 In an age when youth is venerated, that's a youth cult, I'm an old man. In an age that had given up on books, I devoured them. And believe you me, I've had enough time to read them all. Every single tomb, every thought, to watch every video. Every guru, every public intellectual, every philosopher and wannabe philosopher. Every self-styled expert, every money-grubbing coach. I have watched them all, I've read them all. But the most important figure in my life was Frederica. Everything I've learned, I've learned from Frederica. And Frederica, you may be shocked, was my goldfish. In her algae-ridden aquarium, my goldfish, Frederica, invariably appeared to be happy. She never complained, except when called or hungry. She circled in the water, fins erect, mouth agape, the better to catch food muscles. I don't really know if she had been happy or not. I don't even know if she was capable of happiness. Or if she was, whether her brand of happiness resembled mine, a human's. I can't fully empathize with a goldfish without anthropomorphizing her, projecting onto her my inner world. I can't put myself in my goldfish's non-existent shoes, even if she had any. And still, there was a lot to learn from the late lamented Fredouche, my Frederica, when it comes to being content with life and with its offerings in her aquarium. And so, thinking about Frederica and continuing to talk to her long after she went to the toilet way, I came up with a series of questions and then with purported or attempted answers. And this first video is dedicated to the questions. Questions to Ponder. Life should not be confused with existence. Existence is a fact, the raw material of life. Life is what we do with and throughout our existence. It is the sum total of our choices as expressed via our actions and behaviors. So don't confuse the two, life and existence. Meaning, similarly, should not be confused with essence. Essence is our nature, it's the user's manual. It does not imply purpose, except the purpose of existence. Meaning is not essence, it cannot be derived from the essence. Only purpose can be derived from essence. So that implies that meaning and purpose are not coterminous, they're not the same. Let me try to simplify this with a parable. Consider a knife, its essence, its purpose are clear and they are related via the actions of the knife's designer or creator. But what is the meaning of a knife? Does a knife have a meaning? Essence also cannot be the outcome of choice. Where there is choice, there is no essence. Essence is immutable, unchangeable, given, fundamental. But can I choose to act against my nature, against my essence? If I am by nature cruel, sadistic and choose to act compassionately, am I not cruel or sadistic anymore? Am I now compassionate, empathic? Or am I just a cruel, sadistic man who merely fakes it? He's faking it, chooses to suspend his nature, his essence, and act compassionately. We are uniquely endowed with the ability to act against our nature, in defiance of our essence. And this is what makes us human, the ability to suspend, to transcend our nature. It's an important element in the meaning of human life. While we do construct our meaning, we do not, and we cannot, construct our essence. Essence can be idiosyncratic, highly specific, highly individualistic. My essence can be different to your essence, even though we are both human beings. But essence is a template. We are born with our essence, and it unfolds, unfurls and interacts with our environment throughout life. Meaning, on the other hand, is, as the existentialists maintain, the outcome of cumulative choices. We choose meaning, and therefore it is subjective, it is arbitrary. Subjective and arbitrary it is, but is it real? Does meaning have any bearing on the world? If we were to be transported and transplanted into another planet among aliens, would we still preserve the same sense of meaning, and would we still pursue it in the same ways? In other words, is meaning context dependent? Can meaning exist without a design imbued with the intentions and plans of a designer? Can meaning arise out of random events or stochastic processes? After all, we use the language of probability in our description of the universe on both the micro, micro and macro levels. But are these merely language elements, or do they reflect the true nature of the world, its essence? Even if they do, does that mean that they can render the world meaningful? What is the relationship between the world out there, my interpretation of the world out there, my reaction to the world out there, including an instinctual cognitive and emotional component, and my actions which are based on my interpretation of the world out there? What's the relation between all these? Can I choose to not react to the world, to not act, to not orient myself to the future, the temporal side of my action? Can I choose to orient myself to the present, the temporal side of my exposure to and interaction with the world? Can I choose to not transcend in Sartre's phrase? Sartre's phrase? Think of Viktor Frankl in Auschwitz, an extermination camp. Did he choose to live in the present, or did he choose to live in the future? Was he interacting with his world, or did he avoid it altogether? I refer you to my previous video, uploaded today, about his logotherapy. Viktor Frankl's logotherapy. Well, the answer is, of course I can ground myself, embed myself in the present. This is the foundation of all mindfulness therapies. So I can choose to not orient myself to the future, to not foresee the outcomes and consequences of my actions, to not try to secure favorable outcomes from the environment. In other words, to let go of the world. Sure I can, but is this choice indicative of our freedom to choose meaning? Are we condemned to be free even when we elect to ignore the world and to not act? Can we derive meaning, or at least self-definition, acquaintance with our essence, through inaction, or does meaning necessitate action and orientation towards the future? Moreover, the essence of meaning is different to the essence of choice. Meaning is unlimited. Meaning is immutable. One can choose meaning, but once chosen, and for as long as it applies, it is unchangeable, indivisible, innate, imminent, and all-pervasive. It is also the found of all values, decisions, choices, beliefs about the world. So choices are limited. They're constrained by circumstances, if not by freely self-imposed priorities, those values, more rays. So by definition, choices are mutable. The opposite of meaning. Choices are mutable, changeable, divisible, transient, reversible, and the outcomes of values and beliefs, selfless, bed-faith. Choices can be automated. Choices can be outsourced, for example, to an external value, or moral system, to an ideology, to a belief, to a social role, to an overriding priority. Choices are much more malleable, they're much more protein than