Mortality and Pointlessness

The eight hours that I sleep during the 24 hour day are among my favorite hours. Indeed, the UNCONSCIOUS experience of sleep, like the unconscious processes in the creation of art, are intrinsically valuable.

By the way, the Hindu Imagery of the dancing Shiva can be interpreted as the universe doing what it does for its intrinsic value. Dancing is movement that goes nowhere. It is not teleological like walking with the PURPOSE of arriving at a destination. Shiva's dance, like the universe's activities (which includes ours) occur simply (or ultimately) for the sake of doing it. Within the universe, however, there are humans (and who knows how many other species?) who think of their activities as only extrinsic in meaning and value.

You proposed that death eventually renders our projects pointless; the proposition as originally stated did not provide any other criteria for evaluating pointlessness or meaningfulness (such as the status of our projects while we are still alive) and so the only condition that needs to be true in order for the theory to be considered valid is that people must eventually die. That condition will always be true, which means the theory can always be considered valid, which means it is tautological. As you pointed out, other posters have since objected by proposing other criteria for meaningfulness and pointlessness, and I agree with these objections, but it was your theory as you initially formulated it that I am claiming is tautological.



Certainly. But my point was that they would still, in fact, be indistinguishable--and not only indistinguishable but also unchangeable (since even the perception that one is awakening from the dream could always itself be a dream), thus creating another tautology, and I would question the utility of an alternate definition of reality that is tautologically indistinguishable from our current definition. There are distinct differences between the two, as you point out, but that difference would be felt only at the level of language. The identical twin analogy is a bad one because identical twins are not mutually exclusive. Unlike reality and dream-reality, the identical twins can be "true" simultaneously. Moreover, identical twins are distinguishable in ways that have no corollary in the reality/dram theory: identical twins may look the same but act differently.



I agree with this, and it reinforces my point. I don't deny the difference between acting under a false pretense and acting under a true pretense, but that difference is entirely rhetorical. What changes is not the act or even the pretense but merely the judgment one makes if one chooses to call the pretense false. As you indirectly but rightly point out, the validity of your theory is determined by a matter of definitions: either we define our pretenses as false, or we don't. Thus if we play along with the argument and assume that death renders our projects meaningless, then faith becomes bad faith by definition rather than by circumstance. Thus the argument is really just another way of saying, "if we define our faith as bad, then our faith is bad." Such a proposition is undeniably true, but of questionable usefulness. As corroboration of this, I cite the word "arguably" in your conclusion that



Sure, it's arguable, but it's not much more than that.

That's actually a very good point. I was almost going to say, "But why fill the time? Why not kill yourself?" But I guess that would involve filling your time with an act of suicide, which might not be enjoyable. I guess you have to fill your time with something. I think you're right, on the whole.

I also like JLN's stuff about dancing/living for the sake of living. I think that was the idea I was having... mortality makes life more of a dance than a walk. But I was suggesting that 'dancing' is pointless, when in fact, as aidan says, you have to fill your time with something. Standing still is rubbish.



Yes, humans living in bad faith.



I don't think you're right, but I'm not going to try and refute your argument because I think you've misinterpreted my original claim, so it doesn't matter to me whether the proposition you have just described is tautological.

My claim (it was a hypothesis really, which I think I've come to reject now) was supposed to be: the fact that we will eventually die renders all of our projects pointless now (and always). So my claim wasn't that the event of death changes our projects and makes them become pointless. My claim was that the fact of mortality (which is true now: it is currently true that we will all die later on) means that our projects are pointless even while we are still alive. I don't think this claim is tautological.



As a realist, I totally disagree with this, and most of the rest of your post, but I tend to have a difficult time talking people out of their anti-realist convictions. I think the difference is more than rhetorical: it's real. The difference between a world were projects have a point and a world where projects don't have a point is a real difference. Similarly, if life is only a dream, then that's hugely ontologically significant: all the stuff that we think is physically 'out there' in the world is actually only in our heads (if we even have heads).



I have no intention of pointing that out, since I don't agree with it. It definitely sounds like you're not a realist. I think there are facts, which are true independently of whether we believe them. The difference between living in the real world and acting out of bad faith is that if you live in the real world, your beliefs correspond to (some of) these facts. When you act in bad faith, you act on non-existent facts.

Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2007 9:19 pm Post subject:

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agrote wrote:
There are circumstances in which my proposition that "death undermines all of our projects" would be false. Some people in this thread are suggesting that we are in such circumstances, and that the proposition actually is false. It isn't a tautology.


You proposed that death eventually renders our projects pointless; the proposition as originally stated did not provide any other criteria for evaluating pointlessness or meaningfulness (such as the status of our projects while we are still alive) and so the only condition that needs to be true in order for the theory to be considered valid is that people must eventually die. That condition will always be true, which means the theory can always be considered valid, which means it is tautological. As you pointed out, other posters have since objected by proposing other criteria for meaningfulness and pointlessness, and I agree with these objections, but it was your theory as you initially formulated it that I am claiming is tautological.

agrote wrote:
Just because our experience of a dream-life is indistinguishable from our experience of a real-life, that doesn't mean they are not distinct things.


