Life after death - Is Life ultimately absurd?

[DavidSchuy]

I am a huge admirer of the existentialist philosophy of Albert Camus and Sartre.
Does life have an intrinsic and inherent meaning or is the existence and life ultimately absurd?
The absurdity of life according to Camus comes from the fact that humans seek and cry for meaning and purpose and the fact that the universe is absolutely pointless and meaningless.
But can idealism give an answer to the question of whether the universe has meaning and purpose?

What does idealism answer to Sartre's "Existence precedes essence."

Can one reconsile absurdism and existentialism with idealism?

[DavidSchuy]

Edit: *reconcile

[AshvinP]

Can one reconcile absurdism and existentialism with idealism?

Many existential philosophers were arguably idealists, such as Kierkegaard, {maybe) Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Jaspers, W. James, H. Arendt, Colin Wilson, Paul Tillich.

There is nothing incompatible between the two. Objective idealism does not necessarily conclude there is transcendent meaning in life or in the world, but I believe it comes very close to that conclusion. And obviously there have been a whole lot of religious idealists who would agree.

[DavidSchuy]

"Many existential philosophers were arguably idealists, such as Kierkegaard, {maybe) Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Jaspers, W. James, H. Arendt, Colin Wilson, Paul Tillich."

Do or did these existential philosophers really entertain objective/subjective idealism, meaning that all is consciousness?

"There is nothing incompatible between the two. Objective idealism does not necessarily conclude there is transcendent meaning in life or in the world, but I believe it comes very close to that conclusion. And obviously there have been a whole lot of religious idealists who would agree."

I sometimes think or rather hope that there is a reason or better saying meaning and purpose for our existence. But I often doubt it. Can you help me in this regard? Is there a meaning; what do you personally think? I am very interested.

Or can you perhaps not deal with the absurdity of life and existence? I mean, as you've said. Idealism does not necessarily imply that there is meaning and purpose.

Maybe the consciousness is all there is and ever was and ever will be... Only that it appears physical with absolute absurdity.

[AshvinP]

"Many existential philosophers were arguably idealists, such as Kierkegaard, {maybe) Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Jaspers, W. James, H. Arendt, Colin Wilson, Paul Tillich."

Do or did these existential philosophers really entertain objective/subjective idealism, meaning that all is consciousness?

Yes, most of them did to my knowledge. Some of them less explicitly than others. I would also add some depth psychologists to that list, such as Carl Rogers, Jean Piaget and Carl Jung. From what I can tell based on his writings, Jung was an objective idealist. His writings also speak the best to the question of meaning in the world which every individual can access, since he was a clinical psychologist.

"There is nothing incompatible between the two. Objective idealism does not necessarily conclude there is transcendent meaning in life or in the world, but I believe it comes very close to that conclusion. And obviously there have been a whole lot of religious idealists who would agree."

I sometimes think or rather hope that there is a reason or better saying meaning and purpose for our existence. But I often doubt it. Can you help me in this regard? Is there a meaning; what do you personally think? I am very interested.

Or can you perhaps not deal with the absurdity of life and existence? I mean, as you've said. Idealism does not necessarily imply that there is meaning and purpose.

Maybe the consciousness is all there is and ever was and ever will be... Only that it appears physical with absolute absurdity.

I personally believe that there is ultimate meaning and purpose. The best source I can recommend is the Bible. When the Biblical stories are viewed through the lens of objective idealism, it becomes inescapable that there is a telos to all of this, i.e. ultimate meaning and purpose. And the best source I have found for an 'idealist' view of the Biblical stories is Jordan Peterson (a 'psychological' interpretation of the stories is, in essence, an idealist interpretation). You can find all of his lectures on the Biblical stories on YouTube. Countless people have testified to how their faith in a meaningful Universe was restored after listening to these lectures. I am embedding the one I think will be most helpful, but I recommend you check them all out when you can.