meaning. While outsourced choices are not one's choices, the choice to outsource is one's choice. Moreover, the very principle of absolute freedom to make any choice is an external constraint because it interpolates, impels, compels one to choose even if and when one is authentically not inclined to choose. Choices to not choose, chooses to freeze. In other words, meaning yields choices and consequent actions, not the other way around. Our meaning is not generated by our choices, because the mutable cannot create the immutable. Our meaning is not generated by our choices, our choices are generated by our meaning. Choices do not yield meaning, they derive from it. Once the meaning changes, so do the choices and actions of an individual. We all know that. But if meaning is the antecedent, antecedent, if it precedes choice, how does it present itself? If it is not chosen by the individual, how does it come to adopt meaning? Don't we choose our meaning? Does meaning emerge spontaneously, epiphenominally, from a life lived? Does meaning amount to merely making sense of one's personal biography and circumstances, history? What is one's personal biography or personal history if not the cumulation of one's choices? Again, we come to choices, ultimately, on the ground level. So if we derive meaning from life, our life, our lives, the cumulation of our choices, we derive meaning from choices. Meaning cannot emerge over time, for then it would be conditioned by and premised upon and derived from choices. We just said that choices derive from meaning. Meaning does not derive from choices. So meaning cannot be temporal. It cannot emerge over time. It cannot be conditioned by choices. It cannot be premised on choices. And it cannot derive from choices cumulative or not. Meaning must be a priori, must precede choices. Yet if it is an a priori, if it is a priori analytically, as it is not dependent on the world, it is not dependent on knowledge of the world, it must be a priori in the analytical sense. Where does it come from? Why is it different for each individual? If it's out there, if it's a priori, if it's in council language, a priori category, why don't we all have the same meaning? It's like, you know, reality. The colour red. Most of us would agree on the existence of the colour red. If meaning is out there and doesn't depend on our choices and actions, why don't we all end up with the same meaning? What about negative meaning? One can surely say with certainty that one is not. One can more easily define one's inauthenticity than capture one's authenticity. Can this serve as a source of meaning? Is it in principle meaningful to not be? For example, to not be something? What about exclusionary meaning and self-identity? When our identity is in contrast to others, in opposition to others, the outcome of recenti mo, for example, resentment, envy. Can we derive meaning by contrasting with others, by excluding others? Meaning, I said, cannot be derived from the world, nor can it be lost to or through the world. This is because we do not perceive the world directly. We perceive only our unique idiosyncratic perceptions and impressions of the world. And these perceptions and impressions of the world, even they're not real. They're filtered. They're interpreted by us. They're subjected to mathematical models in the brain. I mean, we don't have access to the world, let alone access to anyone else's mind. We are islands in the fullest sense. We are solipsistic. Our emotions are powerful hindrance and they distort our ability to objectively seek for meaning. Meaning derived directly from the gaze, memory or opinions of other people is nothing but narcissism. So, deriving meaning from affiliation with or from belonging to some collective, that's self-deceiving. That's not meaningful. That's not meaning. Other people cannot serve as sources of meaning because they are also in search of meaning and their lives appear to them to be as meaningless as your life appears to you. Relying on other people for meaning in tautological fashion, it's a tautology. It's bound to lead to circularity, a kind of infinite regression. Okay, what about self-developed values? Morality, faith and a view of the world, as, for example, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche suggested. You know, why don't you become the source of your meaning? Why don't you become self-referential, self-recursive, self-sufficient? Can such self-reference render one's existence meaningful? Can one be one's source of meaning? And this leads to infinite regression as well. What endows one, we ask, what endows one with the capacity to be store-meaning to start with? Moreover, by rejecting conformity, one allows society to define, albeit negatively, one's authenticity. By defying society, by defying authority, by acting conchumaciously, one becomes authentic only in contrast to social conformity. When you reject something, you're defined by it as much as when you accept it. Meaning can also not be derived from actions because activities are meaningful only within a context. It is the context that endows activities and, by extension, the actor with meaning. But where does the meaning reside? Context is observer-dependent. Does the meaning reside in the common knowledge of the situation or in some kind of intersubjective agreement that something is meaningful? Aren't such agreements arbitrary? Aren't they culture-bound? In other words, aren't such agreements context-dependent, which again leads to infinite regression? We again come across tautology, tautology in circularity. It is culture that is context. It is context that determines which activities are meaningful within that culture, which is the context to this meaningfulness. So culture refers to itself via activities, via actions, and becomes its own meaning, which is an absolutely meaningless construction. But the most common, actually. Let me try to go down to earth a bit. Going from point A to point B, mentally or physically, is in itself, you would all agree, meaningless. Just going from A to B is meaningless, unless there is no point B and the path itself is the destination, the journey. Not the destination, but the journey. But most people are goal-oriented. They don't regard the journey or the path as the destination. They're going from point A to point B. And now, in itself, it's a meaningless activity. And presumably, only point B is meaningful. So you're departing from point A. It's point B that renders the whole trip meaningful. And so we traverse an area whose lower limit point A, lower boundary point A, is less meaning. And whose upper limit point B is more meaning. We go from less meaning to more meaning. The act of seeking meaning, the Tao, the path, the journey, cannot in itself be meaningful, because it assumes a want or a lack of meaning at the point of departure, and hence the undertaking of the search. You cannot depart