Chop wood.  Carry wood.

leosmith wrote:

Raschaverak wrote:

I'm on medication for depression, now, and at the time of the opening of the post, I was feeling a bit down...

Exercise is the most stable solution. But for the time being...go immediately to Pattaya Thailand. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Um...making yourself feel better by exploiting others is kind of a lousy way to go through life.
Unless you're implying they go to Thailand to eat delicious food, which I don't think you are.

asking if life is worth living presupposes the concept of "worth", but it is only to the alive that anything is "worth" anything. in other words, without life, there is no worth, so it makes no sense to ask if life is worth anything; the idea of worth is just a tool we use, while alive, to measure the value of different things, comparatively; we say that x is worthwhile and y is not, or that a is more worthwhile than b but that both are worth something. when we're dead nothing will be worth anything (or not be worth anything)

the same thing applies to questions like what is the meaning of life: the idea of meaning presupposes life, life itself is beyond ideas of worth or meaning, it's just the necessary precondition for things to have worth or meaning; it itself has neither worth or meaning, it's only the condition that makes worth and meaning possible, and without which nothing would be worth anything and nothing would mean anything

lardycake wrote:

Some people use religion to fill this void, I'm an atheist but wish I could be blinded by a religion...I would rather know the point in life (and be wrong) than stuck in this mess not knowing what is going on.

I know what you mean. Sometimes I wish I could be "blinded" by an atheistic worldview, it would be so much simpler in many ways! But, it seems that I would also rather know the point of life than be "stuck in this mess not knowing what is going on."

*removes tongue from cheek, sort of...*

The fact that you're asking here whether life is worth living shows that you already know the answer. Probably you just want external confirmation, and support.

Rather than asking yourself whether "life" is worth it or not, ask yourself: "I can choose either having a miserable life or a good life. What will I choose? What will I do to get there?".

Yeah, I know it's much easier saying than doing, but if there's only a chance that you can live a life you feel satisfied with, why not trying?

quark wrote:

making yourself feel better by exploiting others is kind of a lousy way to go through life.

How does this relate to my post?

aphasiac wrote:

Move to Taiwan and you can get it all for free

Amend that to anywhere in Asia or Africa. I think it's the "opposites attract" principle. But Thailand has great weather, great food and is very cheap.

leosmith wrote:

quark wrote:

making yourself feel better by exploiting others is kind of a lousy way to go through life.

How does this relate to my post?

I took your post to mean that going to Thailand and using prostitutes would make the OP feel better. Many of the prostitutes in Thailand are under age, or sold into slavery. Therefore, saying that you can feel better by depriving another person of their basic human rights is crappy.
If that is not what you meant, and you merely meant that the OP should go to Thailand to enjoy the locale, food, culture, etc., then I apologize.

quark wrote:

Many of the prostitutes in Thailand are under age, or sold into slavery. Therefore, saying that you can feel better by depriving another person of their basic human rights is crappy.

That may be, but Thailand is a wonderful place. Putting down the whole whole country because it has some problems is not nice. And please don't try to force your moral standards on others.

Kanjer wrote:

Start exercising. People focus too much on the mind when feeling like shit. You need to get your blood pumping.

And don't do aikido or volleyball or whatever. Start boxing, or better, muay thai. And go all the way, organised fights. Even if you don't end up participating, make your training that serious. I actually thought that was what leosmith meant when he mentioned pattaya. They have camps there.

Soon, sweating, puffing, bruised, exhausted, you will be begging for life

Actually, I did mean to exercise regularly on your trip. I prefer aerobic exercise, like cycling and swimming. But martial arts are great if that's you thing. My knees won't let me do them any more though.

IceCream wrote:

what conclusion did you come to in the end Vileru?

...

but, i think philosophy is the completely wrong direction... it's the wrong way to pose the question to begin with. And because of that, it's more likely to exacerbate depression than it is to cure it.

i think the answer is essentially non-propositional. So it makes no sense to think about in those terms at all. "Meaning" or the "worth" of living is something that you either feel or you don't feel. You can't talk yourself into feeling it. It's a physiological state, not a question that requires an answer in the first place, i think.

