u/Moiyub

Love the strange melody that is Madhuvanti :)

I do not understand what is missing from the world when people say life has no objective meaning or purpose. What would that even be? Literally what is meant by this combination of words? Meaning and purpose can only possibly exist in the human mind. What could an objective meaning of life possbily be? I cant even imagine what could satisfy this requirement.

I’ve never really understood what is meant by life being meaningless or pointless. Maybe because life isn’t a human invention so it doesn’t have a specific function like all the other stuff we invented does. Like you can look at a corkscrew and say it has a purpose, to screw corks. Pretty much everything we make and do is for a reason. But we can’t look at existence itself and see the intended utility since we didn’t create it.

Tangent but you kinda have to sneak in some intelligent design to talk about life’s purpose, since being designed and having a purpose are intrinsically related. Anyway, different topic.

I do get rejecting certain cultural institutions telling people what the meaning of their life should be, usually either religion or capitalism. So life isnt just about making money, being a hedonist, or doing religious stuff, going to the good afterlife, etc. It seems to me a lot of what is meant by life is meaningless is a result of rejecting the meaning that others have pushed on us. But saying “these purposes of life that human institutions came up with and forced on me are bad” and “life has no purpose” are different ideas entirely.

There could be a purpose that is revealed or discovered after death. There could be a purpose we just haven’t discovered it yet. There could be a purpose but we aren’t able to know it. There could be a purpose and someone actually does know it. There could be a purpose like art or music has a purpose, in that it doesn’t really or can’t be explained easily. It could be that whatever purpose you come up with is correct. None of these can be proven obviously and I’m not advocating for their adoption. Just saying it’s possible.

So just using your imagination what can you come up with for why life exists? Like you’re on /r/whatisit and someone posted “life”, you have to guess what it’s used for. What function could possibly justify all of existence? Can you come up with any purpose of existence that you could imagine discovering and it making sense the way seeing someone use a corkscrew would reveal its purpose?

Everything we could call absurd is only absurd because it violates some established norm or intended purpose.

Take clothes for example. Wearing pants on your arms is only absurd because they are meant to be worn on the legs. A clown costume is only absurd because it is the opposite of normal fashion rules.

Or take food for example. Pouring juice on a bowl of cereal is only absurd because milk is more commonly used. Eating a salad with your bare hands is only absurd because everyone uses a fork.

So how can existence itself be called absurd when there is no established norm or intended purpose to compare it to?

Is life only absurd if you’re a modern person thus you’re comparing modern life to some historical ideal as if it’s the norm being violated? So is absurdism based on the same boring old golden age mentality where humans fell from grace in a highly romanticized version of the past?

think about it, we use numbers to measure everything in the world - speed of light, mass of proton, what does the number in your bank account measure? your power, agency, free will, ability, freedom, opportunity, control, all the things we naturally crave. but we cant have these stats maxed out like the creative force of the universe that we are literally built from does. the outside world can do anything it wants. but that must be boring thats why it created us to get a taste of powerlessness. we are a vacation from the mundanity of absolute unbounded creative energy. but since were made of the fabric of reality there is still some creative energy and power in us, thats what people with a lot of money are. so the lower the number of money you have, the more you are fulfilling your purpose that the cosmic designer made- which was to feel limitation. jk im behind on my credit card payments and coping.