from meaninglessness. From a meaningless point A, you cannot depart from a meaningless point in pursuit of meaning. And you can definitely not attribute the locus of meaning to point B, or to the journey. You must depart from meaning. You must catapult yourself from meaning from a meaningful point A in order to bestow meaning upon the journey, the path, and the destination. Point B is meaningful because other people say so. The seeker cannot decide on his own that point B is meaningful because he has never been to point B. He needs the experience and the opinions of those who have been to point B in order to determine its potential meaningfulness to him, which is by no means guaranteed, as only he can be the judge of that. Only he can decide if point B is meaningful to himself. He cannot rely on other people. And so if the act of seeking meaning is interrupted before one gets to point B, the whole experience of seeking meaning, once passed in effect, is rendered meaningless. Similarly, if one could pop a pill and find oneself in point B directly, its meaningfulness would still be preserved, except if reaching point B requires a struggle and sacrifices and suffering that in themselves are considered meaningful. So money worn in the lottery is easy come easy go because point B is about making the money, earning it not about the piles of cash. A physical trip is meaningless. Whatever meaning is to be found in such pilgrimage lies in the parallel and correlated inner states which unfold as the trip progresses. This inner landscape evolves. The experience of being in point B, the nirvana of accomplishment, this experience is said to be meaningful, but what and where is this meaning? It is in the ability to reinterpret and reframe the world past and present. It is in a new perspective to reside new powers, transformation of the self, reaching point B is empowering. So meaning is a process of self or other transformation, not a static representation, not a statement. So do science, magic or religion provide meaning? Yes, of course they do, by endowing us with power to transform ourselves via a new understanding of the world. They are not merely instrumental, they are conceptual. Consider material possessions for example, your smartphone. Material possessions allow you to act on yourself and on the world to manipulate, to conquer, to alter. But material possessions make use of existing concepts, existing paradigms. Science and religion act on us and on our view of the world via paradigmatic shifts and conceptual upheavals. Science and religion offer both creative destruction or disruption and organizing principles. And so do various schools of philosophy. Treatment modalities in psychology, anything that provides an organizing principle and hermeneutic explanatory principle provides meaning. So meaning has to do with empowerment. Meaning has to do with empowerment via comprehension of the world, mediated through sets of concepts, rules and formulas. Point B equals attaining this empowerment by gaining access to this knowledge, sometimes arcane knowledge. The status of point B is meaningful is derived from a consensus of earlier seekers of meaning. Consequently, there are many points B and as many meanings. And they're often incompatible. What is the relationship between meaning and time? Is meaning eternal, permanent, infinite? Or does it evolve over time? Does it change? Can meaning survive death? Or is it limited to one's lifespan? Can prospective events and actions imagine, plan, consider? Can they change the meaning of one's life? What happens to meaning after death? Where does the meaning go to? Do posthumous events change the meaning of one's life retroactively? Like things that happen after you die? Do they change the meaning of your life? Or how your life is perceived in terms of meaning? Well, presumably not in your eyes because your eyes are dead now after you die. Meaning doesn't change in your dead eyes. In a state of post-mortem. Only in other people's eyes. So is meaning a collaborative effort? Is it a social undertaking? Is it a social artifact? Even if the existence of a human species, humanity, mankind, can be shown to be meaningful. Which is a dubious proposition to start with. But let's assume there's a genius, a philosopher much more genius than anyone has ever been. It's to prove conclusively that the human species, mankind, humanity has meaning. Its existence has meaning. Can I, as an individual, derive the meaning of my own life from the meaning of my species? Is the meaning of my life a subset of the meaning of the existence of my family, nation, mankind, football club or even the universe? What is the relationship between meaning and happiness? Is the state of being happy meaningful? Ipsofacto? In itself? Or is the striving towards happiness interacting with the world and with others in prescribed ways? Is this meaningful? Our attempt to attain a state of happiness is this a meaningful attempt? Or is this meaning? Does finding meaning automatically induce happiness? Having a meaningful life entails the preference of certain values over other values. In other words, a choice. What are the criteria for such a selection? How to assess values? How to rank values? How can we tell if certain values are more conducive to inducing meaning, more meaningful, than other values? Do we derive meaning from the values that we had adopted? Or vice versa? Do we select values according to the meaning that we attribute to life? Sartor's absurd life project. And didn't we say that meaning is not contingent upon choices? On the very contrary. So it would seem to be that our values are derivatives of the meaning we attribute to the world and to our lives. Some philosophers suggest that we should believe, we should have faith in a supreme being as a guarantee and a fount of meaning. We should make this leap of faith. We should unthinkingly obey the commandments of this supreme being as Yeshaya Olobovich, the Jewish philosopher, Jewish-Israeli philosopher said. Martin Buber, I doubt. So some introduce supreme, a supreme being into the equation. Presumably such a being is meaningful in itself and can bestow kind of radiate its meaning on those who attach themselves to him via an act or state of faith. It's like, you know, the coat tails of meaning. Like this supreme being doesn't mean anything external because he includes everything. Because it includes everything, this supreme being, it also includes its own meaning. And so if you attach yourself to such a being, if you grasp by his coat tails, you will have found meaning. The attributes of such a being is infinite, is omnipresent, is omniscient, is omnipotent and possibly benevolent as a debate about this. You should watch my video about the Odyssey. So the attributes of this being are supposed to somehow yield imminent meaning. But it is not clear. How? How does such a supreme being radiate