Certainly. But my point was that they would still, in fact, be indistinguishable--and not only indistinguishable but also unchangeable (since even the perception that one is awakening from the dream could always itself be a dream), thus creating another tautology, and I would question the utility of an alternate definition of reality that is tautologically indistinguishable from our current definition. There are distinct differences between the two, as you point out, but that difference would be felt only at the level of language. The identical twin analogy is a bad one because identical twins are not mutually exclusive. Unlike reality and dream-reality, the identical twins can be "true" simultaneously. Moreover, identical twins are distinguishable in ways that have no corollary in the reality/dram theory: identical twins may look the same but act differently.

agrote wrote:
If we pursue projects under a false assumption that there is actually some point to doing so, then we act in a sort of bad faith. You don't have to be disturbed or suffer in anyway from bad faith. It just needs to be the case that you are actually acting under false pretences, whether or not you know this or care about it.


I agree with this, and it reinforces my point. I don't deny the difference between acting under a false pretense and acting under a true pretense, but that difference is entirely rhetorical. What changes is not the act or even the pretense but merely the judgment one makes if one chooses to call the pretense false. As you indirectly but rightly point out, the validity of your theory is determined by a matter of definitions: either we define our pretenses as false, or we don't. Thus if we play along with the argument and assume that death renders our projects meaningless, then faith becomes bad faith by definition rather than by circumstance. Thus the argument is really just another way of saying, "if we define our faith as bad, then our faith is bad." Such a proposition is undeniably true, but of questionable usefulness. As corroboration of this, I cite the word "arguably" in your conclusion that



I suppose so... I guess it's just that I think bad faith is a bad thing. Living under false pretences is significant to me, because I care about truth. Others do too, as the experience machine example illustrates: if you could be plugged into an experience machine (a bit like the matrix) which would make it seem that you lived in a world where all your hopes and dreams had come true, and that you lived a life which was exactly as you wanted life to be, would you agree to be plugged in? Many people say no, because it wouldn't be 'real'. I guess you would say yes?

It does sound like I did misinterpret your original hypothesis, but this one isn't any less tautological. Moving the pointlessness from the future to the present doesn't change anything because the validity of the hypothesis as you've formulated it here still rests solely on a condition that will always hold true, namely, the fact of our mortality. Given these criteria, the only condition under which the hypothesis fails is that humans escape the fact of their mortality, which is of course not a real condition at all (though maybe you feel otherwise). If the only conditions that could falsify the hypothesis are impossible ones, then there are effectively no conditions under which the hypothesis fails, which is the definition of a tautology.

Again, the tautology could easily be avoided by simply introducing more criteria for pointlessness--i.e. by considering the possibility that there are other standards besides "the fact of our mortality" by which meaningfulness might be measured. This is what other posters have proposed, and it doesn't sound like you disagree.



What's funny is that I consider myself a realist precisely because I don't see a meaningful distinction between acting in bad faith and acting in good faith. If I may borrow a phrase from Richard Dawkins, the concept of "bad faith" strikes me as a term that, like "sin," is of use only to people who are against it. I certainly agree with you that there are facts independent of our belief in them, and I can gladly accept your equation of "bad faith" with "acting on non-existent facts." But I consider myself a realist because I think the meaningfulness of our projects is determined by the acts--i.e. the part we can perceive, because they happen in the real world--and not by their status as good or bad faith.

In any event, I see this debate not as one between realism and anti-realism, but as one between particularism and universalism. I find it more useful and productive to assign terms like "pointlessness" and "bad faith" on a case-by-base basis rather than apply them universally (for that is in essence what one is doing when one proposes that pointlessness results from anything produced by a mortal). I would go so far as to say that a term that can be applied universally ceases to mean anything useful, and that outside the realm of science, universal truths are almost by definition trivial truths. All objects are made of matter; thus, by saying, "this table is made of matter," I have said something that is undeniably true, and trivial. If we accept that all projects produced by mortals are pointless, then the statement "this project is pointless" is comparably undeniable and comparably trivial; or, at best, it is another way of saying "this project was produced by a mortal," if that is any better.

Jesus said-

"My kingdom is not of this world."

I think most commentators take this to mean that the whole of actuality is pointless.

The religious feeling expressed which was anathema to Pharisaism and to the Roman State is international and universal. It expresses a conviction that the visible world of practical action is nothing and can only be viewed with contempt.

The Western city-man, like Tolstoi, mistakenly thinks of Jesus, a rustic, as a social reformer rather than as a renouncer of the world and by doing so
brings primitive Christianity into the realm of social revolution.

Spengler thought that trying to argue away the chasm between this world and the kingdom to come was "shallow" and, indeed, "cowardly".


