Re: For what to live?
Oh boy, I get to post more Zhuangzi! That's awesome, because I loves me some Zhuangzi. This quote is a lot like the Hume quote Dark posted, or so I take it, and also tackles life and death a bit.
""How do I know that loving life is not a delusion? How do I know that in hating death I am not like a man who, having left home in his youth, has forgotten the way back?
"Lady Li was the daughter of the border guard of Ai.21 When she was first taken captive and brought to the state of Chin, she wept until her tears drenched the collar of her robe. But later, when she went to live in the palace of the ruler, shared his couch with him, and ate the delicious meats of his table, she wondered why she had ever wept. How do I know that the dead do not wonder why they ever longed for life?
"He who dreams of drinking wine may weep when morning comes; he who dreams of weeping may in the morning go off to hunt. While he is dreaming he does not know it is a dream, and in his dream he may even try to interpret a dream. Only after he wakes does he know it was a dream. And someday there will be a great awakening when we know that this is all a great dream. Yet the stupid believe they are awake, busily and brightly assuming they understand things, calling this man ruler, that one herdsman ‑ how dense! Confucius and you are both dreaming! And when I say you are dreaming, I am dreaming, too. Words like these will be labeled the Supreme Swindle. Yet, after ten thousand generations, a great sage may appear who will know their meaning, and it will still be as though he appeared with astonishing speed."
Zhuangzi, Ch. 2, Tr. Burton Watson
What you have to understand here to really get this is that Zhuangzi was, in part, reacting against Confucianism, which basically says that in order to be a real human being, you have to be carved into shape by Confucian education. So when he says people say this one's a herdsman, that one's a ruler, how dense, I think what he's reacting to is what we might call acting. In other words, just like an actor plays Hamlet, you're given this role by society, and you, or other people, go "OK, I'm a herdsman, yay"! But Zhuangzi is interested in things being what they naturally, spontaneously are, rather than what society tells them to be. I think he's also attacking what today we'd see as an obsession with work, i.e. those people who put all of their identity into their work.
Oh yeah, and Wing Of Eternity, I'm honestly not trying to be a jerk here, but your parable makes no damn sense. Like, what are these cave levels? Stages of human lives? Reincarnation? I have no idea. I also don't know what point you were trying to make with it because it's a muddle. But let's try this on for size.
You keep insisting that life and the universe have no meaning. Yeah, so what? I mean, I don't necessarily believe that, but let's say it's true, they have no inherent meaning, that is, no meaning in themselves. We're humans and we make meaning. That's what we do. We tell stories. We make symbols, either new ones or we make other things symbolic. Your argument about meaning is a form of essentialism, that is if a thing doesn't have an essence in and of itself, in this case the essence is meaning, it doesn't exist. That doesn't make any sense to me, and I'll illustrate with a famous Buddhist parable this time.
https://www.learnreligions.com/king-mil … ons-450052
Buddhism is telling us here that yep, a thing's only a chariot, or a car if you want to be modern, only for so long as the parts that make it up are in the right relationship to each other. Buddhism wants to take this places about the self which I disagree with, but that doesn't really matter here. The point is, yes, there's no chariot/car essence. It's a chariot/car because we say so, but I'd also add to the Buddhists, because it performs certain functions. We don't just put a thing together and call it a car, a car can haul furniture or get us from place to place or you can make a baby in the back seat or ...
We put stuff together and call it a car for a reason, in other words. Sure, universally speaking, who cares? If the sun goes nova tomorrow and wipes out our planet, no more cars, and the rest of the universe will keep on keepin' on, it won't make any difference to it that cars no longer exist. But again, so what? My human perspective is a car is meaningful because it brings me pizza and takes me places so I can buy cool instruments. Why should the universe's perspective, assuming there is such a thing, be better than mine?
Once again you're trying to tell a fish where to live. You think you know better than the fish because you think you know what the universe knows, there's no ultimate meaning. Indeed you rightly ask why the serpent, I assume that's me, thinks it's better than the fish. I don't, and that's my point, and Zhuangzi's point. You're saying, tell me why we live, what purpose, and then you're going "oh but you can't say this that and the other". Why? Why are you telling people what reasons they have or don't have to live? That's not your business, it's their business. Maybe you don't find those things enough of a reason, but just as a man shouldn't tell a fish to sleep in a dry place because that's where he likes to sleep, why should you have power over what others consider good reasons or bad reasons? You're certainly not making any kind of argument for it, you're just announcing things. You're also assuming your nihilism, nothing has any meaning, is true, another thing you've made no argument for. If you're interested in philosophy, please, go read some.
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