meaning? Why? It is also unclear whether his meaning, the meaning of that supreme being is exclusive, excludes all other possible meanings. Or is it, on the contrary, inclusive, includes all other possible meaning. And we also don't know if the meaning of a supreme being with these attributes has any applicability to us, small, finite, stupid, mortal. Can we share the mind of God? God has meaning, so we have meaning? Why? Why do we have in common with God? Finally, we don't know how it is that faith extracts meaning from the divine being of the supreme being. By what process? In which ways is this meaning extracted? And how can we... What criteria do we have when we do extract the meaning? How do we know it's real? Not fake, not false. There are false prophets. They're playing games with us, doesn't he? It's a Faustian world. Meaning is, therefore, not unique, singular, or objective. It is consensus-driven, statistical, and the outcome of polling. Human interactions and cumulative experiences and wisdom are put into the mix. The consensus doesn't pertain to any one particular individual and is, therefore, not direct, not narcissistic, but it is not altruistic either. Existential. Meaning is about being. Meaning amounts to a theory about the world. It must satisfy all the demands of scientific theories. But in contra-distinction to scientific theories, it is also teleological. It deals with purposefully ultimate, not proximate, causation. In other words, it incorporates purpose, goal, direction, like the era of time. Time and meaning are intimately connected. Meaning is an amnetic, all-inclusive, coherent, consistent, logically compatible, insightful, aesthetic, parsimonious, explanatory, predictive, prescriptive, ideological, imposing, and elastic. It is a narrative, organizing, integrative, absolving very often. Meaning is supposedly reflective of the essence of that which it renders meaningful. It, therefore, cannot be transient. It cannot be speculative. It cannot be uncertain. Essence is immutable, and so is meaning. But, of course, if meaning depends on context, then it must be shifting, must be relative, though not necessarily arbitrary. It may reflect the essence of the seeker or the seeker's milieu, environment, but not the essence of the elusive point B. So, you see, we come from different directions to contradictory understandings, mutually exclusive understandings of meaning and essence. Meaning is often linked to accomplishments, for example, to leaving one's mark on history, or on one's personal history, at least. And this is considered meaningful. The hidden assumptions are that it is immutable and that change, improving one's lot is important. And these are the twin illusions of permanence and progress. They are illusory because the past is subject to constant culture-dependent revision. And progress is a value judgment, frowned upon in many societies and periods in history. What about a value neutral, value-free transformation if you seek something, transform something, transform yourself, transform your environment, the seeker, regardless of whether such changes seem to be progress, is the seeker's path still meaningful? So, if the seeker just is, exists, but keeps transforming himself and transforming his environment in a way that does not conform to any value, if it is at all possible, as a geduncan experiment, thought experiment, would that be meaningful? Without value? Would a value-free non-axiological meaning be meaningful? Effecting change implies directed energy and activity, a sense of control. Can meaningful emerge from these sensations, the possession and exercise of control? Meaningfulness. Let me repeat. Imagine that we could create a situation where someone would affect change in himself or his environment without adhering to any value system, any opinion and any judgment. It would just exist and be and do. Still, effecting change is about power. It's about energy, it's about activities, it's about control. Can meaningfulness emerge from these things? Granted, exerting control makes some people feel good. It doesn't necessarily make them feel meaningful. Pleasure and an enhanced sense of well-being, feeling good, happiness even. Happiness, they are not the same as leading a meaningful life. Meaningful life frequently is a very unhappy life. Suffering is intimately connected to me as Jordan Peterson and Franklin Rice and Franklin had observed decades before Peterson. It is possible to find meaning in pain, even in death, for example. So, can we derive meaning from events in life, including death? Does meaning survive death? Coming back to the previous question, meaning is often retrospective when we look back and we behold the pattern of interconnectedness. Can meaningful event or outcome be? Meaning assumes progression towards a goal, point B. Sometimes we do set goals and pursue them linearly. But more frequently, life's events are random. Their outcomes serendipitous, fortuitous or calamitous, but inadvertent. We ascribe teleological causation orienting meaning to events only when the outcome is favourable. But death ends all events. It renders one's whole proceeding life meaningless. There is no meaning without a sentient being capable of deriving or comprehending or observing meaning. Our personality or accomplishments may be judged to have been meaningful by others after we are dead, but they can never be meaningful to us posthumously after we are dead or we are no more, we don't exist. Meaning is predicated on our existence. Hence, the need to believe in the afterlife and in its rewards or punishments which make our life in actions we took in our life meaningful. This is why we have this need. This is why we have the need to believe in a legacy. Behind our books, our thoughts, our intellectual accomplishments, our children, a legacy. But rewards and the avoidance of punishments these are goals. Attaining goals has to do with gratification not with meaningfulness. What if the goals achieved were to be guaranteed to be eternal? Let's assume that malignance of love, narcissism, revisited my book will survive forever it will be eternal. When we harken back to the medieval ages they believe that rewards in heaven and health penalties, health punishments are eternal. So they introduce the concept of eternity into rewards and punitive measures. So they said if you live a good life your rewards in heaven will be eternal. If you are evil your punishment in hell will be eternal. What if we were to introduce the concept of eternity into our lives? Everything we do will live forever. Our children's lineage is guaranteed forever. If we were to remove time time itself would then eternity guarantee us meaningfulness? Eternity is immutability it's a lack of change. So is eternity the guarantee of meaningfulness? Isn't meaningfulness caused by transience? For example in human life isn't meaningfulness induced by the very fact that