One has to be careful that one avoids becoming "anorexic".

"Religion is metaphysic and nothing else", Spengler wrote, "the unthinkable as certainty, the supernatural as a fact, life as existence in a world that is non-actual, but true. Jesus never lived one moment in any other world but this."

Such matters are at the very root of the divisions being seen in the argument over intelligent design.

Because the whole universe of objects is forever dissolving and reforming only the true teaching of Jesus avoids pointlessness.

Hmm... yes, that's the problem with atheism (I'm a stone cold atheist), or more specifically materialism, and although people try to make up solutions, there really is none. I am a materialist. Since there is no absolute and ultimate reason, goal or answer (apart from 42), I just get on with my life, make up my own goals and try to satisfy my desires. I try not to reveal my inner goals, but I can tell you one thing: I have a high desire for success, fortune, but perhaps not fame, and I believe that I can be successful if I put my mind to it (after all, I'm only 14 and debating about philosophy). So why not put my mind to it?

Although my religious beliefs (in brief: God's word is evolution) do not have a name on most charts, I have certainly not turned towards materialism. I find materialism to be a shallow vision, and the accumulation of wealth is a desire which can often desensitize a person to the livelier beauty of the world. One needs enough money to pay all the bills and, in my case, to support blossoming artists. Anything beyond that is superfluous. What keeps me feeling in sync with the living world is my determination to learn (and appreciate) something new to me every day--and to savor the growing relationships among what I discover. My life may mean absolutely nothing in the long term, but I feel fulfillment as long as I'm alive and thinking. When is mostly-positive growth ever pointless?

I have many projects.
I like to play my instruments and write songs. I do it because it is fun and rewarding. The doing is the purpose. Whatever might come of it is only bonus.
So the fact that I am going to die doesn't undermine my projects.

For almost the same reasons, I would equally substitute the word "problems" for "solutions."

There now. Problem solved

Re: Mortality and Pointlessness


This statement strikes me as something the early American Calvinists might have said. Why must we really be oriented towards achievement/accomplishment? Just be an observer. Sort of like bird watching, only watching society around us? If the reply is this too is a project, o.k., but, it puts the emphasis on another syl-lab-le, so to speak. We're here as visitors; why not enjoy the visit? Oh, because we die? Well, that's not exactly a positive outlook. It sort of gives veracity to living mentally in the future, rather than enjoying the present. Excuse me for being a cerebral hedonist (I just enjoy my thoughts, while I have them).

Plus, quantum physics being unpredictable, who's to say someone's epigenome just turned itself on to immortality. All aging genes shut off by chance. Anyone on this thread might just be immortal.

What Miklos said.

It seems to me that to require of life that it have a point (as opposed to many points) is to equate life with a joke, something that must have a punch line.

Then life can be self-deprecating humor. Life is a Seinfeld episode?

Foofie, that may be why I enjoyed the Sienfeld series so much; it's SO realistic. Just one thing after another, without a plot.

Continuing with this line of thought, then the last Seinfeld episode where the whole group wound up in jail because of a supposed Good Samaritan law (where the group did not help someone in need), may be the point to a pointless life: act in behalf of others (aka, good works)?

I've sometimes wondered if my life would have any value to me at all if I knew it would last forever. If I didn't have to do anything to sustain my own existence.

foofie
To act on behalf of others can also be to rob them of their oportunity to act for themselves.

So we should have infants diaper themselves?

Something of interest, perhaps to those on this thread:

http://www.longevitymeme.org/

I saw a really interesting 3 part series covering the developments in the fields of computing, bio-tech and our understanding of the sub-atomic world a while back. There is a "synergy" between these fields that is causing massive, technological growth at the moment. Anyway the essence of the programme was, in covering all kinds of stuff like robotics, AI, the end of disease, designer babies, teleportation and star trek style "replicators", the way in which this overall growth would drastically change our horizons and ask new questions of us.

In terms of life value, goals and sustainability, nanobots could conceivably be used to monitor, detect and destroy all manner of diseases within our own bodies, they've already had success with extending the life spans of lower level subjects, plus, another interesting use of the nanobots was that they could be used, on a routine basis, to destroy fat cells. The ability to gorge yourself on food without the by product of huge weight gain? Hmm, I'm not sure what it could all mean. It was fascinating and somewhat disturbing at the same time really. "The age of discovery to the age of mastery" or "passive observers of nature" to "active choreographers" so the presenter put it.

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As to the original issue specifically, it's something I wonder about all the time. Looking back at school, the different styles of learning between "primary" (4-11) and "secondary" (11-18 approx) is remarkably striking, the extra emphasis in secondary education, on learning for an exam, passing an exam for a qualification, getting a qualification for a job etc. There were still tests at the younger ages of course but it was always more about dealing with this particular subject for itself rather than as some consideration in terms of a collective syllabus. So it seems in retrospect at least. There's something a bit lifeless about deciding that you can do X for fun now that you've got that piece of work done etc.