Comments on: The Happiness Hypothesis https://theamericanmercury.org/2011/05/the-happiness-hypothesis/ Founded by H.L. Mencken in 1924 Sun, 15 Sep 2013 03:44:37 +0000 hourly 1 By: jp https://theamericanmercury.org/2011/05/the-happiness-hypothesis/comment-page-1/#comment-2236 Sun, 15 Sep 2013 03:44:37 +0000 https://theamericanmercury.org/?p=1197#comment-2236 jbspry

So your “view,” I take it, is process-philosophy-infused existentialism?

]]> By: jbspry https://theamericanmercury.org/2011/05/the-happiness-hypothesis/comment-page-1/#comment-2174 Sun, 16 Sep 2012 16:51:35 +0000 https://theamericanmercury.org/?p=1197#comment-2174 “The meaning of Life.”
This four word phrase is loaded with unproven assumptions, two being that there is in actual fact a meaning that has so far eluded us and that Life with a capital “L” is a unitary identifiable “thing” whose single all-encompassing meaning can, theoretically at least, be discovered.
Beginning with the second: Life is not a singularity, an all-pervasive force or ens that impresses itself upon objects which are then said to possess or contain life; it is a process that plays itself out in organisms which are then said to “be living”.
Secondly, to posit a meaning to anything is to implicitly ascribe to it an intent; a thing “means” what it was “meant” beforehand by a conscious will. This is why the religious argue that to deny God is to render life meaningless: His will is the source of meaning (in their view).
So.
My view is that “the meaning of Life” is essentially established,or more accurately enacted, by the individual organism experiencing life; the experience of being alive is the meaning of THAT particular life, and so every life has and is its own meaning.

]]>