we are about to die? Our life is meaningful because we are about to die isn't it? Or is meaninglessness caused by transience? Mortality in our case. What is a role of time in generating meaningfulness or meaninglessness? Also what is the distinction and what are the differences between imminent meaning until not teleologically? Is imminence linked to performance into eternity and is teleology by definition connected to motion and is therefore time dependent? Time defined and time limited owing to its dependence on change? When we search for meaning which of the two kinds are we looking for? As limited mortal beings can we even grasp imminent meaning? Or are we bound to fallaciously reduce true out there imminent meaning to the teleological variety even as we mistakenly elevate teleological meanings to the level of eternal truth? It's a problem our limits the fact that our hardware is finite it's a problem in trying to tackle questions that require an infinity of mind. Indeed is there a necessary linkage between truth and meaningfulness? Can a falsity can a lie be meaningful even when it is known to be a lie? Meaningfulness is a state of being imbued with meaning if one were to be hypnotized if one were to be drugged into this state would we as observers still pronounce that his life is meaningful? In other words if you acquire meaning by abusing substances or if you acquire meaning while in a hypnotic state is your life meaningful? You would insist maybe that your life is meaningful you would insist that your LSD trip was very meaningful to you as Timotheliri and others did Ellen Ginsburg but why is our judgment superior to these people? Why is our judgment superior to that of a junkie? Why is our judgment superior to a hypnotized subject? In what way? We would maintain that a junkie's life is meaningless because his self-attested state of meaningfulness has been induced externally because he is not in self-control he is not in full awareness he is not in control of all his faculties he has surrendered his locus of control but is meaning intimately linked to control let alone self-control? It seems that there are two conditions to a state of meaningfulness one that it is an inner state and self-induced and two that one is in an uncompromised position to judge whether one has attained meaningfulness so the lives of drag addicts and cult members do not meet these conditions their meaning is a simulacrum is an imitation, it's fake awareness of meaning is unnecessary but not a sufficient condition outside input is required in order to establish a certain sense of enlightenment is the subject in his right mind for example psychotic people they claim to have meaning is the subject in full control of his faculties? Drag addicts claim to have meaning did the subject reach point B on his own in a process which unfolded internally and not inexorably which was induced internally and not externally which was which he was aware of and able to stop at any minute so attaining meaningfulness is a collaborative effort not a solipsistic endeavor because the judgment of external observers the judgments and observations and even experiments of external people is crucial to the establishing of meaning meaning also requires a conscious investments of psychic resources on a regular basis in an in a controlled environment so put together these requirements remind us of two other human annotations learning and experimentation learning and experimentation have the same attributes meaning or seeking meaning is meaning idiosyncratic can someone find meaning in something that all other people find meaningless? the consensus guards against delusions the consensus serves as a filter if you are the only one who finds meaning in something and the rest of humanity doesn't something is wrong with you you are you are in a delusional state you have a delusional disorder but isn't self delusion a potent tool in the pursuit of meaning? isn't even psychosis a very important instrument in obtaining meaning one could easily argue make a case that most religious prophets would today have been considered psychotic, mentally ill and yet they have generated more meaning than anyone else there's no dispute about this a lot of this meaning is delusional but some of it is not so psychosis could generate meaning and yet psychosis and delusional disorder these are solipsistic states they are not dependent on a collaborative effort why pursue meaning at all? isn't mere survival meaningful? isn't it enough? isn't pleasure seeking meaningful? a life of doing and acting as an antidote to ennui and angst aren't we meant to merely survive merely act? meant by who? by a designer? in a world without a creator and therefore without a plan without intent is meaning possible at all? if acting in itself constitutes an agenda's meaning then what kind of acting? all acts? random acts? acts that involve no forethought, intention planning, innovations, creativity or motivation? do they generate meaning? what about criminal acts? utterly beyond the pale acts like pedophilia? what about the actions of our autonomous nervous system? our autonomous nervous system acts all the time that's why you have a heartbeat can these actions endow your life with meaning? is your heartbeat meaningful? is the firing of neurons in your brain meaningful? where does the meaning reside? in your brain? in your interpretation of what's happening in your brain? so that's not action it's not the action that generates meaning what does the world mean to me? what do I mean in the world? what do I mean to the world? did my goldfish alive? I kept it alive, I fed it I changed the water in her aquarium and I did this because one, my transactional gratitude my goldfish gave me peace of mind, gave me pleasure and I gave it food and care it was a deal, a business deal and number two, I value life I strive to fend off its destruction life equals order death equals disorder an entropy, I don't like disorder an entropy, I'm compulsive in arranging all the objects in my room, I'm like Hercules pororo in more than one way so I value life and the order it represents, I try to sustain it and number three, the death of my goldfish will remind me of my own mortality it caused me great it caused me great anxiety and grieving and finally I wish I wanted to prolong the benefits of the existence of my goldfish I wanted to prolong my pleasure, my peace of mind and so to the goldfish I was the source of life itself the goldfish would have surely died without me though it may not have been aware of this fact it behaved as though it were can we generalize my goldfish? will I seize to keep my goldfish will I have seized to have kept my goldfish alive if my goldfish were ill or unable to provide me with the aforementioned benefits I don't think so I got attached to my goldfish I got attached to the memories of the good times my goldfish and I had together before