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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (7776)	3/7/2001 1:19:53 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

Does that part of our lives devoted to a Cause only have meaning, and is the rest marking time? Is the War the only thing that matters, not the fate of the individual soldier? Here again, you seem to be suggesting that a sense of personal meaning requires a certainty (or at the least) a strong hope) for eternal life. This is made clear if the above quote is placed in juxtaposition with previous statements you have made. If the fate of the individual matters, then eternal life matters Is eternal life a fate? Eternal life is not an outcome, and it is not an end. Even if it was, the future is beyond prediction and beyond certainty. Nobody can show us the end of something endless, therefore, the assertion from someone that something is endless could always be doubted. Even were Neocon today to believe with a certainty after attending the Church of Solon, that Neocon will live forever--would that then impart meaning to his life? Well, what if in 618 trillion years, God tells Neocon that he was fooled and that he will die in another 462.3 trillion years: Does Neocon live without meaning from that day forward? And what about the 618 trillion years that went before--Is the meaning that Neocon experienced during each second of those years (wow! That is a lot of seconds!) now erased and dissolved by a single fact of closure?? Can one ever know the future? Can one ever know the past? Does not all experience occur in the present? In the above example: All those 618 trillion years must have held about 13 billion billion trillion trillion facts. Is the meaning of ONE fact of closure now to negate the meaning of all those facts of experience? Why would you think this? I submit to you that no-one can have certainty about an endless future: Even were they certain about their prescience (and they could not be), that prescience could never go to the end of something endless...it could only predict. Perhaps one could have apparent certainty about that which did or would end, but in what hypothetical instance could one ever state with certainty that they might not be mistaken?? No, the argument that everything is futile without eternal life is a specious one. The certainty of eternal life cannot exist. Meaning is not some abstract object that exists to inform the lives of people. Meaning is a relationship between a consciousness and its experience. Something is never just meaningful; It is meaningful to someone. It is a value judgement, or at the least--an awareness of relevance by someone. If there is no-one making the value judgement, the idea of meaning is to no account. Naturally, the same event may have different meanings for any number of conscious entities. When Goering cheated the hangman's noose with cyanide it made some relieved; It made some feel a betrayal of justice; Some felt like breaking open a couple of bales for the cows. Meaning is relative and it is personal. Meaning only relates to the illogical desire to reach a certainty on the unpredictable future of individual existence--vis-a-vis, whether one receives closure, or whether one is compelled to endure endless agony (or any other condition of eternity that may be imagined by those that ground their existence in the future rather than the now)--in the unlikely circumstance of an individual limiting the appreciation and the inclusiveness of their OWN personal meaning, by the unrealistic rider that they will defy what is known...in deference to the dubious self-glory of what is not.