[pron]

But why do you think productivity is any less absurd than non-productivity? And why is intelligence relevant to absurdity? Is a butterfly's life any more absurd than a human's?

Humans and humanity don't have goals. The universe is indifferent to us being around or extinct. And it is certainly not our goal to be creative, productive, efficient. We make up goals for ourselves to give subjective meaning to our lives, and that can be plenty. The hard part of anyone's life is to find the existence that gives their life meaning in their eyes. You think extending our lifespan or making society more efficient are worthy goals? So dedicate your life to those goals. But make sure that's really meaningful to you, because, frankly, the universe doesn't give a damn.

[zaroth]

Not everyone is an explorer, creator, inventor, artist, etc. Not everyone takes life as an opportunity to push some boundary further than anyone before. Pull on some thread and see where it all leads...

But I think for those of us who are, mortality seems like an awful joke, and a terrible waste. We just get started and then it's all cut short.

[marincounty]

I will never forget a lottery winner statement. She won a huge amount of money in the lotttery. She went out to dinner with her family to celebrate. The next morning her husband woke up in complete liver failure. Both were MD's and her final statement at the end of the interview was "Life is truly random." I think about that quote too often.

[nickthemagicman]

Yep but there's statistics that are pretty reliable.

[pron]

There's perfectly reliable statistics for a fair coin toss. Doesn't make it any less random.

[philwelch]

Depending on how much the husband had to drink at dinner, it might not be so random after all.

[lloeki]

> The universe

As far as we know currently, the future looks particularly grim†: on the longest time scale imaginable, the very fabric of the universe is being thinned out of existence. The absurd thing here is trying to make sense out of what definitely hasn't, as all information within this universe will ultimately be destroyed.

Whatever, I choose to enjoy the ride.

† http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future

[neuronic]

I wouldn't take this understanding of the physical universe for granted. I think we lack both insight and perspective to make sure-fire statements about things happening to the universe billions of years from now.

[eli_gottlieb]

>The universe is indifferent to us being around or extinct.

So what? I fail to understand how this supposedly renders our lives more or less meaningful.

[neuronic]

Meaning is like a whole bunch of other things very relative, so I agree with your point.

But I understand OP as well. Some other potential entity only a dozen light years away might not care much about our human art, love, war or suffering. Maybe the interest in alien life is unique to us because we are social in nature. We don't know other civilization's cultures. Maybe they know where we are but actively choose to ignore us. We can't even deal with or comprehend cultures a few hundred miles away from us. It makes no sense to try and preemptively comprehend the intent of the rest of the universe.

But for us as humans, our lives are usually maximally meaningful often to the point where it's egocentric and selfish. I am sure you can think of a few people who deserve to die rather than you. After all the selection of ostracized or hated people is very large. However, in the grand scheme of things you can only claim to look at local optima and we walk through history like a greedy algorithm.

Only when the full scale of events are known, when humanity's history becomes static either by ending or stagnating, we are truly able to make conclusions whether events in our time are good or bad. And even then it doesn't mean that it actually matters.

[pron]

It makes the meaning of "meaning" self-referential. Usually, when we say that something has meaning, we mean it is significant to something external to it. If the most external thing at all does not consider our existence significant, then "meaning" becomes entirely subjective: something is defined to have meaning if we convince ourselves it does. Some may think that's not much. Others think that if that's as far as we can go, then that is everything.

[eli_gottlieb]

Nothing can be infinitely recursive, every chain of reference must bottom out somewhere. So why not in us?

[pron]

I am not sure I understand what it is you're saying, but sure, for many people something is meaningful if it is significant to other people, or even themselves. Others find that less satisfying, requiring a more absolute meaning.

[sireat]

If (universe==indifferent) meaning=null;

Anecdotally speaking most people get through their day to day tasks thinking that somehow it all matters in the end.

If nothing really matters, and best you can do is be your own little streetlight(to paraphase Kubrick) you are faced with the problem on what to choose as your meaning.

Pick anything, it will do. That is scary.

[eli_gottlieb]

> If (universe==indifferent) meaning=null;

Why?

[sireat]

Because that implies man is free to make up their own meaning.

No natural law, no nothing -> pure chaos

Put it another way, indifferent universe strongly points to us being a complete accident, our qualia so cherished by us just an absurd joke.

So meaning being null means there is no ultimate answer not even 42.

[eli_gottlieb]

I still don't see why meaning is null in the case that the universe isn't a conscious agent. Meanings are aspects of us, not of the Universal Consciousness or whatever.

[nosuchthing]

You seem anthropomorphize "The Universe", as some God-human like creature?

Structure (and the immense variety), life, mutations, and the known universe that exist rather than infinite disorder and an entropic void seems more than just "indifferent".

[mynameisvlad]

I don't see the OP trying to anthromorphize it at all. It's merely looking at the universe as it is. If you or I, or hell, even the entire human race, suddenly ceased to exist, it wouldn't be felt even outside our planet. Mars' orbit wouldn't change, a nearby star wouldn't suddenly go supernova, etc. We are such an incredibly small part of the universe that we don't really affect anything outside our planet.