So, the question isn't "is it worth living?" but "what can i do to put myself in the physiological state that corresponds with the feeling of life being worth living?".

I won't mention what conclusion I reached, at least not at the moment, because it's difficult and tedious to explain and since it is more helpful to others to explain the means by which the conclusion was reached rather than the conclusion itself.

At any rate, I agree that the answer is non-propositional, but I find philosophy extremely helpful nevertheless. Even though exercising is non-propositional, people still devour volumes upon volumes of fitness tips (which are often propositional) because such tips help them improve their exercises. Metaphor aside, however, I am openly hostile to the idea that philosophy is a discipline that consists solely of propositions. Philosophy has little use as a collection of doctrines and dogmas. In the activity of philosophizing, one necessarily develops in a moral way. Philosophizing does not just result in a discourse consisting of various propositions. It affects the way one thinks and lives. And not only does it affect how one thinks and lives, philosophizing is a way of thinking and a way of living. It is a particular way of orienting oneself to and engaging with others, the world, and even oneself. In philosophizing, I don't think I've merely stumbled on some interesting propositions. Rather, I take it that I have created and become engaged in a way of life that has not only transformed myself, but others as well (these views are complicated, so I'll rest here).

Likewise, I agree that meaning or worth is experienced as a subjective feeling, but it is important to observe the other aspects to meaning as well, namely, the objective one. With something as subjective as meaning, it may be difficult to see where objectivity lies, so I should note I mean objectivity in terms of coherence with one's values and worldview. Therefore, for the meaningfulness of life to be objective, life must match up with what we think makes something meaningful. Typically, this involves values like eternity and purposefulness. I admit the possibility that these values differ across individuals and cultures. Regardless of such differences, however, it should be clear that it is possible to have subjective feelings of meaningfulness without achieving objective meaningfulness. To adequately answer the question, I think you need both. Otherwise, you've only deceived yourself.

Last edited by vileru (2011 November 21, 4:40 am)

@Vileru

Well, perhaps we agree on the ultimate worth of philosophy in general

Although, i think i probably didn't write clearly enough what i was thinking... when i said that meaning was something you either feel or don't feel, i didn't mean that it was subjective. I meant that it's a state of being. Um, sorry, i haven't read or written philosophy in a while, so it's hard for me to use precise language atm.

Of course meaning or worth is experienced subjectively, that's a given. But seeing something red is also experienced subjectively, but it's not "subjective" as such. There's a certain wavelength which, if it affects your eyes in a particular way, will correspond with your "seeing redly".

In the same way, if certain chemicals in your brain (dopamine is a good candidate) do their thing, you "experience meaningfully".

Now, i don't mean this in the strictly deterministic sense that given a certain input, all brains will output meaning in general, but i do think the fact that you can produce the sense of meaning (or worthlessness) deterministically (through certain drugs) should make you question how necessary ideas like coherance and the subjective / objective divide are here.

In any case, it appears to be either tautological or just meaningless to suggest that life has meaning if we act in a way that we think has meaning, since the question originated in the first place from the lack of the very idea of what meaning or value does consist in. At the very least, it just moves the problem one step back, because the question of what meaning or value your own values ultimately have is equally pressing.

I think, meaning being a state means that it has very little to do with our thoughts, beliefs and values whatsoever, particularly our most justified, analytic, and coherent ones. The only objectivity worth searching for are those objective circumstances under which you experience meaningfully in a sustained way. In other words, instead of asking "what is meaning" you ask "what causes the state of meaning".

Although, i'm happy to concede that those circumstances are often heavily linked with other states such as experiencing beauty, or actions whose value we experience emotionally rather than as a coherant aspect of our belief system. Anyway, my views get a little more complex at that point and have to do with various ideas from neuroscience, so i'll leave it at that for now...

