I don't suggest that my purpose in life is greater because I believe in it. But since I experience the feeling that there is a higher purpose then I could potentially find arguments for that purpose which those that doesn't experience that purpose can't find. I do think that all things we feel stem from something, I don't think they are based on nothing at all. There is a possibility that the feeling is only based on faith and hope, which aren't really a basis for evidence in any scientific sense, but then again there might be something logical in that feeling which is self-evidenced somehow.
I think people who have purpose that is local rather than metaphysical feel the same as people who believe their purpose comes from agency. That's my guess, anyway. People seem similarly driven whether they claim it comes from God or just some vague sense of belonging. If there's any difference, it's maybe that the people who feel local purpose actually need to find their calling before such a feeling sets in, whereas perhaps people such as yourself just feel this purpose in general.
Of course, the things we feel
do stem from something. Why it isn't enough that it stems from our brains like anything else, I don't know.
That we are so insignificant could be a indication that there is something totally beyond our understanding,
Of course, but that isn't suggestive of agency or the like. It suggests the opposite, in fact.
to have a purpose in the grand scheme of things doesn't necessarily make us as significant as that scheme. But we could still hold a share of that meaning.
If we had any significance, we wouldn't be insignificant.
I do believe though that subjectivity depends on meaningfulness (even if there is no higher meaning, subjectivity seem to give meaning to anything it encounters), and while it is true that our bodies exist without our subjectivity, it is also true that our personal sense of existence depends on our subjectivity. Perhaps that's a clue to a higher purpose for us.
I don't see how. That is to say, I don't see what about subjectivity equates to or hints at purpose or agency. It seems a non-sequitur to me. The claim is essentially "I think, therefore I matter," and I don't really buy it.
Of course the nihilist even while experiences no point in existence as a whole still experience temporary points in existence like everyone else
Could you be a bit more clear? What does this mean, "experiences no point in existence as a whole?"
I do believe that believing in a higher purpose can help a person with suicidal thoughts, and also help them through tough situations in life. I don't have any statistics to support it though.
I'm sure it does, but by the same means that having a
local purpose can help a person avoid suicide and get them through tough situations in life. Think of the distraught parent who can't take it anymore, and decides to carry on for their children. I don't buy that people need God, or some spiritual stand-in, to have meaning or happiness in their lives. I'm happy, and my life has meaning, yet I have neither God nor mysticism, so I'm living evidence of the fallacy of such a proposition. It's difficult to take people seriously when they're claiming that I don't exist, you know?
First of all I don't think "purpose" is a silly concept.
On the cosmic scale, it certainly is. We live in a universe that is unaware of and ambivalent to our existence. Claiming that we matter is patently absurd.
Many things have purpose within life and those aren't silly, actually things with purpose are what is not silly.
I didn't say the things themselves were silly. I said the concept of purpose--again, on the grandest scale--is silly.
The same holds true with cochroaches and other simple organisms, whatever they do have a purpose within their life, even though the things they do aren't indications of a higher purpose. So purpose isn't a foreign concept or a "fantasy" concept that you indicate it to be. A higher purpose is simply a purpose that aren't contained by our limited lives and through which our existence can't be limited to that life for that purpose to hold true (we need to exist forever in some way for us to have a true purpose like the one indicated by the OP).
But there's nothing to suggest a higher purpose exists, so it absolutely is a silly concept. It's not absurd to say that your purpose is to help people because helping people makes the world a better place. That's a true statement. Saying you have a higher purpose that extends beyond your limited life is absurd because there is nothing beyond our limited lives that can served, and no "higher" place for such purpose to come from. It's like saying you feed unicorns.
Even science needs to explore what it doesn't know, it is through that exploration that new knowledge can be achieved. You base your arguments that there is no meaning on the fact that there isn't any observations of it (that can be evidenced anyway). I'm just saying that this doesn't negate that there could be meaning anyway.
And that's fair, but that's not
all you're saying. You're also saying that there is
is meaning. You're making a positive claim, just like I am.
I know that you aren't making claims of absolute knowledge, that it is just what you believe. But introducing Occam's Razor to convince yourself that there is no meaning isn't a more truthful pursuit than believing that there is a purpose to life.
I never introduced Occam's Razor. I think you're confusing me with someone else. That said, it has a place in this discussion.
Occam's Razor has a application in scientific models to rule out unnecessary complexity, but doesn't say anything about the existence or non-existence of a purpose to life. There are too many unknowns for Occam's Razor to even begin working, it would shave away our subjectivity as well cause that's how little we know about it, could science measure the body and deduce that it has a subjective side to it without any prior knowledge about it? I don't think so, at least not today. If a purely objective scientific theory was made that a human body would have a subjective side to it then Occam'z Razor would just shave it away because it has unnecessary components.
Not knowing all the variables doesn't mean it's too early for the Razor. And remember, the evidence for or against agency isn't just found in physics, but also in scholarly study of holy texts. The fact that all of the gods we know are false suggests that the concept of godhood itself may be false, sort of like how superheroes don't really exist. (Superheroes and gods probably came from the same desire to idealize human beings, in fact) So this isn't exactly as open a question as you're portraying it to be. Or at least, that's how I see it.
I don't understand what you're trying to say with this subjectivity business. All it takes is a conversation between two people to know that we have subjectivity. Do you mean something else?
Perhaps purpose to life is as "necessary" as the subjective side of us?
Perhaps. But I see no reason to assume that it is.
