What is meaningless?

[laklak]

Couldn't agree more with the first three sentences, but I take a slightly different tack on the rest of it. Set your emotions free, feel rage, love, lust, everything you can get your synapses around. Involve yourself with other humans as much as you possible can - talk to them, shag them, fight with them, have as much to do with other ground apes as you can tolerate. Eat, drink, and be merry, 'cuz eternity is a loooooong fucking time to be dead.

[JimC]

Meaningless is simply a term used by people in a particular emotional state of disconnection to describe things or events they cannot currently relate to.

It has no other meaning.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

If life has no meaning without hope for an afterlife, what purpose has the afterlife?

[JimC]

To improve one's harp playing?

[Brian Peacock]

No meaning to anything at the end of the day. It just is. It has a function but no purpose
Learn that and learn to overcome the nonsensical fear of death and you have it cracked
Keep your emotions to a minimum and keep away from all other human beings much as
possible and make sure you have something to do to pass the time while waiting to die
I do not recommend this but it works for me and so I would not change it for anything

Are you saying the emotions are meaningless or useless? Does food mean nothing to you, even when you are hungry? Does banishing the fear of death mean that you'll willing starve to death without a flicker or a thought?

[JimC]

The word "meaning" has very different connotations to different people. At one end of the spectrum, an event having meaning simply entails it being recognisable as a pattern, something which informs one, if only a little, about the state of the world; Brian's rustle of grass in the evening, which could have life-changing significance for a hominid...

At the other end of the spectrum we have a somewhat florid version, one redolent with deep philosophical significance, where an event or situation contributes significantly to one's whole view of the universe.

The significance of "meaningless" depends heavily on which version of "meaning" one is using.

[surreptitious57]

Are you saying the emotions are meaningless or useless

I myself have very little need for emotions of any kind. So mine are kept to a minimum. I find comfort in having a clear head
I avoid having fixed opinions on most things for I see the world more as an observer not as a participant. I am more like water
whereas before I was like ice. Maybe as I get older I will be more like steam. I came into this world a total nobody. I am living
in this world as a total nobody. And I am to die in this world as a total nobody also. And when I finally do I shall be as happy as
it is possible to be for it will be the end of all suffering. As one cannot be more free when one is dead. So even though I do not
believe in heaven I know I am going to a better place. Death is eternal too since it lasts forever. So I welcome it with open arms

[mistermack]

No meaning to anything at the end of the day. It just is. It has a function but no purpose
Learn that and learn to overcome the nonsensical fear of death and you have it cracked
Keep your emotions to a minimum and keep away from all other human beings much as
possible and make sure you have something to do to pass the time while waiting to die
I do not recommend this but it works for me and so I would not change it for anything

Having been born with a brain that wants to stay alive, I don't think the fear of death is nonsensical.

It makes evolutionary sense. Like our dislike of pain. Keeps MY fingers out of the flame.
I inherited my fear of death. I didn't choose it. Like my arse, it just grew there.

[surreptitious57]

Being afraid of something which you are never going to experience makes no sense at all
To be afraid of dying is understandable for that will be experienced but not actual death
I used this reasoning to over come my own fear of it and now it does not bother me at all
So every one should talk openly about death as often as possible to stop being afraid of it
The only way to combat irrational fear is to confront it not avoid it as that makes it worse

[JimC]

Being afraid of something which you are never going to experience makes no sense at all
To be afraid of dying is understandable for that will be experienced but not actual death
I used this reasoning to over come my own fear of it and now it does not bother me at all
So every one should talk openly about death as often as possible to stop being afraid of it
The only way to combat irrational fear is to confront it not avoid it as that makes it worse

You, sir, are a Stoic.

A stoic with a somewhat eccentric writing style...

[Seth]

Couldn't agree more with the first three sentences, but I take a slightly different tack on the rest of it. Set your emotions free, feel rage, love, lust, everything you can get your synapses around. Involve yourself with other humans as much as you possible can - talk to them, shag them, fight with them, have as much to do with other ground apes as you can tolerate. Eat, drink, and be merry, 'cuz eternity is a loooooong fucking time to be dead.

It also seems to me to be a looooooon fucking time to be alive. I'm faced with the proposition of justifying being alive, potentially, for another 20 years, which seems like an eternity to me. The prospect of being alive for eternity scares the crap out of me, particularly if there is no way to achieve oblivion once doomed to eternal life.

Sixty-one years has been hard enough thanks, I don't need no stinking eternity...unless it includes shagging Emma Watson on a regular basis...

[Hermit]

Set your emotions free, feel rage, love, lust, everything you can get your synapses around. Involve yourself with other humans as much as you possible can - talk to them, shag them, fight with them, have as much to do with other ground apes as you can tolerate. Eat, drink, and be merry, 'cuz eternity is a loooooong fucking time to be dead.

Yabbut entropy! How can I possibly be happy in my life knowing that science suggests an end to the life of the entire universe?

[mistermack]

Being afraid of something which you are never going to experience makes no sense at all
To be afraid of dying is understandable for that will be experienced but not actual death
I used this reasoning to over come my own fear of it and now it does not bother me at all
So every one should talk openly about death as often as possible to stop being afraid of it
The only way to combat irrational fear is to confront it not avoid it as that makes it worse

I don't agree.
When I confront it mentally, I'm shit scared of dying. Irrational or not.
When I'm not confronting it, it doesn't bother me.
I have exactly the same reasoning as you have. Conscious reasoning. But it doesn't work for me.
So I'm better off pretending it will never happen. That doesn't mean I don't make exactly the same argument as you made. Except that it doesn't work.

Maybe my confronting it is more vivid than yours.
If I shove it to the back of my mind, I'm not scared of dying. But I am when I conjure it up in my imagination.

[Brian Peacock]

Are you saying the emotions are meaningless or useless

I myself have very little need for emotions of any kind. So mine are kept to a minimum. I find comfort in having a clear head
I avoid having fixed opinions on most things for I see the world more as an observer not as a participant. I am more like water
whereas before I was like ice. Maybe as I get older I will be more like steam. I came into this world a total nobody. I am living
in this world as a total nobody. And I am to die in this world as a total nobody also. And when I finally do I shall be as happy as
it is possible to be for it will be the end of all suffering. As one cannot be more free when one is dead. So even though I do not
believe in heaven I know I am going to a better place. Death is eternal too since it lasts forever. So I welcome it with open arms

Well, we're all dogs tied to a cart that drags us this way and that, but fatalism can be a pernicious doctrine if taken to extremes.

[Svartalf]

To improve one's harp playing?

My harp playing can definitely stand improvement