The meaning of life

[Rhiannon]

This may sound like a self-indulgent ramble, so apologies if that is the case, but this is something that I think about a lot.

I love this quote from Joseph Campbell, in fact it is on the first page of my journal.

Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.

I find meaning in the small and everyday - the gorgeous frost and sunrise this morning, my dog dozing with his head on my lap, helping out a friend, sitting in Tescos car park drinking coffee with my girls, Green and Black's, new books coming in the post, kisses at London Bridge station, having a full tank of heating oil, watching the match with my boy, looking at the sky...

And I think that is what the meaning is  - making the decision that all these things matter. Being alive to things I guess, to the present and to possibilities and wonder.

[Shaker]

Spot on.

The analogy I always think of is with artist's materials. When you go into an art supply shop, the paper or the canvas you buy is blank. That means it's your choice what to put on it - what you cover it with is up to you.

In humans the picture (no pun intended) is complicated by the fact that we inherit a certain genetic baggage which we can't and don't choose and may be very difficult or in some cases impossible to override. Yet even that doesn't stop us from imposing meaning on existence as we will, based on what's meaningful to us personally.

Campbell was, as far as I can see, spot on. Life has no ultimate or external or absolute meaning, since there's nothing to make it so. Whatever meaning we carve out is proximate and personal.

The meaning of life always strikes me as a bit of an arrogant phrase anyway, albeit unintentionally. The definite article implies that it's a universal thing, a singular and unique 'thing' like Luton or the Statue of Liberty that you travel to but can either arrive at or not arrive at, hit or miss. Better, AFAIC, to talk about meanings of lives.

[ekim]

What's the meaning of 'meaning'?

[Rhiannon]

The title of this thread was meant to be tongue in cheek - the whole point of what Campbell says is that the only meaning is what we see and bring to it and that means infinite variety. It's all just stuff we make up when all is said and done - my tree that needs to be treasured is someone else's firewood.

I guess the good thing about it all being a story is that if it turns out to be rubbish we can always rewrite it.

[Sriram]

The title of this thread was meant to be tongue in cheek - the whole point of what Campbell says is that the only meaning is what we see and bring to it and that means infinite variety. It's all just stuff we make up when all is said and done - my tree that needs to be treasured is someone else's firewood.

I guess the good thing about it all being a story is that if it turns out to be rubbish we can always rewrite it.

What does Campbell know to make a general statement that 'Life has no meaning'?!  Why should anyone take his word for it?

If you can accept Campbell's statement as valid....why can't someone else take Jesus's word as valid?

[splashscuba]

What does Campbell know to make a general statement that 'Life has no meaning'?!  Why should anyone take his word for it?

If you can accept Campbell's statement as valid....why can't someone else take Jesus's word as valid?

Jesus who ?

Well, it's your choice to take whatever you want from Campbell's statement.

[Jack Knave]

"Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer."

If by life it is meant consciousness then yes consciousness has no meaning in itself. It is just a cauldron where possibilities are worked out. Those possibilities are the potential of our meaning in this short life.

[Owlswing]

What does Campbell know to make a general statement that 'Life has no meaning'?!  Why should anyone take his word for it?

If you can accept Campbell's statement as valid....why can't someone else take Jesus's word as valid?

Because we KNOW that Campbell is provably real?

[torridon]

What does Campbell know to make a general statement that 'Life has no meaning'?!  Why should anyone take his word for it?

If you can accept Campbell's statement as valid....why can't someone else take Jesus's word as valid?

I think I'd interpret his point as a version of beauty being in the eye of the beholder.  The cosmos has no meaning in itself, it is largely a crazy babbling confusion and yet minds seek order in the confusion. Sitting on the sofa with my pet hamster listening to Bach, I am uplifted by the music and yet to my hamster it is just noise (as far as I can tell). Hamster mind and human mind experience the same thing differently.  Music is not out there in the cosmos, it is in the mind of the music lover.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I think I'd interpret his point as a version of beauty being in the eye of the beholder.  The cosmos has no meaning in itself, it is largely a crazy babbling confusion and yet minds seek order in the confusion. Sitting on the sofa with my pet hamster listening to Bach, I am uplifted by the music and yet to my hamster it is just noise (as far as I can tell). Hamster mind and human mind experience the same thing differently.  Music is not out there in the cosmos, it is in the mind of the music lover.

