[lit-ideas] Re: The meaning of life

My older brother Emory and I used to argue about the meaning of life.  He 
insisted that any meaning had to be one that comported with our uncle Mike's 
(yes, my namesake -- or am I his namesake?  I've never been sure about how that 
word works) understanding of the world.  Uncle Mike was a very caring soul, 
easy going, gentle, not so bright, but a damn good man.  I took my brother's 
argument to be that the meaning of life should be unencumbered with any ideas 
that uncle Mike could not readily grasp, that meaning should first and foremost 
be available to all and that it should encompass the elemental notions of 
compassion and kindness with which our uncle Mike had no problem understanding 
and subscribing to.
 
I disagreed with my brother.  Like Eric argues, or so I take him to argue, 
there are as many meanings to life as there all people on earth.  I don't know 
if animals ever wonder why they exist.  They well could, of course, but thank 
God, we have yet to find the Rosetta Stone to unlock their languages and so 
we've been relieved of having to accommodate their opinions.  Can you imagine 
having to argue with a mole about the meaning of existence?  Or a dung beetle?  
Or...oh, nevermind, I'm sure you get the idea -- but wouldn't it be fun to 
quizz a cat?  A dog, no doubt, would mirror my uncle Mike.  But a cat -- I 
would love to be in on that discussion.  

Long ago I decided that the meaning of life is me.  It's come to my attention 
that a lot of people disagree.

Mike Geary
Memphis
going on sabbatical again.

   ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Eric Dean 
  To: lit-ideas 
  Sent: Friday, November 21, 2008 5:34 PM
  Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The meaning of life


  Stalling on a response to Walter's comments about the universality of moral 
maxims, I turn instead to Walter's question about the response to "What is the 
meaning of life?"

  Contrary to the response, the question need not be ill-formed in the way the 
response suggests if one assumes that there can be meaningfulness apart from 
human life.  I believe the question of whether there is meaningfulness apart 
from human life is a reasonable one, even though I actually believe there is no 
such meaningfulness, i.e. even though I actually believe human life is "the 
very element of meaning itself", as Walter paraphrases (I think) the responder.

  I think the question about whether there can be a broader, non-human 
meaningfulness in which human meaningfulness is embedded (I'm deliberately 
generalizing what I imagine is an aspect of the Christian story about God) is 
coherent because it might provide one sort of answer to the question of how it 
is we can communicate with one another at all.  It would do so by saying 
something like: we can communicate with one another because there is a larger 
framework within which our actions, including the noises we make as we do what 
we call talking, all have a place and that place establishes what we think of 
as 'meaning'.

  As I say, I don't believe that picture myself.  I think instead that we 
humans grow into our adult selves in a community which is a community precisely 
because its members are always enacting together various partly pre-defined, 
partly improvised roles in partly pre-defined and partly improvised stories, 
which means in my mind that we adult humans have grown into being the 
improvising enactors of such roles ourselves.  Those roles and stories, which 
by the way can be and unfortunately all too often are full of roles locked in 
hopeless mortal conflict, those roles and stories project, usually tacitly, the 
existence of exactly the sorts of structures which the broad non-human 
meaningfulness model would want established for us by some agency (hopefully 
benevolent) outside ourselves.

  All that said, I do not understand how one might go about answering the 
original question ("what is the meaning of life?").  I understand "what is the 
meaning of the word 'bicycle'?", but I don't understand "what is the meaning of 
bicycles?" except as code for some other question like "what story might people 
who ride bicycles be dramatizing in their use of them?"  in which case what 
I've already written is what my answer would be about the meaning of life.

  That, however, may simply reflect a serious lapse in my upbringing or 
education.  Maybe my teachers didn't respect my autonomy enough?

  Regards to all,
  Eric Dean
  Washington DC

  > Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:12:51 -0330
  > From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
  > To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  > Subject: [lit-ideas] The meaning of life
  > 
  > On another philosophy listserv the following question arose:
  > 
  > What is the meaning of life?
  > 
  > An intriguing transcendental response (not yet a riposte) was:
  > 
  > Life, human life to be precise, is a necessary condition of meaning, so the
  > question is inappropriate and "ill-formed." (Flayling gestures to
  > Wittgenstein's writings ensured.) It is senseless to ask after the meaning 
of
  > life since there is and can be no "meaning" independent of human life. Life 
is
  > the very element of meaning itself. 
  > 
  > Comments welcomed.
  > 
  > Walter O.
  > MUN
  > 
  > 
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