"As I've shown it would provide a better foundation as we have good evidence for nature existing, but yet you opt for (as far as we know) made up stuff."

Why do you keep saying you've "shown" something? You've only asserted your point and called it logically possible, which is just to say it does not contradict itself. That's not an argument much less a demonstration of anything. "Nature existing" certainly doesn't make an obvious connection to objectivity of purpose/meaning. I appreciate that you've added references to other people's arguments, but again this is a far cry from showing something to be true.

"You did not, as monism is a thing."

Surely you're not using monism as a justification to conflate logical possibility and metaphysical possibility...

"If something is logically possible it's logically possible, again. This is not something you can argue around."

Haha I'm not trying to get around it! I don't think that objective purpose on naturalism is logically impossible- I'm saying there's no good reason given to think it's actual. If you want to put a period on the discussion with links for me to go follow up on, that's all good and well. Otherwise, this is just going to require some arguments to be developed and discussed.

"It makes no difference to the result is what I said. None of what you said makes any difference to the result of our actions, in this world."

Whether the result of our actions are the same or not is trivial to me. If human life has objective purpose, then that has numerous profound implications for humanity that would make the difference between a listless, meaningless life and one that is isn't.

"Just like your God again but yet you believe in him."

This isn't the thread for your beef with God. The fact that you keep attacking what I have repeatedly noted is irrelevant gives me the impression that you're intentionally trying to divert the discussion- now why would someone do that? 🤔

I think an important factor in what allowed humanity to survive is that while we are smart, on average we are not too smart, and if we were more intelligent we would have gone extinct.

If you look at a lot of the geniuses, scientific, mathematical, philosophical, whatever. A lot of them did not live happy lives and they were obsessive and often self destructive. Add to that the fact that depression and other mental illnesses often come along with great intelligence and that a lot of people especially throughout history life was on average more of a negative than positive experience.

If humanity was more intelligent, I think it would be too miserable to survive. I'm not only talking about historical suicide rates, but also just the symptoms/ suffering that come with being a genius that historically have been seen in people like Isaac Newton and Picasso.

I think there is a goldilocks zone for intelligence in order for civilization to come about. Not intelligent enough and you can't do things like agriculture and science and mathematics needed to build society. Too intelligent and everyone gets the problems of the suffering genius.

Another Part of the way this works I think is that there exists things called "thought sinks". Basically these are concepts and ideas that intelligent beings run into and are attracted by in a similar way to how animals are attracted to shiny metal. These concepts and ideas seem very important and like they must be figured out, but ultimately lead nowhere sometimes ever and sometimes just in the immediate term. Chasing them means you aren't productive and don't focus on things more important for survival.

Society can afford to have a small percentage of its population study these things. The less technologically developed a society is, the smaller the amount of people they can afford to study these things. If more people than that study them, then the society will decrease its ability to handle emergencies and generally survive.

I think almost all of academia fits this category of a thought sink. Science for example gives ample rewards but it takes time for those rewards to come into being. If everyone is a genius then everyone will want to figure out how things work, but you can only afford to have so many scientists.

Some countries don't have life imprisonment. So the function of them would be to rehabilitate because someday they will be out. Portugal is one such example. So is Norway. One quote I read is "We send murderers and rapists to prison to then be harmed by institutionalized violence (murder and rape factories, aka prisons) and hope that when they come home, they are 'reformed'" Edit: article about long sentences rethinking long prison sentences

>it wouldn't change the argument that naturalism doesn't itself provide a good foundation for objective purpose.

As I've shown it would provide a better foundation as we have good evidence for nature existing, but yet you opt for (as far as we know) made up stuff.

>In fact, I just finished pointing out how you are conflating logical possibility and metaphysical possibility.

You did not, as monism is a thing. If something is logically possible it's logically possible, again. This is not something you can argue around.

>If meaning/purpose is objective (i.e. human-independent), then this brings up all sorts of questions related to the source- who or what assigns meaning to us?

It makes no difference to the result is what I said. None of what you said makes any difference to the result of our actions, in this world.

>Not to mention it would give us reason to think naturalism is false, since it seems to be incompatible on a worldview where we are just biological accidents of natural forces.

Not really because nature would still be the most likely candidate.

>it doesn't seem there's any rhyme or reason why they exist.

Just like your God again but yet you believe in him. In the end what you have here is an argument from ignorance fallacy.

To your point: "A supernatural God for which we have absolutely no evidence (and for which by the way you also show yourself reluctant to give a good argument for) would be a much worse predictor of purpose existing in the universe compared to (if there is something like an objective purpose) the idea of it being baked into nature, through genes or determinism or you know, objective stuff in reality we have good evidence for."

