this has as much meaning &/or significance as you give it
twit
11:20:18 PM
Post anything that you want - a story, a secret, a confession, a fear, a love - anything. Post twice if you'd like. And then share the site with your friends.
this has as much meaning &/or significance as you give it
twit
11:20:18 PM
Published by
sithgirl
Tags: No Content, Post Secret
6 comments:
What if something gives it's meaning and how much meaning something has is not up to us?
To anonymous: I find it interesting
that your comment is about meaning in general, when my original statement was only about itself.
But to address the broader issue
anyway: To me, meaning is just like beauty, ie, it's in the eye of the beholder. In other words, things do not hold meaning in themselves, we ascribe meaning to them.
twit is right, items are only intrinsically valued by those addressing them value
Or so it seems at face value, it also seems that we have free will.
I don't believe in the latter so how can I be sure about the former?
Well if items are not intrinsically valuable, that presents us with a problem dealing with said items.
Extrinsic values change frequently. They change with the societal opinion on a given topic, or with a personal caprcicious whim. It seems necessary for things to have intrinsic value or else they become endangered by this rapid changing in morality and value.
For instance, life. Does life have intrinsic value? If not then it is possible that enough social conditioning or changing or circumstances could render the protection of life completely unnecessary.
For all of human history, it seems, (Except for brief interludes of cannabalism and other types of life-degrading activities.) life has been the single most precious thing. From the Ten Commandments' "Thou shalt not ki.ll" and onward , the Judeo-Christian world has participated in a celebration of life's preservation. (I don't know enough to say anything about the Islamic world, but I assume that they have some stricture against mu.rder as well.)
However, even before that life was precious for each person. The early homo sapiens and homo neanderthalensis species did not tend to k.ill each other frequently because of a violent whim. This is a similarity we share with them through all the other differences. Their society must have been completely different than ours, but still they have that one prime virtue.
So the question remains. Does life have intrinsic value? Or does it simply have a long history of being extrinsically valued?
I use life as an example, but this sort of reasoning could probably hold true on a series of topics. I do not think, though, that many of today's "hottest" issues could be shown to have historical extrinsic value. Some of these topics might be: the right of life to fetuses, homose.xuality, s.exual activity before marriage, infidelity, .
I choose specifically those issues relating to se.x because I think that the world's early populations (and indeed the world's current population) gives such a clear, undivided message about those issues.
Maybe life is another issue without a clear, undivided worldly stance. But that would invalidate my whole argument, so maybe not.
Dear DoctorAnonymous,
What a fantastically desperate meandering load of waffle. What is it you really want people to take from that?
(I have a feeling that you are quite young though so, good effort!)
I will also give you credit for holding a position of uncertainty & doubt, as i believe that is a healthy way to be, ie, it is the antithesis of extremism.
In a sense, that really is also
the essence of my outlook (that all meaning is a subjective
perception).
For me, all of this more of a discipline than an absolute belief-system anyway. When i find myself in the absurdly paradoxical position of attempting to define the meaning of meaning, i know it is time to let go.. (it's kind of a buddhist type of thing).
Anyway, thats my 'intellectual whacking-off' done for now, thanks for joining in.
PS, I think this anyone-say-anything-blog idea is really cool.
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