Reading Overcoming Bias has messed with my head to such a degree that I can’t even understand anymore what people mean when they ask about the meaning of life. I can’t imagine the feeling that would give rise to such a question. Worrying?
I think it’s pretty straightforward: when you turn up at a workplace, or at school, you can ask what the plan is and what your part in it is. People would like to feel that there could be a top-level answer to this class of question that would put all of life in the context of an overall plan of some sort. Of course, there is no such plan. This is to my mind the central revelation of atheism and the one that most makes me evangelistic about it.
On the contrary, there is such a plan, it’s just not assigned to you externally by a light in the sky. Technically understanding the meaning of life, that is what specifically “winning” is about, your own values or goals, is one of the central questions, along with developing skills for carrying that plan out.
Reading Overcoming Bias has messed with my head to such a degree that I can’t even understand anymore what people mean when they ask about the meaning of life. I can’t imagine the feeling that would give rise to such a question. Worrying?
I think it’s pretty straightforward: when you turn up at a workplace, or at school, you can ask what the plan is and what your part in it is. People would like to feel that there could be a top-level answer to this class of question that would put all of life in the context of an overall plan of some sort. Of course, there is no such plan. This is to my mind the central revelation of atheism and the one that most makes me evangelistic about it.
On the contrary, there is such a plan, it’s just not assigned to you externally by a light in the sky. Technically understanding the meaning of life, that is what specifically “winning” is about, your own values or goals, is one of the central questions, along with developing skills for carrying that plan out.