“The meaning of life is in the living of it.” does have that hokey aphorism feel to it. But the real thought is that it is up to you to give your life meaning. Nature, personified or not, isn’t going to do it for you. That is your job. There is no “meaning of life” in the broad sense. There is no one meaning for all life. Each life has (creates) its own meaning.

You seem to be falling into the “it won’t matter in 100 years” trap. The fact “it won’t matter later” doesn’t matter now. What you eat today doesn’t matter next week, does that mean that you shouldn’t eat? That decision has consequences that DO matter beyond next week. All of your actions have the potential to affect the world far beyond your own private sphere. That affect may matter 100 years from now, but you can never know it.
–
JimFive

Sure you might as well have fun while you are here, but that is hardly a purpose. If life has any meaning at all I would say it is the perpetuation of your species.

“The meaning of life is in the living of it.”

I’ve always felt this was a bunch of hokey BS people tell themselves to not face the truth of life. But that is just an ‘irreconcilable differences’ of opinion
as jhereg said.

My larger point was that nature doesn’t care either way. Some random climate change or asteroid is going to come along sooner or later and wipe us out.

and

I view nature as the physical world around me that I live in and the laws that govern it. My point is that it dosen’t matter to ‘nature’ whether we hunt and gather or build rockets to the moon. As far as nature is ‘concerned’ we are just another speices to be done away with after the next random climate fluctuation.

Look, you either need to personify nature, or not personify nature, not both.

If nature CAN care then it makes sense to say that it does or doesn’t care. But if nature CANNOT care then it doesn’t make sense to be concerned over the lack of caring of nature. Does the fact that your car doesn’t care what happens to you bother you?

When you say that “we are just another species to be done away with” you are giving nature will and action, therefore you are personifying nature. If your personified nature doesn’t care you might want to look at why.

In either case, it certainly DOES matter to nature what we do, in the sense that what we do affects nature. When the megafauna went extinct that certainly had a drastic effect on nature. Did nature care? Well, if you’re asking that question the implication is that nature CAN care (nature is being personified) so it looks to me like nature DID care. We all care about drastic changes in our condition and a personified nature is no different (in that sense) than a personified person.

If your species is going to be wiped out by forces completly beyond its control that does make life ultimatly meaningless,

Ummm..No. No, It doesn’t. The meaning of life is in the living of it.
–
JimFive

jhereg said, “i don’t understand why a world of deep, meaningful relationships requires either “Absolute Good (TM)” or “Absolute Evil (TM)”. in fact, it actually stikes me that the reverse is true: “Absolute Good (TM)” and “Absolute Evil (TM)” walk hand in hand with a life that is “utterly pointless and mechanistic” and lead to “a whole imperonal, unthinking, uncaring world”.”

This could equally apply to meaning itself. A world of Deep, Meaningful Relationships doesn’t require Absolute Meaning in order to not be Absolutely Meaningless.

I view nature as the physical world around me that I live in and the laws that govern it. My point is that it dosen’t matter to ‘nature’ whether we hunt and gather or build rockets to the moon. As far as nature is ‘concerned’ we are just another speices to be done away with after the next random climate fluctuation. Just as we came down out of the trees when the climate changed in the first place.

Yes. If your species is going to be wiped out by forces completly beyond its control that does make life ultimatly meaningless, mindless replication of genes. Maybe that is sad and pessimestic or maybe it is the reason that we are the only animal that thinks about it.

My larger point was that nature doesn’t care either way. Some random climate change or asteroid is going to come along sooner or later and wipe us out. Our ideas don’t lead to a ‘a whole imperonal, unthinking, uncaring world’ as you say. they world is a imperonal, unthinking, uncaring. It didn’t care about

this is the part where you’re losing me (that, or we’re looking at a fundamental difference of perspective).

i guess, i’m wondering how you view “nature”. to me, both nature & the world aren’t just places or even just things, but also interactions & relationships. how can we say that the world didn’t care about the megafauna or dinosaurs? surely, both their lives and their extinctions had wide-ranging impacts on the world?

is the world simply a place to be? or is it something to be a part of? and if we’re a part of it, why should we think that the world doesn’t care? don’t we care? don’t you care? and if animals & plants are people too….?

i don’t know, this is probably one of those “irreconcilable differences of opinion”.

The idea that nature is an impersonal, unthinking, uncaring world it seems to me is a post-Cartesian product of civilized thinking, not something found amongst animist cultures. Gary Snyder points out that amongst some indigenous peoples, the world is compared to the edge of a knife, so they know how dangerous and perilous it can be, and the care that must be taken.

To me this seems like a theological question that’s being blunted in terms of Western science. “How can there be a God if God allows extinctions to take place?”, with the proposed solution to this theodicy is simply Atheism : “God doesn’t exist”, with Gaia substituted for God in this particular case. (Since this is a more animist/pagan than monotheist question.)

My larger point was that nature doesn’t care either way. Some random climate change or asteroid is going to come along sooner or later and wipe us out. Our ideas don’t lead to a ‘a whole imperonal, unthinking, uncaring world’ as you say. they world is a imperonal, unthinking, uncaring. It didn’t care about the megafauna, it didn’t care about the dinosuars, and it doesn’t care about us.