The sweet indifference of the world

Sandra Murphy33 said:Whose survival, exactly?
🤔

We survive until we die—whether we're connected to our ancestors or completely isolated, whether we're starving or well-fed, wealthy or broke. Survival is a given from birth to death. So when you claim that this is somehow deeply meaningful, I have to ask: compared to what?
If we look at life through that lens, is there actually anything that could be considered meaningless? And if so, why?

Unless, of course, your definition of "survival" is specifically about reaching old age after ensuring your children carry on your lineage, and then their children do the same, indefinitely...

Your idea of "survival" is poorly defined.
That term only makes sense when you're talking about animals fighting for their lives—one predator trying to eat while the other tries to escape. In human terms, where those kinds of raw struggles aren't the norm, the concept of "human survival" becomes incredibly vague.

To me, "survival" is an individual thing, or maybe a small group. Like surviving a heart attack or walking away from a car wreck on the I-95.
But "survival" in the way you mean it? That's collective. It's about maintaining continuity.
It’s pure nonsense to prioritize secondary things over primary ones. Look at nature: a parasite that kills its host too quickly ends up killing itself. That’s fundamentally senseless behavior unless there’s some other evolutionary trick up its sleeve to compensate. Without it, it's just suicide. Extinction.
Now, look at us humans. We’re cranking up the heat on this entire planet... and honestly, whether common sense will be enough to save us remains to be seen.

Harold Doyle3 said:To me, "survival" is an individual thing, or maybe a small group. Like surviving a heart attack or walking away from a car wreck on the I-95.
But "survival" in the way you mean it? That's collective. It's about maintaining continuity.
It’s pure nonsense to prioritize secondary things over primary ones. Look at nature: a parasite that kills its host too quickly ends up killing itself. That’s fundamentally senseless behavior unless there’s some other evolutionary trick up its sleeve to compensate. Without it, it's just suicide. Extinction.
Now, look at us humans. We’re cranking up the heat on this entire planet... and honestly, whether common sense will be enough to save us remains to be seen.

Nothing is actually going to change here. Aside from the stuff I already touched on, you’ve got our total addiction to tech, the transportation grid, and being completely tethered to financial and info networks. Plus, let's be real—most people couldn't handle stepping back to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle if their lives depended on it. Without technology and all these modern luxuries, we can't grow enough food, we can't manufacture medicine, and we basically can't function as a civilization. Laws only exist as long as there's someone left to enforce them. Once everything descends into chaos and anarchy, it won't be the smartest or most capable folks who make it through—it'll just be the strongest.

Harold Doyle3 said:Look, rational people have a better shot at survival. Pure and simple. Reason is an evolutionary edge.

Whatever. We aren't debating what counts as an evolutionary advantage here; we're talking about the meaning of life. I’d frame the relationship between the two like this: life breathes soul into meaning, and meaning gives life its structure.

Let's try looking at it this way. When does life start feeling meaningless?

Harold Doyle3 said:Of course it does. These are just the building blocks. You adapt to your circumstances. Why? For survival. Plain and simple. You either change yourself or you change your environment. Is there any other purpose out there? Can you reshape the entire world to be, say, free of all suffering? No, you can't. So what's left? All you really have is to pass the torch to the next generation—just like your ancestors gave you the chance to exist—while you spend your time digging into Hegel or whatever else you find meaningful along the way.

Survival is just the prerequisite for living, but how one actually lives is a whole different story, and that’s where the question of meaning really starts to kick in.
One makes the other possible, because without survival, you wouldn't even have the chance to pursue anything else.

Life itself is an opportunity, just like you mentioned, and an opportunity implies a set of possibilities, or rather
- what can one single person actually achieve?
Well, what you can do, what I can do, what every one of us can do.

By that same token, staying alive is absolutely necessary, but it isn't enough on its own to create the sense of purpose that—if I'm being honest—every single one of us is searching for in our own unique way.

So, survival provides the foundation for life to exist, and life gives you others through birth, but nobody can hand you a purpose on a silver platter; we all have to design our own lives, which is really the ultimate space for freedom and possibility... life is this massive chance to explore the truth of what we are truly capable of
but, at the same time, it's also something that can be completely wasted.

Melissa Stewart6 said:The world isn't inherently indifferent or chaotic, but it certainly feels that way to someone who carries that chaos within themselves.

On the other hand, pinpointing the truth is actually quite straightforward. Truth is objective and logical—not because it’s been packaged into some complex philosophical system, but simply because it is true. At the end of the day, truth serves as the ultimate standard for understanding, far surpassing any personal narrative, fleeting sentiment, or raw passion.

