Talk:Meaning of life

The depth and breadth of this article

I have reviewed the entire article and made several edits. The subject is complex and this article, rather than taking a freshman undergrad approach to the topic takes a more expansive one, which I appreciate. While I could make it more focused with less detail, I'm leaning toward thinking that would be a mistake. Thus, I'm proposing removing the two tags at the top of the article that were placed there seven months ago. Is there any discussion on this topic?

I agree Spicemix (talk) 15:14, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

I was about to comment the same thing because I found the same issue as well. The opening remarks of this article is too opinionated:

"The meaning of life pertains to the inherent significance or philosophical meaning of living (or existence in general). There is not a definitive answer, and thinking or discourse on the topic is sought in the English language through the question, 'What is the meaning of life?' " (my emphasis).

These remarks tilt in favour to perspectival relativism, which isn't what Wikipedia entries are supposed to do (just a thought, of course, this is stated in guidelines if anyone cares to double-check). There are some who believe that a definitive answer is attainable, which brings me to my next thought.

A Section devoted to language/semantics should be added because there are a handful of linguistic philosophers who wrote on the subject, Kai Nielsen, Joshua Seachris, John Cottingham, R. W. Hepburn, and Jack Abaza, to name a few. Jack Abaza is so far the only analytic philosopher who made extensive, and almost entirely exclusive, use of linguistic reasoning.

He, basically, states that "the meaning of life" cannot have more than one meaning because it lacks the affix -s, making it singular (23 and 104–105). Moreover, because there's the definite article that covaries with meaning (103–107) in the said phrase, any meaning won't do for the same reason when someone asks a street merchant for an apple, they're saying any apple will do, as opposed to someone asking for the apple (maybe it's the only green apple on the stand) (p. 6–7).

So, his reasoning is as follows:

1) the first thing that happens when someone asks/is asked a question, or if he thinks, hears/reads it, is literal meaning, and because "the meaning of life" makes a specific reference (i.e., "the" + "meaning") to it, then, by the method of elimination, which Abaza calls the epistemological or epistemic priority. This is to say that someone cannot understand the question "what is the meaning of life?" without first thinking about the question's literal meaning.

2) Because one cannot understand the phrase "the meaning of life" without its semantics and because semantics (i.e., the phrase's literal meaning) qualifies as a form of meaning, then it makes it an eligible answer to "what is the meaning of life?"

3) A answer becomes necessary when a problem cannot do without it. With (1) and (2) in mind, and the summary preceding it, the meaning of life cannot make any sense without literal meaning, and because literal meaning qualifies as the reference of "meaning" in "the meaning of life," it must be necessarily the answer to the meaning of life.

Feel free to use this comment; I'm new/inactive, so I don't want to risk messing up with any edits. ThePedantKing (talk) 17:46, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

The sentence "There is not a definitive answer" need not imply relativism; it could also be interpreted as saying that a definitive answer is attainable but not yet attained (if we assume that "yet" or "currently" is implied) or as saying that there is no consensus on a definitive answer, which seems accurate given the content of the article. I changed that sentence to "There is no consensus on a definitive answer".

I just read the book description for Jack Abaza's The Definitive Answer to the Meaning of Life (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2023), and it has a level of WP:PUFFERY that seems somewhat tongue-in-cheek or ironic, which suggests that the book's title is as well. If his answer were so definitive, surely he could have gotten it published by a more prestigious publisher? Biogeographist (talk) 21:36, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Your change is certainly an improvement from the previous passage. But to add a last thought before we move on, without the "yet" actually written (at the time, in the original passage), it's implying perspectival relativism. Without any reference to the future and without any reference that there may be an answer to the meaning of life (unbeknownst to us), it implies relativism. But that's gone, so, now, let's turn to the discussion of Abaza.

"If his answers were so definitive, surely he could have gotten it published by a more prestigious publisher," were you expecting to cite only books from Penguin Random House, Oxford, Princeton, or Simon Schuster? Just the first ten sources in this article show Frank Martela's website, an assistant professor; Continuum Publishers, by the accounts of many, they're among the worst, and what is Lighthouse Pub? Would you like me to go on? Wipf and Stock Publishers is considered well-respected and well-known.

