The meaning of life (14/10/2016)

This text was sent by @EpheDanica to @FutEnFol in her private messages with the request that she pass it on to Sedenion on Twitter.

 

"Madam, having difficulty reaching E. Sedenion's private messages -whose message has been collected in your discussion space-, could you pass on to him these few considerations, privately, on this social network (Twitter)? Thanking you cordially, here is the content to pass on:

___________________________

 

"But perhaps it was not the help I was expecting (even though I needed it), at least not in this form. But rather some well-constructed contradiction (where I am wrong, why, how, etc.) and possibly the information I lack in order to conceive the metaphysical coherence of what seems in many ways a gigantic disorder. "

 

- No "authority", sage, scientist, extraterrestrial, deity, can guide you on "the path". Your search is useless. You must be, for yourself, your own light.

To believe that a Third Party, however brilliant, can have the Truth and transmit it to you is a naive illusion.

Remember the aphorism of letter D 78 and the idea that observation itself alters the nature of what is observed.

 

- The same happens with your reasoning - "yours" including, by extension, that of the rest of humanity, which bases its thought patterns on a limiting Aristotelian logic. You would say "binary": to be/not to be, object/subject, inside/outside, I/other, etc.).

 

- Moreover, do not forget that another illusion feeds on the very process of description, namely: the use of words. The word is not the thing. Describing the colour "red" to a person blind from birth is not the same as allowing them access to the Truth of red.

 

- The replacement of Truth by the "word-explanation" is an unfortunately common aberration.

 

- Some considerations on your legitimate concerns:

 

" --- In the end, and once reasoning about existence turns back on itself, no metaphysics, no religion, no belief can give meaning to existence. "

 

- As suggested before, your intuition points you to the heart of the matter, and your question contains, in itself, its answer.

 

- "To give meaning to existence" implies that there is, necessarily, a separation between what gives meaning and existence itself. Now, YOU ARE existence. The entity that would give meaning is itself existence, just as the "meaning" would also be existence.

 

- All these elements are existence. Separation is an illusion of thought. The eye cannot see itself alone. If you use a mirror, what you see is not the eye, but its reflection.

 

"We can find a thousand excuses or a thousand reasons for 'wanting to live' rather than die as long as we remain in a local context. From our own selfishness in enjoying life's moments, to some altruistic thoughts about our loved ones, on a more global level, to the survival/progress of the species, or a divine purpose of some kind; but above all that, no valid reason for existence remains. "

 

- The "will to live" has no intrinsic reality. It is another illusion. "Will" includes a division between the fact and what should be. As long as you look for a reason for "what is", you will not see "what is". There is separation.

 

- To look for a reason for existence" is of the same order, a separation between "existence" and "its reason". However, you understand that "existence" IMPLIES "its reason" without being reduced to it. It is, without being. You should begin to see the difficulties of handling these ideas with formal Aristotelian logic.

 

- The tools used are not adapted and give rise to major confusions.

 

"To exist, and to want to exist, is an irrational impulse, a madness. In general, I am as little understood in this respect as my contemporaries. One can fight for life, for "negentropy" or for whatever one likes, but the question remains unavoidable: Why do it? Who benefits from the crime (of existence)? Whom would a non-universe, the non-existence of something, bother, outrage or sadden? Beings that do not exist? No, since they would not exist... "

 

- "Whom" shows another form of confusion. The question makes no sense. Remember the let

ter D33-1 and the example used: "Why does man rain?". The content of your question has the same character.

 

- Further still, take the elements described above in this message and change your thought pattern: is there a real distinction between the thinker and his thought? If the thinker derives from thought, how do they differ? Yet, in using this dichotomy, you feel that it "exists". In a non-bivalent logic, if the thinker is the thought, then the "who" has no real essence and your question loses its ontological foundation.

 

"If the universe is a totalitarian system in which it is a matter of "fulfilling one's part of the contract" to satisfy the needs of some deity, so be it, but then why be surprised that the world has the shape it has? It would only be a reflection of the universe itself, a system of competition where there are winners and losers, "successes" and "failures"... Or a system where the most obedient is the most rewarded... There will always be "failures", "wretches" of existence whom "Divinity" or "Chance" will have made "rebels" or "non-conforming" to the canons... Why, then, be moved by the cynicism of an unjust world, if the universe is already unjust? "

 

- By applying the elements of answer mentioned above, you will manage to solve this problem. Is there really a division between the universe and its parts? Between the thinker and his thoughts? Between the observer and the observed, etc.?

 

- The process of "comparison" is another illusion that feeds the impression of separation. The "failure" only has his essence in his comparison with what is "achieved", like all the other values based on differential logic ("day/night", "raw/cooked", "I/you", etc.).

 

"As for the objections about "free will", I can sweep them away with a single argument: nobody asked to exist. So why should one be glad to be here, thank someone and shoulder responsibilities (which one has practically never wished for) in order to conduct one's existence? All existence on earth is the fruit both of an amoral mechanism (the biological drive to reproduce) and of selfishness (the parents' desire to have children). And on a cosmic scale? "

 

- He who is "free" is opposed, by definition, to every form of influence, of conditioning, of authority. However, enjoying "free will" logically implies the fact of "existing". He who does not exist cannot be free. Binary formalism limits your possibilities of reflection and their extension beyond purely metaphysical considerations.

 

- The problem of "desire" covers other complex fields that require more neuro-psycho-biological research. According to the purely "symbolic" side of your bivalent logic, you will understand that only those who "lack" ""desire"". By extending this observation to the different aspects of your considerations, you will be able to turn the meaning of your questions around.

 

"When I raise this subject, people are usually sometimes disconcerted and sometimes frightened... It is also true that no argument in favour of life can withstand the total absence of necessity... Existing is not necessary, it is only arbitrary. "

 

- Once the aporia of opposing "existence" to "necessity" has been understood, according to a formal dimension, your question covers a psycho-ontological problem. Can the "desire" of the human individual live if it is not caught in the nets of the "desire" of others? What meaning does living have, for a child, if his parents tell him that they do not "desire" him? If an individual's desire lodges in that of a glorified figure, what more beautiful archetype than that of the divine figure, through the questioning of its inaccessible and mysterious desire?

 

" Certainly, for an intelligent species to endure, it must maintain a reason to go on existing and procreating, at least out of pure hedonism, without which logic inevitably leads it to stop taking part in this absurd game. And very logically, any intelligent species that subsists in the universe is inevitably provided with ideological conformations compatible with survival and the need to survive (even if out of fearful obedience to a divine commandment)... But is this reasonable? "

 

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- Is "survival" now distinguished from "life"?

 

- Hoping I have been able to point you in new directions, please accept my sincere greetings".