my goldfish got sick I'm attached and was attached to what my goldfish stood for it represented constancy cruelty, happiness and I was grateful to my goldfish for having kept each side of the bargain for as long as it could before it got ill so attachment plus meaning, plus gratitude outweigh the utilitarian calculus there are ways to fend off death but do they bestow an endow meaning is fending off death a meaningful activity is a sole aim of life to fend off death are we mere negentropic agents agents that act against entropy and is having an aim or a purpose the same as having a meaning does it depend on whether our purpose is baked in hardwired the result of being designed for a purpose or maybe it's not hardwired and we choose our meaning our purpose, I'm sorry so does meaning depend on whether the purpose is hardwired or chosen assuming the free will is not a mere illusion take a spider's web don't actually but consider a spider's web does a spider's web possess meaning is it meaningful independent of human observers who endow it with meaning I'm not disputing that a spider's web has a function perhaps even it has a purpose teleologically although the proposition that nature if not the spider itself yielded a purposeful web is debatable in the absence of a designer but forget all that there's a function maybe a purpose but does it have a meaning even if we agree that the spider's web has a purpose is it meaningful to the spider is it meaningful to have a purpose probably not the spider is not sentient is not self aware if it is meaningless to the spider is it meaningful to nature is it meaningful to us is it meaningful to the spider's prey is it nature equally automatic and rigid hardwired if the spider's web is meaningful only to us as observers how can we be sure that it is meaningful universally at all how can we be certain that meaning is an observable parameter or intensive property that is independent of any specified observer human beings are not like spiders human beings are not even like goldfish alas they're endowed with introspection a consciousness of their own existence and an insight into their inner landscape and their internal condition their entrails, mental entrails and human beings have the ability to imagine possible futures possible worlds and reimagine reframe and reinterpret the past and these two endowments or curses depending how you look at it they contribute to the confluence of function, purpose and meaning in human life because humans are designers they intentionally create functional objects whose purpose is ostensibly also their meaning that's the source of the confusion we are creators we were made in God's image similarly human beings treat their own lives as objects they mold their lives to avoid dysfunction, to enhance functionality to accomplish selected goals transhumanists and many bioengineers believe that humans should apply the same principles to their bodies and thus supplant natural selection with volitional selection but we're appropriating these natural functions directing a revolution henceforth will this imbue our thus objectified selves and lives with meaning? are we not confusing choice, direction, selection function and purpose means with meaning which is the end are we not confusing means and end meaning is the mysterious elusive end it's not the means to obtaining this end function, purpose, selection these are the means, the tools to reach meaning they are not meaning meaning is sometimes said to be the end both literally and figuratively we deploy varied means to achieve predetermined ends it is commonly assumed that if we were just to wait to the end of a process a life, an event we will uncover its meaning religion explicitly states that the meaning of human history lies in the end of time in the end of all days why should the end process be possessed of this privileged status? why do we privilege the end over the beginning? why not the beginning? why not the midpoint? perhaps because we are all too painfully aware of how little control we have over unintended consequences external shocks, externalities even with the best of intentions designs, planning and forethought look at the pandemic real invariant knowledge, the truth can be obtained only when movement ceases when entropy takes over the dust settles and we die but wait a minute I said the truth is meaning the same as the truth must meaning be truthful meaning or come across meaning even accidentally in mid-process when the truth hasn't fully revealed itself is death the exclusive source of meaning in life? back to Frederica is my aim or purpose to keep my goldfish alive among other aims and purposes is my conduct instinctual, built in design and I only intellectualize it by superimposing on a biological construct or is my aim purpose to keep my goldfish alive the outcome of a conscious choice can I choose to not keep my goldfish alive I have a choice and I can make choices in this world but these choices are constrained by my template and by the rules of the game many theoretical choices are just that theoretical choice, theoretical inapplicable to the world is given even when I strive to change the world the set of possible modifications is predetermined subject to the laws of nature including my nature we are limited much more than we care to admit and can I alter nature? really? I can act on nature I can act within nature by rearranging and manipulating its ingredients and constituents and building blocks can I change my nature the answer depends on the limitations of introspection and constitution physical and mental but by and large no does the world have a choice with regards to me? not the physical world nature but the human world do other people have choices do they exercise them frequently when it comes to me this is one of the attributes that set humans apart from nature humans do have choices they exercise but is having a choice is exercising a choice a meaningful or meaning generating feature or action if it is is it because it is not natural maybe meaning is not natural maybe meaning arises only when we act not naturally unnaturally supernaturally even endows the world with meaning and it is a super natural being humans make choices and these choices apparently are conscious can go either way and that is not natural because nature is hardwired, baked in so when we deviate from nature meaning arises so do we acquire more meaning the further we distance ourselves from nature what in nature decries us in our life of meaning is it the automatism of nature the lack of conscious choice is it the valuelessness lack of context nature's indifference, lack of emotions what in all this think about the following combos triads, combinations triad number one attachment, memory, gratitude triad number two choice, values, context emotions these are the attributes of God the secret of religion is that it purports to provide