The Meaning Of Life, As Developed By My Philosophy Discussion Section

Fundamentally, there isn't like, a certain meaning to life, per se. But, you know, at the same time, it's like, there must be an intrinsic value to life itself, right? Because really, the absence of life is nothing, or death, as it were. Therefore there is value in simply living and stuff.

Ok, I mean like...say you get in a coma, right? And when you're in your coma, you're totally out for...let's say 15 years. Then you wake up. Thusly, that's valuable, is essentially what I'm getting at here. But fundamentally, it all gets back to the biforcation between practical realism and existentialist expressionism.

Because what I'm saying here is if you touch one person and make them happy at one point, doesn't that increase the amount of intrinsic happiness and intrinsic value of life on earth as a whole? Except like, at the end of it all the sun will explode, so who will be around to remember? And is that important? Yes.

Say you have Alzheimer's, right? And somebody comes along and gives you a sandwich. That's still important, even if you won't remember the sandwich, because that happened, and that gives that moment intrinsic value and weight, is what I'm saying. Fundamentally, the concept of not remembering something relates directly back to the Matrix scenario, where you've got the two pills, and I think Tolstoy is definitely someone who would have taken the one that let you be all ignorant.

And really, you know, different societies are at different stages, so our society might currently be in a societal state of the later identity crisis, or the mid-life crisis, as a society, but another society in like, Africa or something, would still be behind as a society and thereby only in the second societal identity crisis, which is like a state of adolescence for that society. But who are we to say that that gives their lives less meaning? Poor people are often some of the world's bravest heroes, because they accept death, which happens to everyone.

Say you spend your entire life working on a cure for cancer, right? And you slave away for decades, and you finally develop it, and it works. But for some reason you take like, a month off to test it again. And in the last week of that month you get a phone call and your friend tells you that somebody else just published an identical cure for cancer. And then you get hit by a bus. And your family gets amnesia. Fundamentally, your life was meaningless, but also intrinsically not.

So, on a fundamental level, yes, life is meaningless, but at the same time, it also has meaning.