudiced by definition. As a friend perfectly put it: "It's not 'Pride & Bias.'"
It seems like there's a lot of thoughtful people in here discussing the "meaning of life" -- but it's all in broad strokes. It's so much more interesting and demanding when you get granular.
"Bias" and "prejudice" is not simply semantics. For decades, I've been practically spit on for telling the truth. That's not bias -- that's full-blown prejudice. Bias would be inclined not to believe at first but still having a willingness to consider the information.
But you can be politely dismissive and be just as prejudiced as being belligerent.
I have an idea that could turn the tide -- and it doesn't get any more granular than the irrefutable evidence of mathematical certainty at the center of it.
Tolstoy’s Not Talkin’ About Me — He’s Talkin’ About You:https://onevoicebecametwo.l...
As M. Scott Peck put it: "Why do we learn anything? The answer is simply that it is far better – both more fulfilling and constructive – to have some glimmer of understanding of what we are than to flounder around in total darkness. We can neither comprehend nor control it all, but as J.R.R Tolkien said:
It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years when we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.
"uprooting the evil in the fields that we know" . . .
I like Nathan Taylor's answer. Meaning is something an individual finds in their individual life. Similarly it wouldn't make sense to ask, "What is the meaning of books?" By reading a book you only find out the meaning of that book. I don't know my meaning, but I've always found the question intriguing and suspect.
People seem compelled to wonder about it as in an absurdist play: some characters find themselves in a strange setting and start asking "What is the meaning of this!?" As if we had already existed, but were kidnapped and placed here. And maybe there's an expectation that whoever places us here is supposed to have given us assignments or to have gathered us here for a purpose. Or else it's pretty presumptuous, wouldn't you say!? And in any case, if it wasn't for a purpose, why go to the trouble!? Relating to the status of being someone with a reason to be here. William Bartley did a great job on the strong old cultural habit of looking, on the assumption of a need, for justification.
The closest I come to thinking there's a real meaning to "meaning of life," is experiences that provoke feelings one wants to call "meaningful," "deep," or "profound"-- whatever those feelings mean. When something seems to connect the dots in ones life, make things seem to "come together," or one sees a pattern, or the meaning of grand things others have said about life in a way that crosses a lot of experience and motivation of one's own. Or if one finds what feels like a mission or thing that feels important to be doing for a while. The fact that there are these global emotional indicators like deep or important "for its own sake," suggests they're evolved for something. I think human brains are motivated to connect or unify experiences, viewpoints, ideas, etc., if not as a bias then as a natural dynamic of mental redundancy versus economy. Stumbling across a unification feels like something one should do again.
(Minsky said, on the contrary, finding distinctions is the important thing.)
Another way to see the global indicator is to think of doing something that "feels meaningless."