meaning can we derive these two triads without resulting to a God and within human life exclusively embedded in and struggling with nature as it is is there meaning without an external source of meaning the ultimate privilege observer it's like quantum mechanics writ large can meaning be engendered internally without degenerating into circularity tautology and self-reference and in which ways is God not a part of the system in which ways is God external is any meaningful conversation about meaning possible without a God looming death renders life both meaningful and meaningless it is an engine of meaning as far as we are concerned nothing we do nothing we accomplish survives death as far as we are concerned and therefore nothing is meaningful to us but it may be meaningful to other people and so it may survive our physical demise extending our meaning of our life the meaning of our life beyond the termination of our life and this is only scratching the surface consider the following can robots indistinguishable from human beings robots that pass the turing test with flying colors androids that look exactly like human beings and cannot be told apart can these have a meaningful life in other words do these robots possess the capacity to have a meaningful life it is conceivable that in the far future such robots will be capable of making autonomous choices but is this free will and necessary and sufficient condition for meaningfulness can someone have a meaningful life if his life is totally predetermined is it possible to entirely predetermine anything let alone a life human or machine our ants take ants not ant ant insect are ants capable of having a meaningful life what about bacteria what about the covid virus an uncertainty principle if we were able to inquire this of the ant and the ant were able to respond then her life would not be predetermined and she would not be an ant but would her life be potentially at least meaningful if we endow the ant tomorrow we implant a chip in the ant and she becomes self aware introspective conscious and creative she becomes in other words a human ant she becomes purposeful she becomes able to make choices but does her life become meaningful what renders an entity capable of having a meaningful life when we say entity A is capable of having a meaningful life is it the same as saying entity A has quality B the capacity to have a meaningful life or is it the same as saying entity A is capable of having quality C a meaningful life or is it entity A is D capable of having a meaningful life you see how many variants there are let me repeat this is crucial when I say entity A is capable of having a meaningful life one interpretation is that entity A has quality B entity A has the capacity to have a meaningful life or entity A is capable of having quality C meaningful life or entity A is capable of having a meaningful life there is an identity here that's what entity A is what is this capacity is it I don't know reflexive is it automatic is it to learn is it acquired is it intuitive is it analytic what is this capacity to derive meaningful life does not have to be happy we know that doesn't have to be fulfilling either pleasant rational consequential influential none of these none of these are sine qua non necessary conditions for a meaningful life so for example can a dream state be meaningful in and of itself you remember the movies the Truman show the matrix there were people there and they were either in a dream state or they didn't know it but they were inside the television show their life was not real it was a television it was a script so can a dream state be meaningful in and of itself if we were never to wake up for instance if we were trapped in a virtual reality universe there was a technical malfunction we couldn't wake up we remain trapped in the machine in the dream state would our life have meaning we tend to think that it wouldn't have but why why is such a life meaningless what casts what makes such a life meaningless if this life is coherent consistent feels real involves relationships and accomplishments why is this life meaningless what makes such a life lived in a dream state within a machine less worthwhile than if it were spent in real reality that's why people keep saying reality is a simulation it's not a simulation or at least we can prove that it is a simulation or falsify this assumption it's a meaningless statement but they feel that it is a simulation what if we could direct our dreams via lucid dreaming so we could direct the dreams so with this directed resulting lucid dreams in aggregate amount to a life imbued with meaning can we disentangle morality from meaningfulness we can't because there is no such thing as an amoral or morally neutral act or existence morality in itself is not a form of meaning of course leading a moral life may bestow meaning but it is not the meaning that it bestows the same goes for happiness living a content and worthwhile life may endow such a life with meaning even a hedonistic pleasure oriented thought can be meaningful but it is not the same as the meaning endowed or bestowed we should not confuse that the ends with the mean the means with the end is meaning dependent on the narrative quality of a life lived the coherence of such a life intelligibility plotting purpose direction transcendence can for example a big Lebowski meandering life with the life of a slacker the life of sensory deprivation self denied a life in coma spent in vegetative state can such a life be meaningful according to most religions and many philosophies asceticism is actually a condition for a meaningful life avoiding life rejecting life denying life cutting down life to the bare bones is the condition for a meaningful life what is a monk or a nun it's someone who has renounced 99% of life and everything it has to offer and yet they claim that their life their lives are meaningful ours are not is meaning in general and life's meaning in particular an objective good distinguished by its superiority worthiness reactions and emotions it evokes judgments and values it is attached to its history and if so is there a recipe for securing this objective good for getting hold of it by making the right choices for example deprivation I don't know drive, urge, desire something where is the way to meaning perhaps when we speak of meaning in life we have in mind one or more of these related ideas certain conditions that are worthy of great pride or admiration values that warrant devotion and love qualities that make a life intelligible comprehensible or ends apart from base pleasure that are particularly choice worthy that's what we say meaning we mean these things perhaps by studying a meaningless life we can hit upon a uniform and unifying definition of a meaning full life is a meaningless life wasted unreasonable futile, absurd if meaning is a good objective good like I don't know a glass