Experiencing Self vs. Narrating Self (2017)

mihankes10.blogspot.com

11 points·visopsys··4 comments

Link gives me a 404.

https://web.archive.org/web/20190114063123/https://mihankes1...

This link works.

"Medieval crusaders believed that God and heaven provided their lives with meaning. Modern liberals believe that individual free choices provide life with meaning. They are all equally delusional."

This essay seems to be mostly posited to critique the belief in individual narrative- i.e. the idea that we are free individuals who have the will to choose rationally, as the idea of liberalism is based in.

While I'm down for that argument, the above passage is of particular confusion for me. If no external, nor internal force provides meaning to life, what is there? If the passage was to claim there is no meaning at all, why not just say that clearly?

Not the author, but I think there's a difference between claiming there is no meaning and claiming that the different narratives of meaning are an illusion. Saying it as the author did shows that there is a process happening but maybe the "meaning" we come up with isn't the useful piece. Simply saying "there's no meaning" can either end the discussion or take you in a thousand different philosophical directions. Taoism's 10,000 things could be rephrased as 10,000 narratives of meaning.

Maybe the value/meaning of our cognition lies in this process, but not in the narratives we associate with it.

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