Now, instead of ad hominem, may we just discuss (for the sake of improving this article) his ideas instead of what's written on the cover of his book? Surely, if every book was judged by its cover or title, hardly anything would be read at all. Give my previous responses, starting from A Section devoted to language/semantics a reread; I put some effort into writing it and think you missed its points. That summary will help you understand why the author chose the title of his book; it was not "puffery" or "tongue-in-cheek," however, it was a reference to one of two types of truths. ThePedantKing (talk) 13:32, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I read your comment before mine carefully, and I did not miss anything. I chose to address other issues, in part because I don't find your (summary of Abaza's) argument's appeal to necessity convincing at all, perhaps because I don't think that either of the premises is true, and so the attempt to derive some kind of necessity from them is laughable to me.

I'm reminded of why Rhys Southan found Peter Singer's moral reasoning to be unpersuasive (in the context of effective altruism) in Southan, Rhys (January 2017). "Peter Singer, R.M. Hare, and the trouble with logical consistency". Essays in Philosophy. 18 (1): eP1574:1–26. doi:10.7710/1526-0569.1574. Southan said, "This problem is that the principles underlying our individual moral judgments can be endlessly interpreted, if there are even principles involved at all." You say that the sentence "There is not a definitive answer" implies relativism because you interpret it in a certain way. I say that it doesn't imply that because I interpret it differently. (I thought that sentence should be changed, and I changed it, because it can be interpreted the way you interpreted it, not because it must be interpreted that way.) Likewise nothing forces me to accept the interpretations (that you say Abaza makes) in the first two premises of your argument above.

My second paragraph was intended to be jocular; I can see how my humor might not have been clear. Or perhaps you just didn't find it funny. (But I was being honest about how the tone of the book description struck me as puffery.) My low opinion of Wipf and Stock is probably due to my lack of interest in theology, which is their primary subject area.

I like your observation about the quality of the references in this article, but that's irrelevant to what I said about Wipf and Stock, because I wasn't arguing against citing Abaza's book in this article. I wouldn't oppose including a sentence or two about Abaza's position in an appropriate section. Biogeographist (talk) 16:24, 18 September 2024 (UTC) & 17:03, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Well, I'd like to start off by expressing my sincerest appreciation that you've carefully read my comment before responding (as I did with yours). It's true that in philosophy, it's almost a platitude to say that many theories by writers of varying calibres may not be convincing. In a time long forgotten, you had foundationalists like Descartes who had absolute answers to inquiries, e.g., the mind-body problem, that found no answers 400 years later.

As for the meaning of life, I'm not here to either agree or disagree with theories; I came here to do the Wikipedia job of presenting ideas neutrally, even as I might not agree with them. What I found particularly of interest, which is not to be mistaken as my agreement with it, is the novel approach in the book we've discussed: I have never seen it before, and this is after my reading hundreds of articles on the meaning of life. So, it stood to reason, when I wrote my initial remark, that this page would benefit from including fresh perspectives on the subject that have not been covered yet.

If you'd like to hammer out with me the laughable aspect of the premises with me, or preferably, the first two premises you don't agree with, about how Abaza arrives at the conclusion that the meaning of life can be deduced, you're welcome to go through them one by one with me. I will, however, have to note that Peter Singer's reciprocal altruism is not a fabulous parallel to Abaza's linguistic-epistemic argument for the meaning of life (unless you meant my remark about perspectival relativism in response to it being stated that the meaning of life has no definitive answer).