of water so if meaning is an objective good that bestows meaningfulness what are the properties of this good this object must such a good be infinite, perfect eternal, immutable, universal is such an objective good of meaning is meaning invariant or is it observer dependent, subjective can meaning be statistically inferred, can it be normalized a matter of common opinion an inter subjective agreement, an opinion poll or is it the exclusive domain of a sovereign individual who is solely qualified to judge if his or her life is meaningful is meaning constituted by the mind almost solipsistically or is it imported from the outside is it the outcome of feedback or input or is it self-generated is it conscious unconscious is it recognized out there by its beholders as a good or a property and if so which kind of good or property does it have an autonomous existence an intrinsic value that are independent independent of any judgment value or opinion for meaning to arise and a state of meaningfulness to be established and accomplished passive stance to believe in something for example or is a proactive attitude called for for example seek something aggressively, manifestly, consistently do we have to do something or do we have to just be some some schools of philosophy and metaphysics and mystics they say that the less you do the more likely you are to come across meaning the misconception is that once life is more meaningful the more one gets what one happens to one strongly so your life is more meaningful if you get what you want very strong what you desire the more you achieve your highly ranked goals the more you do what you believe to be really important the more meaningful your life is yet many maybe even most people with degrees published papers and books famous many of these people will tell you immediately they are unhappy their lives are meaningless they come they go to therapy the value of these people plays in their existence is so low that self destructively and self defeating they do drugs and sometimes even commit suicide this and we angst dissatisfaction may even be the human condition prevents all lives from possessing meaning that's the pessimistic strand of nihilism let's take it reducts you ad absurd consider trimming your toenails trimming your toenails I hope you do it regularly does this activity confirm meaning most people say what trimming toenails meaningless but this would be the wrong answer saying that trimming your toenails is meaningless would be the wrong answer because it ultimately depends on the context if one is trimming one's toenails as a part of a ritual or to uphold a belief system or to participate in a beauty contest or to appeal to and attract his or her lover or to provide a lesson in personal hygiene to others then even this trivial and ostensibly pointless and repetitive activity acquires meaning becomes meaningful if one is a pedicurist and takes pride in her vocation trimming toenails becomes the foundation upon which her self esteem sense of self worth creativity, pleasure and meaningful life are constructed to cut a long story short specifying the act is not enough context is critical meaning seems not to be subjective not to be objective but contextual ok you say what about harming other people causing them pain wantonly, sadistically what about killing someone can this modus operandi confirm meaning on one's life yes it can if one takes pride in one's abusive bullying and regards it as a creative art form to be perfected and honed and if one derives overwhelming pleasure in inflicting agony and anguish and regards the attainment and securing of pleasure as meaningful goes if one kills at the service of his nation state that's called a soldier it's another example is it therefore possible to compile a list of invariantly meaningful activities must such activities always be moral rational, creative, pleasurable aspirational, loving, beneficial to others help realize one's potential ambitions, anything is there any standard, any criteria it will allow us to compile a list of activities that are always meaningful what think about this Hitler must have regarded his career not as heinous but as all the above moral, rational, creative pleasurable, aspirational, loving beneficial to others and realizing potential and ambitions must we and can we substitute an objective list for Hitler's subjective appraisal of his own actions who is the ultimate judge is Hitler the ultimate judge of the meaningfulness of Hitler's life or are we what guarantees on us attains the objectivity of any list we compile of meaningful undertakings what is the source of this imputed objectivity for a life to be meaningful should its significance be equally distributed throughout its parts can a life subsist of clusters of meaningfulness separated by long stretches of meaninglessness and such a life can it be called overall meaningful can the meaningful parts arise without the meaningless ones don't the meaningless stretches these meaningless enclaves and islands don't they serve as incubators of meaning and so they yield the birth the meaningful parts should the meaningful parts be various not repetitive does repetition and routine wrote do they detract from life's meaningfulness someone who spent his entire life making doing a single thing single movement let's say is life meaningless can we judge a life to have been meaningful before it is over is the whole likely to give rise to an emergent epiphenomenal meaning not inherent in the parts or in the sum of the parts is it like a narrative a story a plot with an ending repunchline without which the whole sequence appears pretty meaningless according to Schopenhauer life acquires meaning when we deny our narcissistic will when we continue to exist as beings devoid of will this would imply that normal willful existence is automatically meaningless but of course it takes an act of will to adopt this prescription and embark on such self denial nor is it clear why being possessed of a will renders one's life one's life meaningless the notion is counter-intuitive as Viktor Frankl had noted we usually associate a will driven goal attainment with the acquisition of meaning not with its undermining Kierkegaard suggests to render life meaningful one must find a unifying principle an underlying narrative and a single dedicated goal to which one is devoted but an equally potent argument can be made to the contrary that plurality and diversity foster an agenda meaning nor is it clear why only a relationship with the infinite can bestow meaning on one's life or rather why a connection with the finite cannot accomplish the same goal with less exertion and implosibility and suspension of judgment these are the questions and I'm going to spend the next few videos actually answering I encourage you to try to find your own answers thereby imbuing your life with enhanced meaning thank you for listening