Should we pursue meaningful goals to make ourselves happier?
Vložit
- čas přidán 8. 09. 2024
- This clip is from a recent monthly question and answer session where Dr McGilchrist answers questions submitted by members of Channel McGilchrist.
The full text of the question submitted by a Channel McGilchrist member was:
'“The meaning of life is just to be alive.” - Alan Watts. Should we be pursuing meaningful goals in order to make ourselves happier?'
To watch this Ask Iain session in full, or to submit a question for Iain to answer, join us here: channelmcgilch...
As Iain was talking about the meaning of "my wife means a lot to me", I reflected that in Polish, the language into which I was born, this "means" would actually be translated as "matters", incidentally (perhaps not!) a word in the title of Iain's book. The Polish word for "matters" ("znaczy") is just a few letters away from "znak" ("sign") and now we're at "signify". In other words, "my wife signifies a lot to me". Now of course we're in the sphere of symbolism - i.e. my wife generates life meaning for me because she is a symbol of something greater for me, greater than me - a principle, a value or something numinous, but also something mysterious and elusive. It's not that she herself is greater than me, it's that she *represents* something grander. Her "wifeness" signifies something higher, intangible, that I could orient myself to, strive for. In such striving, I open myself to a new experience, and potential to transcend myself.
Now, that's the kind of "meaning" I can get behind.
powerful philology here, great work!
A lot of what Dawkins says doesn’t seem very satisfactory to me I have to say. Love listening to Iain really gets me thinking. Great channel.
Iain your surname means servant of Christ. I’m seeing this is in it’s fullness. Your teachings have far reaching influence on how the broken will be healed.
Thank you, Dr McGuilchrist, for validating many of my deepest intuitions about the meaning of life, and expressing it in such understandable terms. 🙏🏻 So glad I found your channel.
Recommending this video to my Sangha. This found my mind where it was -- and pulled it forward. Thank you Doctor McGilchist. My grasp of the concepts of meaning and purpose is richer for hearing heard this.
Regarding Kant's Imperative: The golden rule may be more effectively applied as: Do onto others as they themselves would prefer for themselves. This would require a less lazy, more stringent, application of The Categorical Imperative. It would necessitate the depth of communal intimacy of getting to know each and every person and their particular needs before acting “on their behalf.” This version of the golden rule may be the foundation of a new paradigm of morality that ceases to treat others as the mere object of ones projections. Perhaps healthy morality begins with this intimacy?
I must say that's a cool line of thinking you suggest. It's worth adding in parallel perhaps? Afterall, "Here, my good drug addict friend, I brought you more of your favourite stuff! There you go!" Certainly it's the case of a model of what is good for someone or an animal and understanding that not projecting as you say. I enjoy optimizing the enrichment of my pet dog's life for example and observing how much her internal life flourishes as a consequence...
@@commentarytalk1446 good point . In the case of the druggie, the “rule” would always apply to self first. I’m this case I would treat myself as a friend and not befriend a druggie in the first place. Nothing in the rule state’s obligation. Giving is always a choice. So rule only applies when first choosing to give . As for the dog, too much anthropomorphism is going on . Dogs have been bred to be these non wolves . In ancient days they remained “themselves .” Today people remove their sex, chain them up, drag them around, feed them from nasty meat factory, treat them as substitute babies . Then call this love. In reality the dog is the inner child of the owner and the owner the parent . The owner nurtures the inner child (the dog) as they wish they once were, or treats them as the authoritarian parent once treated them. The ancient hunter becomes a man and the dog remains a dog .
I just relish the thoughtfulness expressed here!Relationship without freedom or creative potential is really no relationship at all.
Quite true that art, religion, & love communicate something beyond words & even knowing.
Something seems to inexplicably draw our admiration & wonder as we-an integral part of the living, ourselves beautiful, sacred, & beloved-also become the very objects of such admiration & wonder.
So kind of you sir for that awakening kind of TALK. Very difficult question and it's insites given to us. Consciously or unconsciously me doing something and is PERHAPS better than doing nothing. Ultimately life telling me or unfolding the purpose at later stages as results and good or bad both acceptable. Thanks.
Absolutely love your channel keep it up!
Thank you..
Thanks so much!!
Beautiful observations
Thank you!
If the end of becoming happier is itself a meaningful goal, then the pursuit of happiness is itself the pursuit of a meaningful goal. If the end of becoming happier is not a meaningful goal (as I am inclined to think) then to pursue meaningful goals to make ourselves happier would mean to make the pursuit of meaningful goals a mere means towards something not itself meaningful. That seems self-defeating. Surely better to pursue meaningful goals for their own sake and let happiness (whatever that is) look after itself?
Tower of Babel story may illustrate that language which was to confound man, whose in
arrogance believed he KNOWS. We must move beyond the uttered language.
I would like to see a conversation between Dr. McGilchrist and Dr. James Ogude at University of Pretoria on Ubuntu.
Wow 2:19 incredible
That is the entire purpose of life.
THINK!
In the beginning was I AM.. I exist as singularity.. ONE THOUGHT..but then the
BIG BANG of questions exploded
Who what where why AMI?
There were no answers to those questions..
So WE CREATED THE GOD that created us to explain where we came from.
The bible and Rene Descartes BOTH
referred to our creator as simply I AM..
Because that is all we really kniw
When we look at the universe or our world might we look from far enough away so closely that even quantum mechanics has no meaning.
I see now...Hegel's virtual cross pollinating pendulum is that ping pong game between hemispheres. When that ball gets stuck too long on one side or the other, the game goes awry. In the face of so many mismanaged and exploited products of positivism, we mustn't lose sight of our phenomenology.
For what purpose do we make babies is the same nonsensical question as why we were created