The reason why Singer's theory is a mismatch with Abaza's is because moral philosophy, on the normative side, doesn't have principles that can form analytic or absolute truths in the way augends two and two equal the sum of four; one can conceivably deny that cannibalism is wrong, but there are two ways to go about it: one, it does not produce an impossibility kindred to "five is the sum of two and two," even if it contradicts our moral values, and, two, there are tribes and what we take to be the pinnacles of civilizations who commit cannibalism all the time. In Papua New Guinea, Michael Rockefeller, who was related to the richest man in America, was eaten by tribesmen when he visited them (with good intentions); the law of the land, there, gave the tribesmen, according to their moral principles, the right to eat him. (He didn't respect their customs, and those who knew the tribesmen were the ones who eventually confirmed the rumours of poor Michael's fate.) In Europe and North America, you have transubstantiation, which you no doubt know, is the ritual of transforming bread and wine into Jesus Christ's flesh and blood, and it's consumed during Mass. And if one thinks the example could be better, mummies were all the craze in Victorian England, when affluent British travellers would hire Coptic Egyptians to raid tombs for a mummy, bring it back home, engage in an unwrapping ceremony, and either sprinkle bits of mummies with their alcoholic cocktails or create "mummy-brown" paint for their rooms.

Whew! The long explanation is an attempt to show the departure between moral principles and analytic truths. Now, the first of Abaza's premises comes in response to what he asks the reader about the first thing that must occur before "what is the meaning to life?" What do you find laughable about the literal meaning of the phrase thereof being the first thing that must occur? The idea that a question cannot be meaningfully answered without being literally understood (in an academic context, as opposed to humour at a bar with innuendo questions) seems to me an analytic truth (i.e., understanding a question precedes one's ability to answer it). As for the second premise, the claim that semantics qualifies as an eligible answer to a question asking about the meaning of life seems indubitably true: semantics involves literal meaning, which is concomitant to a question about meaning.

Sure, we could try and see if all of this theory fits a few expository lines in the article. I eagerly await your thoughts. ThePedantKing (talk) 17:21, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I enjoyed your response. However, per WP:NOTFORUM, talk pages are not for general discussion of a subject but only for improving the article, and I'm not planning to write about this in the article, so I'm not going to write a long response about Abaza, whose book I haven't even read. I don't think the literal meaning is "the first thing that must occur" because I don't think that's how language comprehension works on a neurocognitive level. I could be wrong; I'm not an expert, and I would have to review the research, but given my informed intuitions about non-literal language comprehension, the claim is not even plausible on its face. Sources I would consult include:

• García, Adolfo Martín; Ibáñez, Agustín, eds. (2023). The Routledge handbook of semiosis and the brain. Routledge handbooks in linguistics. New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003051817. ISBN 9780367509163. OCLC 1329431633.
• Kemmerer, David L. (2022). Cognitive neuroscience of language (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781138318427. ISBN 9781138318397. OCLC 1240266265.
• Holyoak, Keith J.; Stamenković, Dušan (June 2018). "Metaphor comprehension: a critical review of theories and evidence". Psychological Bulletin. 144 (6): 641–671. doi:10.1037/bul0000145. PMID 29517263.
• Fortescue, Michael D. (2017). The abstraction engine: extracting patterns in language, mind and brain. Advances in consciousness research (AiCR). Vol. 94. Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub. doi:10.1075/aicr.94. ISBN 9789027213617. OCLC 972461856.
• Mody, Maria, ed. (2017). Neural mechanisms of language. Innovations in cognitive neuroscience. New York: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-7325-5. ISBN 9781493973231.
• Christiansen, Morten H.; Chater, Nick (2016). Creating language: integrating evolution, acquisition, and processing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. doi:10.7551/mitpress/10406.001.0001. ISBN 9780262034319. JSTOR j.ctt1b7x5tw. OCLC 927140881.
• Plebe, Alessio; De La Cruz, Vivian M. (2016). Neurosemantics: neural processes and the construction of linguistic meaning. Studies in brain and mind. Vol. 10. Cham: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-28552-8. ISBN 9783319285504. OCLC 930996966.
• Pickering, Martin J.; Garrod, Simon (August 2013). "An integrated theory of language production and comprehension". Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 36 (4): 329--347. doi:10.1017/S0140525X12001495. PMID 23789620.
• Gibbs, Raymond W., ed. (2008). The Cambridge handbook of metaphor and thought. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511816802. ISBN 9780521841061. OCLC 174500919.

