What is the meaning of life?

[Penelope]

VMLM:

Well come on it does represent almost half my life span xD. Still, I get what you mean. I get shivers every time I realize kids these days don't know what thundercats are. Or that Blue's Clues is over a decade old.

My children watched Thundercats, but I never heard of Blue's Clues. I'm not referring to my age anymore 'cos it's boring.

I'm not sure that knowing how astro physics, or quantum physics works, gives us the answer to the meaning of life. Your recommendation of 'The Social Animal' sounds much more like my scene and I hope I can get hold of a copy soon, whether we read it on BT or not.

I have taken to reading 'science for the layman' books in recent years, which help to explain how we're here, but I'm much more interested in 'Why'. Even if the why is one of life's intangibles.....I like to speculate. I'm happiest when I'm pondering the mysteries.

[DWill]

I'm glad you found the Emerson essay worthwhile, and if you have any favorites of your own, please share.

Actually, now that you mention it, there are a couple of books that I love that have to do with the meaning of life.

"The Social Animal" by David Brooks. It's great because it presents a lot of current research in different fields through an example. He creates two fictional characters and uses them to explore consciousness, love, choice, intelligence, morality, etc. as they are understood today by relevant scientific disciplines.

It's both a great story and a great way for us laymen to take a peek into current knowledge.
Here's the introduction: randomhouse.com/rhpg/PDF/Social_Animal_ ... uction.pdf

The other is "Genome" by Matt Ridley. It's an older book, from way back in the year 2000, and I read it a long time ago, but it really helped me understand a lot about the nature of life. It talks about the 23 chromosomes of the human genome one by one, giving each of them a sort of story and purpose. Once again, the book is as much a window into (not so current anymore) research, as it is an exposition of philosophical thought and also a great story.

If anyone is ever interested in reading these books, I'd be more than happy to take part in the subsequent discussion .

Thanks for the recommendations. It's exciting to hear that someone also liked a book that I did--the Social Animal. I thought at first that we had selected this book here at booktalk, but though we did discuss it, it was an informal thing. Saffron and I talked about it with maybe one or two others. That book got some quizzical reactions from reviewers, but I really admired it and can still feel the spell of its insight and touching humanity. Brooks is known in some circles as a conservative. If he really is one, he gives conservatism a good name. I'll remember the Matt Ridley book and pick it up.

[heledd]

The colour yellow doesn't exist? I thought that was black??

[Penelope]

Heledd wrote:

The colour yellow doesn't exist? I thought that was black??

Well, far be it from me to explain science to anyone. Heaven protect you Heledd!!!

But, here goes:-

Black is the absence of colour, a sort of light vacuum I suppose.

Light is very mysterious and doesn't behave in the way that scientists think it should. Hurrah!!!!!

Now the colours, yellow, blue, etc.....are only recognised because of the way they react on our retinas.

A yellow flower looks yellow to us because it absorbs all other colors except yellow.

So, we as human beings, give that phenomenon a name....and call it yellow and associate it with cowardice.

Blue with sadness, red with anger, brown with study.....etc., etc.,

This is where art and science collide btw!! And the scientists and the artists and the mystics all start arguing.....when, in fact, we are all only naming things as they appear to us...and not as they actually are.

My money is on the philosophers. My gratitude is with the comedians!!

[Penelope]

I thought this was very interesting and wondered it might deserve a thread of its own??:

The psychology of dressing for Olympic success

Is the Team GB kit the best colour to help us win more medals this summer?

According to the adage, clothes maketh the man. But can they also help decide which athletes will be taking home Olympic medals this summer? The way we dress has a surprisingly dramatic effect on how we think and behave, and research shows this is especially true when it comes to sport.


Mark Frank of Cornell University wondered whether simply wearing a dark outfit might make athletes compete in a more aggressive way. To find out, Frank searched the records of national football and hockey leagues, comparing the number of infringements made by each team. A pattern quickly emerged: the teams dressed in black engaged in especially hostile behaviour.

Concerned that this result could be due to aggressive players being attracted to teams wearing black, Frank conducted an experiment. He randomly split volunteers into two groups, and dressed one group in black and the other in white. All of the volunteers were then shown a description of various games – "dart gun duel" and "putting contest" – and asked which ones appealed to them. Those dressed in black were especially likely to choose the combative games.

The colour red is usually associated with dominance and importance. Evolutionary anthropologist Russell Hill at the University of Durham, explored whether athletes wearing red might outperform others. Hill analysed the results from Olympic boxers and wrestlers who had been randomly assigned red or blue outfits, and again the results were remarkable. Across both sports there was a clear trend – winners wear red.

Hill then turned his attention to English football clubs. Focusing on clubs that had been consistently in the top three divisions since 1947, Hill classified the dominant colours in each of the teams' usual strip, and examined the percentage of times the teams won when playing on their home ground. Once again, the power of colour emerged, with the teams playing in red winning more than their fair share of matches. Interestingly, the effect disappeared in data from away matches, when the teams would have been wearing different-coloured strips.

So will be Team GB be wearing winning colours? Stella McCartney took two years to design the national squad's outfit and minimised the use of red and black, opting for mainly white and blue instead. The outfits have drawn criticism for being unpatriotic, rather than the fact they go against research into the impact of colour on performance.

When athletes are competing at the highest level they need all the help they can get, and something as simple as wearing the right coloured outfit can make the difference between walking away empty-handed or with a medal.

Professor Richard Wiseman is a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire. Rip It Up is published by Macmillan on 5 July

[vickyartell]

I know my reply to this topic is belated, but I would still like to make a contribution.

I think some of you are failing to realise that "meaning" is a human-devised concept. It refers to "purpose" or "significance". Naturally, life is not exclusively human, it is much greater - life is not an entity. And so, it does not NEED to have a meaning at all. And if it DOES have one, it is more than likely that we, equipped with our rather "simplistic" human minds, would not ever be able to make sense of it.

However. Remember Plato's Allegory of the Cave. It is likely that all we are seeing in our daily lives is, to put it metaphorically, a shadow projected on a wall. We are but a part of something much greater. Something which, having never been exposed to it (like the chained prisoners in the Allegory), we cannot comprehend. Our incomprehension of these concepts, of these possible Greater Realities which may give life "meaning" as we understand it, does not, however, mean that the said Greater Realities do not exist.