This, again, is just not important to the argument. Even if I granted that nature was a better foundation for objective purpose than God (I don't), it wouldn't change the argument that naturalism doesn't itself provide a good foundation for objective purpose. I think there are plenty of good arguments for God's existence (e.g. arguments from natural theology like the Kalam), but it's just not relevant.

"It does, we just established that and your attempts at refuting it have failed so far."

We most certainly did not establish that. In fact, I just finished pointing out how you are conflating logical possibility and metaphysical possibility.

"I'm pretty agnostic on whether there is such a thing as objective purpose so I also don't feel very strongly about showing that it exists."

You've been arguing with me for a fair chunk of time about this very issue. It's odd to me that you say this now.

"it's kind of irrelevant because whether meaning is objective or subjective as long as people find a good purpose which isn't based on (theistic or not) harmful delusion the result is going to be the same"

The result is not the same at all. If meaning/purpose is objective (i.e. human-independent), then this brings up all sorts of questions related to the source- who or what assigns meaning to us? Is there a telos for the universe, value in one's actions or inactions, etc? and so forth. Not to mention it would give us reason to think naturalism is false, since it seems to be incompatible on a worldview where we are just biological accidents of natural forces.

"You can look at the paper I posted in this thread or the Stoics (Marcus Aurelius Meditations chapter 5 iirc) or the Daoists (Wu Wei) etc. if you're looking for good arguments of objective purpose existing in nature"

I can always appreciate a good reference. Count me interested.

"But in the end your claim that naturalism requires the view that objective purpose doesn't exist is still false, and that's all I wanted to show."

While you've referred me to some arguments elsewhere, you haven't shown anything in particular. I still very much think that naturalism precludes objective purpose/meaning, since things existing is just a brute fact on naturalism- it doesn't seem there's any rhyme or reason why they exist.

lol How childish do you have to be to take offense to the very idea of personal meaning, to need your meaning to be universal?

For one, it's not a monologue, as we've been having an exchange of words. Personally, my life is rich in meaning because it is rooted in the One who imbues meaning and creates with purpose. And I think the fact that you so clearly believe there is meaning to be had even when your worldview denies the objective reality of such things is a sign of naturalism's weakness. Your decision to turn away from or towards theism is entirely your own.

>Does it match reality?

A supernatural God for which we have absolutely no evidence (and for which by the way you also show yourself reluctant to give a good argument for) would be a much worse predictor of purpose existing in the universe compared to (if there is something like an objective purpose) the idea of it being baked into nature, through genes or determinism or you know, objective stuff in reality we have good evidence for.

Nature gives us stuff, like it gave me brown eyes. Is there any evidence of the supernatural ever giving anyone anything or that it matches reality?

>Naturalism leaves no space for objective meaning

It does, we just established that and your attempts at refuting it have failed so far.

I'm pretty agnostic on whether there is such a thing as objective purpose so I also don't feel very strongly about showing that it exists. In the end it's kind of irrelevant because whether meaning is objective or subjective as long as people find a good purpose which isn't based on (theistic or not) harmful delusion the result is going to be the same, as many others here already have pointed out.

Your cognitive dissonance on how you think that the absence of intent is a good argument for not believing there could be purpose in nature on the one hand, while at the same time believing in a God who was never intentionally created is also not for me to solve. That's your problem (lest you just want to keep arguing from preference rather than from anything substantial). I'm not obliged to take a stance on anything.

But then you can look at the paper I posted in this thread or the Stoics (Marcus Aurelius Meditations chapter 5 iirc) or the Daoists (Wu Wei) etc. if you're looking for good arguments of objective purpose existing in nature, or on how to live with one's own inner Nature/Purpose/Will (and I find their arguments still a lot more convincing than your supernatural woo. If this was pascal's wager that's where I would put my bet.) But in the end your claim that naturalism requires the view that objective purpose doesn't exist is still false, and that's all I wanted to show.

This isn't a compelling monologue. All that you've convinced me of is that family, love, music, and everything else in your life is meaningless and hollow without the promise of permanence and righteousness. Honestly, you've turned me away from theism even more.

Ok, feel free to pity me, but I think you're missing the point: I am happily a theist. I don't believe the world is meaningless, purposeless, etc personally. It is the naturalist that is pitiful, because when he is led to the conclusions of his worldview, he is left without hope, meaning, or purpose, except that which he can delude himself into having subjectively.

I’m not sure what he means by any of it.

> Who will these temporary things matter to when the universe is dead and empty?

> > 2000 years ago in the city of Pompeii a parent had love for their child, a man gave a beggar bread, and two lovers shared an embrace. And absolutely none of it matters to you or me, or anyone alive today, but it mattered to them and that was enough for them.

> > > This example only matters at all to anyone because we're here to be aware of it.

I pity you.