Biogeographist (talk) 18:08, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I just started reading Abaza's first chapter, "Discourse on Method", and I can't stop laughing. I don't mean to offend; I'm just being honest about my reaction. His writing style is brilliant, but it's very funny to me, so funny that it honestly sounds tongue-in-cheek to me. Philosophically, I'm a ratio-empiricist fallibilist, so I just don't share his enthusiasm for analytic absolutes. "I shall thus forgo the use of empirical propositions" and "I must avoid the use of empirical claims", he says. He lost me right there. I would continue reading just because he writes so well and it's so entertaining, but I can't take his methodology seriously. Biogeographist (talk) 18:40, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

In adherence to WP:NOTFORUM, which was always my intention here, I've now got a pretty good idea about how to improve the article, thanks to our team effort, thanks for that, and thanks for the further-reading part; I'm a ratio-empiricist à la fallibilism myself, so you're preaching to the choir.

On the side, I told you he was a highly unusual thinker. (Once you get past the first chapter, which isn't yet the best part of the book, you'll find that his eccentricity kind of keeps skyrocketing. And now you've got me laughing too.)

Anyway, I'll mull over how to go about the improvement of this article. Thanks again. ThePedantKing (talk) 18:55, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Under "Mahayana Buddhism", there are better items to site in Wikipedia

The description for Mahayana Buddhism in this article is fairly uninformed about Buddhism. I would cite the Buddhist Philosophy article for more information on the topic. Also, Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism both appeared about the same time. The idea that Theravadan beliefs are older than Mahayana beliefs is a recent view. (Recent meaning around the 18th century.) Pfstevenson32 (talk) 13:29, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Reconsideration of including "Ways of Life" philosophies

Shouldn't "meaning of life" focus strictly on direct interpretations of life purpose, without philosophies that prescribe ways to live. Stoicism for example, guides living rather than answering the existential question directly. NeutralNugget (talk) 09:27, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 April 2024

Thinglandowner (talk) 21:51, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

The Meaning of life is to expand as far as possible like a virus so that it can't be destroyed, that is why humans exist, to help life expand across space and to live for as long as it can. Making you as a human being a insignificant part of a much larger goal.

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. M.Bitton (talk) 22:03, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 May 2024

> > > Wikipedia has a rather long chapter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_of_life) on the subject of Meaning of life. > > One of the statements in the Wikipedia's chapter is: To evolve, or to achieve biological perfection. > > I have the following concerns about this statement:

   The word 'biological' excludes many endeavors of the humanity (especially in last few hundred years) of developing tools which help humans to improve individual lives and life of the whole society and also help humans to control the environment for the benefits of individuals or benefits of groups of individuals.
   The word 'perfection' is too ambiguous - perfection implies we have multiple versions of the same object (or multiple same category objects) where one version is better than the other. But judgement of being better is difficult to measure: we can easy measure who/what is faster or we can more or less easy measure who/what is stronger. Bur can we measure who/what is more beautiful or useful? RawThinker (talk) 17:08, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: These concerns are better handled via a general discussion rather than via an edit request. Would suggest starting a new section re-presenting these concerns to solicit additional input. See: Wikipedia:Consensus. —Sirdog (talk) 01:06, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

So I think I did what you suggested:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Meaning_of_life&oldid=1222582652

Should I just wait for comments?

Thanks. RawThinker (talk) 16:07, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_of_life

Wikipedia has a rather long chapter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_of_life) on the subject of Meaning of life. One of the statements in the Wikipedia's chapter is: To evolve, or to achieve biological perfection. I have the following concerns about this statement: The word 'biological' excludes many endeavors of the humanity (especially in last few hundred years) of developing tools which help humans to improve individual lives and life of the whole society and also help humans to control the environment for the benefits of individuals or benefits of groups of individuals.

  The word 'perfection' is too ambiguous - perfection implies we have multiple versions of the same object (or multiple same category objects) where one version is better than the other. But judgement of being better is difficult to measure: we can easy measure who/what is faster or we can more or less easy measure who/what is stronger. Bur can we measure who/what is more beautiful or useful?

Existing statement: To evolve, or to achieve biological perfection.

Proposed statement: To change ourselves and/or environment to be able to achieve goals easier and faster. RawThinker (talk) 19:27, 6 May 2024 (UTC)