BerryPick6 comments on Rationality Quotes January 2013 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: katydee 02 January 2013 05:23PM

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Comment author: Alejandro1 01 January 2013 03:46:33PM 8 points [-]

The universe is not indifferent. How do I know this? I know because I am part of the universe, and I am far from indifferent.

--Scott Derrickson

Comment author: BerryPick6 01 January 2013 04:54:19PM *  8 points [-]

We are all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions. Moral choices. Some are on a grand scale. Most of these choices are on lesser points. But! We define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are in fact the sum total of our choices. Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly, human happiness does not seem to have been included, in the design of creation. It is only we, with our capacity to love, that give meaning to the indifferent universe. And yet, most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying, and even to find joy from simple things like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more.

-- Closing lines of Crimes and Misdemeanors, script by Woody Allen.

Comment author: Alejandro1 01 January 2013 09:59:23PM 0 points [-]

I agree with the sentiment expressed in this quote, and I don't see it as opposed to the one expressed i mine, but judging from the pattern of up votes and downvotes, people do not agree.

I guess the quote I posted is ambiguous. You could read it as a kind of bad theistic argument ("since there is meaning in my life, there must be Ultimate Meaning in the universe"). Or you could read it as an anti-nihilistic quote ("even if there is no Ultimate Meaning, the fact that there is meaning in my life is enough to make it false that the universe is meaningless"). I was assuming the second reading, but I guess either the people who voted either assumed the first one. Or perhaps they saw the second one and just judged it a poor way of stating this idea.

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