[David_Sundaram]

I sometimes think or rather hope that there is a reason or better saying meaning and purpose for our existence. But I often doubt it. Can you help me in this regard? Is there a meaning; what do you personally think? I am very interested.

Or can you perhaps not deal with the absurdity of life and existence? I mean, as you've said. Idealism does not necessarily imply that there is meaning and purpose.

Maybe the consciousness is all there is and ever was and ever will be... Only that it appears physical with absolute absurdity.

The 'problem' with the "consciousness is all there is and ever was and ever will be" theory is that 'consciousness' (i.e. 'perception', 'awareness', etc) just references an 'eye' - it completely avoids, neglects, eclipses the issue, or question, of whether there is a 'soul' (an essenceial 'nature', motive, purpose etc.) which 'gives rise' to it, which 'it' (i.e. 'consciousness') is a function.functionary of.

'Consciousness' is just as much of a dead-end in terms of giving Life or Being or Existence as 'Matter-Energy' (materialism) meaning unless one identifies (postulates? groks? 'senses'>) what the 'nature' or 'dynamism' of soul (hence what the cause, i.e. purpose, of Life) actually (really) is.

All purely intellectual 'existentialists' end up being unable to get out of the 'paper bag' of 'absurdity' because they are 'minds' running around 'cut of' from their 'hearts' - 'heart' being a symbol for the 'seat' of the 'soul' - the 'cut off' idea deriving from the "chicken running around with their 'heads' cut off" (https://theconversation.com/curious-kid ... off-103701) phenomenon.

[SanteriSatama]

Does life have an intrinsic and inherent meaning or is the existence and life ultimately absurd?

Best answer I've been given is that each experience is unique as such, and all unique has inherent value.

[Simon Adams]

I’m with Ashwin that the answer to this is teleos. We look at each of the parts of our body and its obvious that each was made for something. But the mechanistic reasoning suddenly changes tack when it comes to the whole...

[Matthew Brett]

I would like to point out Camus' essay, The Myth of Sisyphus. In it, he takes a very bleak view of life. According to Camus, reason demands meaning in life, but without abandoning reason in favor of fantasy (such as imagining there to be some God who endows the whole with meaning, which he considers an unreasonable leap) no ultimate meaning is to be found. But he argues that the appropriate response to the apparent absurdity of life is not to voluntarily end it in suicide, but to revolt against the absurdity of it, to push back upon absurdity continually--even as he insists that this is in an effort that ends inevitably in death, which is the final, inarguable statement of the absurd.

But say that one's life is not one's own. Say that one's life is part of a stream, or that some elements of personality and memory indeed survive bodily death. Then is the whole project of life really absurd, or does it merely seem so, given a deluded, atomized view of it? For, if life is for the pushing back against the absurd to create meaning, then if it continues indefinitely, doesn't it have unlimited potential for meaning?

[AshvinP]

I would like to point out Camus' essay, The Myth of Sisyphus. In it, he takes a very bleak view of life. According to Camus, reason demands meaning in life, but without abandoning reason in favor of fantasy (such as imagining there to be some God who endows the whole with meaning, which he considers an unreasonable leap) no ultimate meaning is to be found. But he argues that the appropriate response to the apparent absurdity of life is not to voluntarily end it in suicide, but to revolt against the absurdity of it, to push back upon absurdity continually--even as he insists that this is in an effort that ends inevitably in death, which is the final, inarguable statement of the absurd.

But say that one's life is not one's own. Say that one's life is part of a stream, or that some elements of personality and memory indeed survive bodily death. Then is the whole project of life really absurd, or does it merely seem so, given a deluded, atomized view of it? For, if life is for the pushing back against the absurd to create meaning, then if it continues indefinitely, doesn't it have unlimited potential for meaning?

Great point. A lot of these 'neo-Freudian' thinkers adopted his rationalism and therefore could not break through those axioms. You just broke through them with the help of an idealist conclusion, i.e. the personality (or some form of it) can survive death. That is one path to post-rationalist philosophy which rediscovers the telos of life.