A real paean to dualism Torrid Don

[Shaker]

Oh look, another word you don't understand, Vlad.

I bet we're going to be hearing a lot of it from now on nevertheless.

[Shaker]

Sitting on the sofa with my pet hamster listening to Bach

Bit of a music buff, is he? 

[Rhiannon]

I think I'd interpret his point as a version of beauty being in the eye of the beholder.  The cosmos has no meaning in itself, it is largely a crazy babbling confusion and yet minds seek order in the confusion. Sitting on the sofa with my pet hamster listening to Bach, I am uplifted by the music and yet to my hamster it is just noise (as far as I can tell). Hamster mind and human mind experience the same thing differently.  Music is not out there in the cosmos, it is in the mind of the music lover.

Kind of. But we still bring meaning to it.


Even music that isn't beautiful can still be meaningful. On my iPod I have 'How Deep is your Love' by the Bee Gees. I guess for some it's a cheesey so-naff-it's-good love song but it's not really my cup of tea. However it has a hugely significant meaning for me as it came on the radio in the hospital nursery when my second daughter was born and I was struggling with breastfeeding and a section wound. It's meaningful but not beautiful.

I should add the post natal hormones do very odd things to the brain. How Deep is Your Love? Really?

[Sriram]

I think I'd interpret his point as a version of beauty being in the eye of the beholder.  The cosmos has no meaning in itself, it is largely a crazy babbling confusion and yet minds seek order in the confusion. Sitting on the sofa with my pet hamster listening to Bach, I am uplifted by the music and yet to my hamster it is just noise (as far as I can tell). Hamster mind and human mind experience the same thing differently.  Music is not out there in the cosmos, it is in the mind of the music lover.

What you are saying is quite different from what I was saying.

I meant that lots of people make statements about how meaningful the world is and lots of people say how meaningless the world is.   All of them are only saying it with reference to themselves, their lives and their understanding of the world. Not as a statement of absolute Truth.

If any of these statements resonates with our own feelings, at that point of time, we tend to quote that person, which is a way of deriving solace and comfort through company and social togetherness. Not that the quote has any real meaning in itself!

You are talking about the subjective nature of any experience....which we all know. (But quite strangely you seem to be talking of subjective reality rather than objectivity that you normally think of as the only reality). 

All reality is ultimately subjective. If no one is there to experience reality, we don't even know if it will continue to exist. Like a virtual world, it might disappear once we stop watching!  So, is there any objective reality at all, independent of Consciousness...I am not sure.

[Samuel]

Nice quote Rhiannon

this makes me think of the difference between 'meaning' and 'value'. Like you say a tree can be simultaneously firewood, a treasured thing of beauty, a habitat, a source of food, a source of income, an inconvenience, a provider of welcome shade and shelter, a resented cause of shadow and leaf litter... the list goes on.

Any example we care to examine has innumerable meanings for different people. They tricky thing is that those meanings have a relative value placed against them depending on context and consensus. An aged oak might be preserved by law and for sentiment whilst an aged apple tree might be cut down to save the rest of the orchard from blight.

Conflict is an inevitable bedfellow to the meanings we see in our lives, borne of the necessity to exist alongside other individuals whose ideas of meaning are different to our own.

[Samuel]

which perhaps suggests that a meaning of life is to learn to live with other people, to appreciate the world outside ourselves

[Rhiannon]

which perhaps suggests that a meaning of life is to learn to live with other people, to appreciate the world outside ourselves

Or not. Some will choose never to do this, some will never be able to.