Jef's web files - "Meaning of life"

"Meaning of life"

Sun, 18 Dec 2005 11:07:40 -0500

The short answer is that there is no "meaning of life" in the bigger picture.

The more pragmatic answer is that only those organisms which survive and grow can exist to ask the question, therefore it always reduces to promotion of subjective values as effectively as possible.

Although pleasure, love and grace are ephemeral, trust them and follow them, for they contain the meaning of life.

Tue, 20 Sep 2005 15:13:16 -0400

"Pleasure, love and grace are not man's to control. They come from identifying with life, and rejoicing in its splendor, vitality, and beauty. Although pleasure, love and grace are ephemeral, trust them and follow them, for they contain the meaning of life." – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process - an integral function of the universe."

Tue, 20 Jan 2004 18:56:55 -0500

I live on Earth at present, and I don't know what I am, I know I am not a category. I am not a thing - a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process - an integral function of the universe.
- Buckminster Fuller

"You didn't come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean."

Tue, 06 Apr 2004 10:56:25 -0400

You didn't come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here.
- Alan Watts

"a passionate need for external authority and guidance, pretending not to trust their own judgment."

Tue, 16 Dec 2003 14:06:55 -0500

Many people never grow up. They stay all their lives with a passionate need for external authority and guidance, pretending not to trust their own judgment.
- Alan Watts

The Futile Pursuit of Happiness

Mon, 08 Sep 2003 10:39:48 -0400

If Daniel Gilbert is right, then you are wrong. That is to say, if Daniel Gilbert is right, then you are wrong to believe that a new car will make you as happy as you imagine. You are wrong to believe that a new kitchen will make you happy for as long as you imagine. You are wrong to think that you will be more unhappy with a big single setback (a broken wrist, a broken heart) than with a lesser chronic one (a trick knee, a tense marriage). You are wrong to assume that job failure will be crushing. You are wrong to expect that a death in the family will leave you bereft for year upon year, forever and ever. You are even wrong to reckon that a cheeseburger you order in a restaurant -- this week, next week, a year from now, it doesn't really matter when -- will definitely hit the spot. That's because when it comes to predicting exactly how you will feel in the future, you are most likely wrong.

We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.

Fri, 27 Jun 2003 20:26:33 -0400

We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.
- Anais Nin

Freedom Evolves

Sun, 18 Apr 2004 18:40:53 -0400

Freedom Evolves
By Daniel Dennett
Copyright 2003

The Blank Slate

Fri, 09 Apr 2004 15:25:55 -0400

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
Copyright 2002

By Steven Pinker

Solaris

Thu, 29 May 2003 22:36:12 -0400

I saw Solaris last weekend and enjoyed the movie. It affected me both emotionally and intellectually. Although dumbed down for popular consumption, it did touch upon many of the issues of identity, consciousness and the limits of science as intended by Stanislaw Lem in his 1961 novel later made into a 1972 movie and this 2002 remake.

The good life...

Sun, 24 Nov 2002 12:02:33 -0500

The Good Life is one inspired by Love and guided by Knowledge
- Bertrand Russell

Kiln People

Sun, 30 May 2004 14:40:25 -0400

...to thine own self be true...

Thu, 25 Dec 2003 13:59:04 -0500

This above all: to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day; Thou canst not then be false to any man.
- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), 'Hamlet,' Act I, Scene iii

"...Existence is simply illusion." - Mister Rogers

Tue, 06 Apr 2004 10:58:54 -0400

Propel, propel, propel your craft softly down liquid solution. Ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically, Existence is simply illusion.
- Mister Rogers

There are living systems; there is no "living matter".

Sun, 01 Aug 2004 13:07:45 -0400

There are living systems; there is no "living matter".
- Jacques Lucien Monod