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Question.. Basically everything has a reason for it occurring or nearly. Why did your gf leave you? You was an idiot, Shame … Why do we drink water? To keep ourselves hydrated. But when it comes to how the universe began and people say the big bang. What would be the reasoning?

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Flexibility... A lot of OG Nazis didn't end out too well.

I am not nihilistic. But you make a good point about the happiness. If it makes you happy, I guess it doesn't matter too much. The only argument against it is that something like nazi fascism is a big no.

"People have a way of getting caught up in moments, being carried away by their emotions, and running with new ideas. They don't usually adopt a permanent attitude or behaviour based on the absurdly distant future."

I mean, I think they should since it has implications for every action they take now e.g. their actions are null and void in the face of heat death, among other things- that matters now. But I don't think this is all that important to discuss, because it's another thing altogether to talk about what is the case. People think they're leaving their mark, making a difference, etc. but are in fact only constructing what is to be destroyed. Adding time in between doesn't change that and only adds the illusion of lasting effect. I wonder, for example, how many people would bother writing a lengthy autobiography if the manuscript were to be immediately thrown away upon finishing it and the person's memory were to be wiped of its contents.

"2000 years ago in the city of Pompeii a parent had love for their child, a man gave a beggar bread, and two lovers shared an embrace. And absolutely none of it matters to you or me, or anyone alive today, but it mattered to them and that was enough for them."

This example only matters at all to anyone because we're here to be aware of it. This example is less touching than it is depressing, which is more or less my point.

"What colour is the dress? Was that a rabbit or a duck? Do you see Rubin's vase or two opposing faces? If meaning were universal, if it were objective, we wouldn't be having this conversation. There would be no arguments about what it means to love or the meaning of a cigar."

Frankly, apples and oranges. People do find similarities and come to similar conclusions about meaning all the time. A more analogous set of questions would be: "Is that duck forwards or broadside?" or "How red is that dress to you?" which involves the subjective element of the observer superimposed on the objective reality. To your second point, that's plainly false, as people come to different conclusions about objective matters all the time. The students in a calculus class have different answers to the same math question, but that doesn't mean there isn't an objectively correct answer. Misperception of an objective thing doesn't make it not objective.

Sidenote: This last part of the discussion on meaning is interesting and all, but it's really not relevant to the main discussion, since I agree that on naturalism, there is no reason why meaning would be objective.

what you learn is the only thing you can offer.

One of my friends said this not so long ago during a debate over a topic and hasn’t left my mind since. At first i was arguing against it, and as the argument kept going, i came to agree with it more and more. I wasn’t satisfied with that since my friend has a tendency of feeling like they can never be wrong. I wanted to see if anyone can create an argument to that statement. I would really appreciate it and i’d love the input, it doesn’t necessarily have to be an argument you can just give me your thoughts. Anything will help!

> People can also just be unaware of things like the heat death of the universe or the futility of their actions. This doesn't mean their actions aren't inherently so. To be aware of what naturalism entails is to be aware of the nihilistic implications it carries.

People have a way of getting caught up in moments, being carried away by their emotions, and running with new ideas. They don't usually adopt a permanent attitude or behaviour based on the absurdly distant future.

> Who will these temporary things matter to when the universe is dead and empty?

2000 years ago in the city of Pompeii a parent had love for their child, a man gave a beggar bread, and two lovers shared an embrace. And absolutely none of it matters to you or me, or anyone alive today, but it mattered to them and that was enough for them.

> Sure, if my eyes were damaged, I would not only fail to apprehend the objective reality of things being colored red, but I would fail to apprehend my subjective experience of seeing red- of which the color itself is an objective feature of reality.

> Not really. People with working eyes commonly have different subjective experiences of their objective surrounding realities. This doesn't make those surroundings unreal.

What colour is the dress? Was that a rabbit or a duck? Do you see Rubin's vase or two opposing faces?

If meaning were universal, if it were objective, we wouldn't be having this conversation. There would be no arguments about what it means to love or the meaning of a cigar.

The thing that is possible (because it has been done in other countries with success) is reform our prison system to actually BE rehabilitative. We already know how to make them so, but the prison industrial complex does not want that change to happen. Doesn’t mean we should give up fighting for reform now.

But You based your definition of naturalism by using this (false) definition of theism. The minus infinite stuff and all that jazz.

This argument only posits theism as an example of a potential alternative and really doesn't care about the truth or falsity of theism. Like I said, I'll just refer you elsewhere in this thread because you just don't seem to understand:

https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/100zfxn/atheistic_naturalism_does_not_offer_any_longterm/j2lln47/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3

Not ok with it. Just unclear on the possibilities here. I leave it to you to come up with an alternative that works, given what our society - and that includes you - is willing to devote in terms of human & financial resources.

I'm more interesting in knowing if You realise that You never talk about Theism here???.

Have someone told You that???