An Answer to Every Question?

[LyricalReckoner]

People have been trying to figure it out since they could form the question: the reason for existence; the explanation; the answer to why?

Some have tried to prove <i>their</i> answer to it all. There is obvious proof that God exists, there's just one god, and life has purpose, as <i>they</i> say. But it always turns out to be based on nothing more substantial than belief, faith in the unknown.

Topic for Discussion: Does every question have an answer?

[ST88]

It is possible to construct a question so as to be unanswerable, there is such a thing as a nonsensical question:

What if this question weren't hypothetical?

A good discussion of how children (and some adults) comeup with answers to these questions can be found here: Is a jumper angrier than a tree?

Another type of unanswerable question is the missing data question:
How many hairs were on Caesar's beard when he was assassinated?
There is no way we will ever know the answer to this question -- barring time shifting technology -- and yet there is a number that represents an answer to this question. It will never be known, but it is a number.

Then there is the muddled data question:
How many home runs that Mark McGwire hit were attributable to steroids?
Or, put another way, How many home runs would he have hit if he hadn't taken steroids?
Surely, there is a number to this question -- an integer with which we would all be familiar. But there is no way to arrive at a reasonable answer to this question because there are too may variables to consider.

For me, the question of the meaning of life falls into the category of nonsensical questions. To ask what the meaning of life is means that there is a preconception that life has meaning at all. If you feel life has to have meaning, then I would call that a pyschological issue, and not a philosophical one.

[BeHereNow]

ST88: For me, the question of the meaning of life falls into the category of nonsensical questions. To ask what the meaning of life is means that there is a preconception that life has meaning at all. If you feel life has to have meaning, then I would call that a psychological issue, and not a philosophical one.

Philosophy should be asking if life has meaning. That is certainly within its jurisdiction.
It is the nature of philosophy that some will say yes, and some will say no.
Some will say meaning is required.
This is all valid inquiry for philosophy.

I agree with you that no meaning is needed.
Being is the reason for Being.
Life is the only meaning of life.

[ST88]

ST88: For me, the question of the meaning of life falls into the category of nonsensical questions. To ask what the meaning of life is means that there is a preconception that life has meaning at all. If you feel life has to have meaning, then I would call that a psychological issue, and not a philosophical one.

Philosophy should be asking if life has meaning. That is certainly within its jurisdiction.
It is the nature of philosophy that some will say yes, and some will say no.
Some will say meaning is required.
This is all valid inquiry for philosophy.

I agree with you that no meaning is needed.
Being is the reason for Being.
Life is the only meaning of life.

The philosophical question of whether life has any meaning at all is tainted by the preconception of meaning. But I don't mean to say that whether or not life has meaning is not a philosophical issue, I mean to say that the idea that life must have meaning is a psychological idea.

[BeHereNow]

But I don't mean to say that whether or not life has meaning is not a philosophical issue, I mean to say that the idea that life must have meaning is a psychological idea.

I suspected as much.
With this discussion of the so called “god-gene” the question (must life have meaning?) is entering the realm of the biological. Would you agree?

[Dilettante]

ST88 wrote:

Another type of unanswerable question is the missing data question:
How many hairs were on Caesar's beard when he was assassinated?
There is no way we will ever know the answer to this question -- barring time shifting technology -- and yet there is a number that represents an answer to this question. It will never be known, but it is a number.

Actually, that reminds me of an argument for the existence of God proposed (in jest) by Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentinian short-story writer.
He said something like: imagine a flock of birds which suddenly and quickly cross your line of vision. You didn't have to time to count the birds, but it is obvious that the number of birds was countable and possible to determine by an observer. Such an observer can only be God, therefore God exists. He called it the "argumentum ornithologicum" in reference to Anselm's "argumentum ontologicum". Of course he never meant to be taken seriously.

[ST88]

But I don't mean to say that whether or not life has meaning is not a philosophical issue, I mean to say that the idea that life must have meaning is a psychological idea.

I suspected as much.
With this discussion of the so called “god-gene” the question (must life have meaning?) is entering the realm of the biological. Would you agree?

My understanding is that the god gene is supposed to make people pre-disposed to believe in something higher than themselves. Whether or not this implies meaning is ensconced in the individual. In my opinion, this biological imperative evolved to the point where individual societies (tribes, whatever) were able to rally around a cause greater than any one individual -- a range of supernatural beliefs, including deities. Now, this primal feeling is expressed through the higher brain functions in a different way. For some, the feeling is a longing for meaning. For others it is a way to feel small when looking at the night sky. Awe and wonder and all that. But the longing for meaning is not in and of itself a biological imperative. It is merely the result of a cultural imprint on the minds of the believers, the filter through which the quasi-reptilian brain expresses its willingness to believe in the supernatural.