Last edited by IceCream (2011 November 21, 6:29 am)

SammyB wrote:

lardycake wrote:

Some people use religion to fill this void, I'm an atheist but wish I could be blinded by a religion...I would rather know the point in life (and be wrong) than stuck in this mess not knowing what is going on.

I know what you mean. Sometimes I wish I could be "blinded" by an atheistic worldview, it would be so much simpler in many ways! But, it seems that I would also rather know the point of life than be "stuck in this mess not knowing what is going on."

*removes tongue from cheek, sort of...*

It's funn you say this because I was just recently reading Friedrich Nietzsche and he said exactly that on his thoughts on the meaning of life in one of his aphorisms, "Man would sooner have the Void for his purpose than be void of Purpose."

And don't forget Socrates' famous saying of how the unexamined life is not worth living.

Meaning only exists in thought. Past and present only exists in thought.

The question about life's meaning only exists in relation to past or present, which are both constructions of the mind.

If you have no past to worry about, and no future to worry about, would you worry about life's meaning?

Time in a conventional sense exists, yes, but would be more accurately thought of as "change". Things are in a permanent state of change.

Obviously nothing can be experienced in the past, or the future, only now.

The following really stuck with me. I understand that every person needs to hear something in their own ways, so it may or may not ring a bell...

Whenever you think of the past (memories, regrets, imagining what the past was like through history, literature, arts, etc), the thought happens now.

Whenever you think of the future (plans, hopes, worries, expectations etc) it happens now.

This is very profound, imho. And it is not philosophy. If you think this is philosophy you are missing the point altogether. This is all there is to life.

It feels quite freeing at times, when you really focus on that.

Perhaps some of what IceCream was trying to say, not directly related, but I think she(?) was hinting at the fact that there is such a thing as truth.

I think of it as: truth (as a concept) = anything that points you closer to reality. Untruth = anything that points farther from reality.

The truth is, there is this direct experience. That the past and future only exist in thought is not subjective, it is the truth.


Sometimes I catch myself worrying about the future, and the more I remember this above, the less I worry about the future. Because I realize, every single time I worry about the future, it is all thinking, and no matter how the memories or hopes seem real, they are constructions of the mind, and they are all experienced in the present.

I wish I could explain this better. I know what you are thinking. Especially for people who feel shitty. "That's all very interesting but how does this practically help me out of depression? I wasn't looking for philosophy".

Well, it isn't philosophy. That's the point.

There is a point where you finally give up your trust in thought as the sole means to apprehend reality, or truth. If you keep looking into this, the "now" that Eckhart Tolle among others, write so much about, eventually it starts to be real. Not make sense, as that would be trying to make sense of it, which won't work. The present moment experience, stands outside of thought. Thoughts are real, as part of our experience. The content of thought, is (very often) not real. A thought of a unicorn is real. The unicorn is not real. The experience of a thought about the meaning of life when xyz has happened and abc could happen in the future, is real. The content of that thought, is not real.

It's hard to wrap one's mind around this. As thought constantly bullies us into the same loophole. Trains of thought.

It is especially hard for intelligent/smart people as we have here, to surrender their faith in thought.  I can't help much with that other than encouraging anyone to really look into this, the difference between the experience of thought, and the content of thought. What is real? Does past and future exist?

Of course you can still get caught in thought. But when you start seeing it better, you get less identified with it, there is a freedom there. It's very small at first, but it is a beginning..

Now funnily enough that has meaning to me. But only meaning in the sense that it is closer to reality. Looking at the truth has meaning. Spending the rest of my life bullshitting myself about what person I should be, or what style of living is worthwhile over others, has no longer any meaning.

MacMiller wrote:

Buddhism is the answer. A religion centered around the "self"-- not "god[s]".

This doesn't seem to fit what I've seen.  I'm not an expert, but from what I've seen Buddhism rejects the concept of a self (or at least the common conception of a self).  The metaphor of the chariot seems to argue against the self being a thing in itself.  And two of the three characteristics (Anicca and Anatta) imply that there is no permanent, transcendant self (as in Hinduism).  So what kind of self is left for Buddhism to center around?

CJ