Saying truth is logical just because it happens to be true feels like a circular argument to me, almost like saying
truth is inherently truthful
which honestly sounds like total nonsense:
A truthful truth.

Either way, you seem to be focusing strictly on formal logic, but if we look at things through the lens of epistemology, formal logic is really just one tiny piece of the puzzle since that field tries to account for the entire scope of how we actually perceive reality.

So, following that line of thought—and regardless of whether you agree with my logic or not—I have to disagree with that final sentence in the quote.

Think about it: how do we actually learn things? If truth is the "highest criterion" for knowledge, what does that even tell us about the actual paths we take to get there?
Not a single thing.

There are so many different ways to reach understanding,
including those deeply human routes like our own personal stories, our emotions, or even intense passion... and I could go on forever about this,
but it really encompasses everything,
from the very breath in our lungs and our pulse to the way we hear, see, and truly experience life itself.

Eric Newman75 said:And then there’s Heidegger, talking about the modes of human existence as being-in-the-world. It isn't some passive act of just "finding" oneself in a setting; it's an active presence within the world. This state of being is uniquely human—it implies a specific relationship with yourself and everyone else. The core assumption of our humanity is that we are inhabitants of this world; that's how we get closest to our true bit. In the search for that bit, we’re pushed by anxiety, death, nothingness, boredom, and the call of conscience. Anxiety, specifically, is that deep concern for one's own bit in light of how finite, historical, and mortal we actually are. It’s a feeling that forces you to understand your own bit, even if it triggers a massive sense of unease that makes most people want to run the other way. But, if a person manages to resist that urge to flee from anxiety, they finally grasp their own mortality and the concept of nothingness, which are both essential to reaching their bit. Anxiety and death are tightly wound together because human existence is inherently finite. Death is the ultimate possibility of absolute impossibility for a person, which is why it’s so inextricably linked to nothingness. Through anxiety and death, a person confronts nothingness as a defining feature of their bit, realizing that the whole project is ultimately rooted in nothingness.

Presence.
It’s that exact thing—that genuine connection to the world around us—that, when it starts to slip away or just vanishes entirely, leaves us feeling nothing but total indifference.

I honestly find myself wanting to compare it to how the Greeks used the term "bitak," which basically translates to being "right there," what Heidegger refers to as "presence" (τό παρόν).

So, I suppose just being present doesn't actually guarantee that we have achieved true presence with the world, which is more of an active relationship that we have to build, nurture, and maintain through the way we actually live our lives.

steelridge58 said:Saying truth is logical just because it happens to be true feels like a circular argument to me, almost like saying
truth is inherently truthful
which honestly sounds like total nonsense:
A truthful truth.

Either way, you seem to be focusing strictly on formal logic, but if we look at things through the lens of epistemology, formal logic is really just one tiny piece of the puzzle since that field tries to account for the entire scope of how we actually perceive reality.

So, following that line of thought—and regardless of whether you agree with my logic or not—I have to disagree with that final sentence in the quote.

Think about it: how do we actually learn things? If truth is the "highest criterion" for knowledge, what does that even tell us about the actual paths we take to get there?
Not a single thing.

There are so many different ways to reach understanding,
including those deeply human routes like our own personal stories, our emotions, or even intense passion... and I could go on forever about this,
but it really encompasses everything,
from the very breath in our lungs and our pulse to the way we hear, see, and truly experience life itself.

Reminds me of that famous Hegelian line: "Whatever is rational is actual, and whatever is actual is rational." If you follow that thread, you get: "Whatever is rational is rational." Is that nonsense? Not in my book.

Truth and logic have to line up eventually. If they don't—well, you're left with a choice between believing logic is broken or that truth itself is just plain irrational.

ruggedraven36 said:Reminds me of that famous Hegelian line: "Whatever is rational is actual, and whatever is actual is rational." If you follow that thread, you get: "Whatever is rational is rational." Is that nonsense? Not in my book.

I really don't think the context is the same here.

A closer analogy would be if someone said

Whatever is true is also logical, and whatever is logical is also true.

But even then, that isn't quite the right comparison, because what you're saying—that your example isn't nonsense—might actually just be a case of circular reasoning, or *idem per idem*, where you're essentially trying to prove a point by using the exact same point as your proof.

At the end of the day, though, an "absolute truth" is just a nonsense phrase.

