What is the meaning of the meaning of life?

[JimW]

Those who can, do. Those who can't, philosophise

Though the Daoist ideal was non-ado yet nothing undone. Spooky!

 

[Pickman's model]

Though the Daoist ideal was non-ado yet nothing undone. Spooky!

Buddy, can youse paradigm?

 

[ffsear]

Work hard, Have a dream, Never stop chasing it.

 

[JimW]

That's a bit live laugh love, love.

 

[existentialist]

Work hard, Have a dream, Never stop chasing it.

Have you got that in wooden letters on your living room wall?

ETA: snap. And what's with you calling ffsear "love"?

 

[existentialist]

That's a bit live laugh love, love.

It's also bullshit, and rather platitudinous. Almost needs the word "Just" shoehorned in front, assuming your living room wall is big enough

 

[JimW]

And what's with you calling ffsear "love"?

Channelling Clare what's-her-face that nice agony aunt - will you do that for me dearie?

 

[Pickman's model]

Work hard

no one ever sighs on their death bed about how they wish they'd worked harder. No one should ever work.

The Abolition of Work

Bob Black The Abolition of Work 1991 This essay originated as a speech in 1980. A revised and enlarged version was published as a pamphlet in 1985, and in...

theanarchistlibrary.org

 

[littlebabyjesus]

About metaphysical speculation in general I think but -its been awhile.

Yep. It's the last line of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, which itself is a set of carefully arranged logical steps demonstrating that all logic is tautology. It's the ultimate dismantling of philosophy, really - logic is tautologous, and there is nothing to say beyond logic.

Yet, very oddly, Wittgenstein was horrified by Russell's atheism.

As someone said on this thread, 'thought is'. That's about all that can be said. Russell is often thought of as the hard-headed materialist, but he subscribed to this, too. It's a short stop to Bishop Berkeley.

Maybe give it initial caps to imbue it with gravitas.

Thought Is.

Adding the caps gives a certain religious flavour.

thought is

Ah well. Not so strange.

 

[ffsear]

assuming your living room wall is big enough

It is

 

[existentialist]

It is

I expect that's because you worked hard, had a dream, and never stopped chasing it. Well done, jolly good show

 

[PTK]

I find it instructive that we got several pretty decent answers to these questions a good two thousand years ago, or as decent as I think we're ever going to get but not so many people find them sufficient. Maybe uncertainty is healthy, certainly (ho ho) never been too impressed by the certain types.

Is that being a tad ethnocentric?

 

[JimW]

Is that being a tad ethnocentric?

I struggle to see how unless you're a bit confused as to the wide spread of early philosophy.

 

[PTK]

Which agenda?

The hidden agenda. The agenda of the secret conspiracy, so secret that those who allude to it ar........................................

 

[weltweit]

Generally hamsters don’t pay rent or buy their own stuff.

Nevertheless we make a (sub)conscious decision to stay on the hamster wheel. Perhaps Stanley Edwards stepped off it and went on to construct his own wheel?

 

[existentialist]

The hidden agenda. The agenda of the secret conspiracy, so secret that those who allude to it ar........................................

Yep, that's the one

 

[8ball]

I struggle to see how unless you're a bit confused as to the wide spread of early philosophy.

I guess it’s skipping over some stuff from about 2,500 years ago, and some other bits a bit further back.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Seriously, I like the hamster wheel of life, most hamsters remain running up the treadmill, but they could all step to their left or right and escape the wheel altogether.

Are we sometimes so stuck on the wheel that we forget we can step off it when we want?

 

[JimW]

I guess it’s skipping over some stuff from about 2,500 years ago, and some other bits a bit further back.

Fuck me, it's hardly an exact date I gave The whole point is this is a question that's long exercised people from various places for a very long time and solid work was done early on. But yes, fuck those early Vedic writers, what did they know?

 

[PTK]

I struggle to see how unless you're a bit confused as to the wide spread of early philosophy.

The thinkers of Ancient Greece, the Middle East, India, and China were a little longer ago than "2,000 years", so I assumed that you were referring only to Jesus. However, I now realise that you were not. Apologies.

 

[JimW]

The thinkers of Ancient Greece, the Middle East, India, and China were a little longer ago than "2,000 years", so I assumed that you were referring only to Jesus. However, I now realise that you were not. Apologies.

Have you not accepted Christ as your Lord and Saviour? We all do here.

 

[PTK]

Have you not accepted Christ as your Lord and Saviour? We all do here.

I accept him, but he just will not accept me. I also wonder what he is saving people for. A rainy day?

 

[JimW]

I accept him, but he just will not accept me. I also wonder what he is saving people for. A rainy day?

I think he gets a toaster once he fills a book.

 

[8ball]

Fuck me, it's hardly an exact date I gave The whole point is this is a question that's long exercised people from various places for a very long time and solid work was done early on. But yes, fuck those early Vedic writers, what did they know?

I was thinking more of Buddha and Lao-Tze.

 

[JimW]

I was thinking more of Buddha and Lao-Tze.

Yes, just underestimated my time frame; have read some really interesting stuff on the philosophical contentions in China around that point, the Mohists are not so well known abroad but they were sort of proto-socialists (bit of a stretch) contemporary with Confucius/the Ru with a heavy engineering bent so they go round advising small states on defensive warfare too. Practical.

 

[PTK]

I think he gets a toaster once he fills a book.

If only he knew. . . he ignores my messages, and I would give him my toaster, if only he would call.

By the way, his version of the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, does not work if you are a masochist. The other version is much better: “Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you”.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Agree with Jim. We've never really got past this...

my friend Enkidu, whom I loved, has turned to clay.
Shall I not be like him, and also lie down,
never to rise again, through all eternity?

No one can see the face of death,
no one can hear the voice of death,
yet there is savage death that snaps off mankind.

As for man, his days are numbered,
whatever he might do, it is but wind.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

* farts silently *

 

[JimW]

Agree with Jim. We've never really got past this...

I think it's also because these are such universal concerns that these texts and fragments tend to survive translation and the massive cultural and temporal distances so well where other aspects of ritual and so forth can be quite opaque to us now.

 

[Pickman's model]

Agree with Jim. We've never really got past this...

That is not dead which can eternal lie
And with strange aeons even death may die