Aren't those kinds of "definitions" just a fancy way of describing a tautology?
🤔

Harold Doyle3 said:To me, "survival" is an individual thing, or maybe a small group. Like surviving a heart attack or walking away from a car wreck on the I-95.
But "survival" in the way you mean it? That's collective. It's about maintaining continuity.
It’s pure nonsense to prioritize secondary things over primary ones. Look at nature: a parasite that kills its host too quickly ends up killing itself. That’s fundamentally senseless behavior unless there’s some other evolutionary trick up its sleeve to compensate. Without it, it's just suicide. Extinction.
Now, look at us humans. We’re cranking up the heat on this entire planet... and honestly, whether common sense will be enough to save us remains to be seen.

"Survival" implies overcoming some kind of obstacle—a threat to one's life—that once conquered, leaves you alive.
Surely you aren't suggesting that the entire point of living is to constantly hunt for hurdles just to clear them, all while knowing full well that you won't be able to overcome the final one?
The inherent finitude of an individual life calls into question the meaning of every single struggle, large or small, fought for individual "survival."

I find no meaning in this idea of "collective survival through the assurance of continuity" either. 😢
Why should I care whether my species survives as a whole, especially during those moments of frustration when I'm tempted to wish its downfall?

steelridge58 said:I really don't think the context is the same here.

A closer analogy would be if someone said

Whatever is true is also logical, and whatever is logical is also true.

But even then, that isn't quite the right comparison, because what you're saying—that your example isn't nonsense—might actually just be a case of circular reasoning, or *idem per idem*, where you're essentially trying to prove a point by using the exact same point as your proof.

At the end of the day, though, an "absolute truth" is just a nonsense phrase.

That "grouping" you're bringing up only works if you assume "truth" and "true" are identical. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if we call something a truth or say it's true.

Sandra Murphy33 said:Aren't those kinds of "definitions" just a fancy way of describing a tautology?
🤔

Sure, but there's a massive difference between a tautology being your starting point versus being your final conclusion.

What’s the actual distinction here?

Sandra Murphy33 said:What’s the actual distinction here?

It all comes down to the mental heavy lifting involved. If I just start with "truth is true," I'm stuck—it's a dead end, an empty claim that goes nowhere. But if I argue that "truth is logical, and logic holds because truth exists," then I've actually built a path to conclude that "truth is true." In that second scenario, the tautology isn't just a circle—it actually carries the weight of the reasoning process within it.

ruggedraven36 said:It all comes down to the mental heavy lifting involved. If I just start with "truth is true," I'm stuck—it's a dead end, an empty claim that goes nowhere. But if I argue that "truth is logical, and logic holds because truth exists," then I've actually built a path to conclude that "truth is true." In that second scenario, the tautology isn't just a circle—it actually carries the weight of the reasoning process within it.

"We set out on the road. It was a hell of a long trek.
Then we realized, way too late, that the road was just one big circle."

Eric Newman75 said:"We set out on the road. It was a hell of a long trek.
Then we realized, way too late, that the road was just one big circle."

Logic works the exact same way.

ruggedraven36 said:That "grouping" you're bringing up only works if you assume "truth" and "true" are identical. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if we call something a truth or say it's true.

When I talk about substitution,
I’m referring back to the sentence in your example where, instead of using terms like 'rational' or 'current,' I swapped them out for 'true' and 'logical.' That gave us two different versions where one analogy basically becomes the other.

Now, depending on how you look at it, it might not matter whether we use the word truth or the adjective true.

But it definitely matters when you're looking at how they fit into a specific sentence structure, because once you factor in the actual logical sense—you know, the underlying meaning—that's really the heart of what I was trying to point out.

Anyway, since this is drifting pretty heavily into the territory of philosophy of language, I probably shouldn't get too carried away with it here.

steelridge58 said:When I talk about substitution,
I’m referring back to the sentence in your example where, instead of using terms like 'rational' or 'current,' I swapped them out for 'true' and 'logical.' That gave us two different versions where one analogy basically becomes the other.

Now, depending on how you look at it, it might not matter whether we use the word truth or the adjective true.

But it definitely matters when you're looking at how they fit into a specific sentence structure, because once you factor in the actual logical sense—you know, the underlying meaning—that's really the heart of what I was trying to point out.

Anyway, since this is drifting pretty heavily into the territory of philosophy of language, I probably shouldn't get too carried away with it here.

Too bad. I was actually about to hit you with a question.

ruggedraven36 said:Logic works the exact same way.

Hmm.

I prefer to think of logic as a spiral. 😛
If it just circles back on itself, it loses its inherent value.