And just so. Without human consciousness, without the ability of homo sapiens to write its own beginning, middle and end, there would be no story. Without a story, there would be no meaning. Science, more and more, begins to recognize both its strengths and weaknesses. And as with human evolution generally, such illuminations take time, trial and error to refine. Science, after all, is a set of tools, enabling humans to manipulate and exploit their environment to best advantage. Science does not usually dabble in art or literature, but there have been some notable exceptions, some of which led to unexpected outcomes with beneficial consequences. Science does not know it all. Nor will it ever. But that too is part of the meaning of life. I think so anyway.
Neuman.

The meaning of life is living.
As for science, science is measure and measure is the flaw.
And the point of it all Ken is infinite eternal Oneness. Be one!
=

物理学家认为物质是一个奇迹。它的行为是一个令人震惊的谜题，不能被简化为平凡。一个来自时间开端的光子可以并且将会在时间的最后一刻与最后的光子相互作用。这并不是毫无意义的，没有科学把物质描绘成毫无意义的，甚至是“死亡”的。我们这样描述事物是为了方便我们对它的设计，就像我们中的一些人把低薪工人描绘成不值得的，是诈骗他们的真正价值的阴谋的一部分。但是，物质贬值的最持久和最有害的意义在于，它被传教士用作一种修辞手段，目的是让我们沮丧，使我们容易受到他们的谎言的影响。它们没有“意义”，因为没有任何单方面的价值。价值是自由，欢迎损失的行为是在回应中启用的，欢迎责任的价值被承认的损失。也就是说，值得把这种欢迎和那种欢迎区别开来。没有间隙将它们分开，但也没有任何“点”围绕着它们。 Love is eccentric. That's why "oneness" or some transcendence or divine unity cannot help us. Kierkegaard and Nieitzsche were both bent on having an effect on us. This puts them firmly in the camp of the preachers. Try Hume instead, a materialist of a much higher quality.

我发现肯·泰勒的文章，以及迄今为止的回应，都是合理的人类渴望的雄辩表达。开篇关于“科学告诉我们”的描述可能是一次尝试——一次成功的尝试!——以吸引读者的注意力，但我要指出，这实际上是一种修辞，而不是真正的科学发现或共识。
Most objects and processes that are recognized as legitimate objects of scientific study, whether surface tension, synaptic transmission, or sedimentary transitions, are emergent: they arise, and are explained scientifically, through interactions among smaller-scale or more basic components and forces. Usually those more basic phenomena are in turned understood in terms of even more basic ones. Journal articles and science textbook entries about emergent phenomena like the ones just mentioned never refer directly to quarks or string theory, though it is understood that ultimately those most basic features of the universe, or even more basic ones still to be discovered, could be described rhetorically as "all there is." The most complex phenomena and activities we know of - human minds and their products such as art and literature and yearning for meaning - are also highly emergent in this sense. Claiming that they are "nothing more than...," though, is another piece of rhetoric.
One current field that claims to be scientific and that I believe regularly does engage in the rhetoric of debunking, reducing, and eliminating is sociobiology / evolutionary psychology / human nature studies. (Its practitioners seem to need to change the name of the field every decade or so). It could be a good topic for this forum to ask whether these fields have anything more to say than the tautology that complex human behavior evolved. (A tautology because the behavior is an attribute of humans, humans are organisms, and organisms evolved; therefore the behavior evolved.)
- Steve George

据说佛陀的遗言是:一切成就都是短暂的，要坚持不懈地奋斗。在最后几句话之前，佛陀应该和他的一些助手在一个富有同情心的主人家里。他们正在吃饭，几个随从注意到食物吃起来不那么健康。他们停止进食，警告主人有危险。他回答说，他不想拒绝主人提供的食物，并继续吃被污染的食物。还有其他与他的行为有关的事情，与他对生死的信仰有关——这些事情是八正道的信徒们所熟悉的。总之，佛陀食物中毒，不久就死了。据记载，他已经八十岁了。我得说，对于一个古代的苦行僧来说已经很不错了。所以，他的成就是短暂的，他坚持不懈地奋斗。 Right conduct (and food poisoning) led to his demise. Now the pragmatist's questions might be: had he heeded his followers' warning, could he have lived a bit longer? There is no way to know for sure. Would his having lived longer have made any difference in the totality of his accomplishments? Again, we cannot know.
Clearly, whether he would have admitted it or not, the Buddha's life had meaning. He eschewed the material world. In its transience, it was meaningless to him. Today, of course, people are enamored with the wonders of the material world and transience is merely business as usual. Striving is unremittingly pursued. Now is a long time away (2400 years, give or take) from the time of Buddha. Most of us do not think twice about avoiding tainted food, right conduct notwithstanding. Times and people change. So do the priorities of living. Some of this is meaningful in its own right. It all depends upon your point of view.
Neuman.

拒绝世界?不那么“好”!时间对我们的承诺不值得我们遵守。然而，时间信守诺言。哪个更有价值?我们应该问，我们值得时间吗?但这并不符合叙事。让“耶稣”进入你的心灵吧!遵守(摩西或默罕默德的)律法!遵循“路径”! Be righteous! Be "mindful"! Obey and be free! Heard it all before.
Nope! Siddartha Gautama was just another spoiled brat who escaped his rich parents' cocoon to find the world full of the cruel effects of their privilege, but who then turns to excuses for that crime in a transcendence far less "mindful" than touted. One could almost say the Buddhist "mindfulness" is mindless. Insofar as it supervenes an unkept and unworthy promise upon a worthy and kept one, it indeed is mindless. The issue raised, 'Chief', is the result of not pressing the rigor of that promise to its final and most rigorous term. Indeed, not so "nice"!

Platon Karatayev was Pierre's "teacher", and look what happened to him! I think Tolstoy was making him, Pierre, the sap of the story; not the hero, the anti-hero.
American philosophy is indeed a shambles, but this needs far more explaining. Ever read Time in the Ditch, by John McCumber?

Some of us find meaning in philosophy. Others seek solace in religious devotion of various breadth and depth. Several of my friends are into secular humanistic endeavors---or, at least, they pretend to be. Still other folks rattle around from one pathway to the next until they drive themselves quite mad with disenchantment and frustration. I enjoy parsing philosophy for those shorter or longer nuggets of rhetoric which either exhibit unfathomable depths of wisdom, clearly inane shallowness, or some paradoxical combination of both. Although according to some individuals he may not have been a real philosopher, Karl Jaspers' writings lend themselves to the full continuum of entertaining possibilities. For example(s):

Only one who is consistent with himself can agree with others. To achieve harmony in oneself is to make friends with oneself and gain others as friends. ( a far cry from: to thine own self be true)
Understanding is present in every perception. (pretty simple--we all intuitively know this, yet tend to ignore it)
Categories have given form to the chaos. ( this one, found in a work from the 1950s, is particularly applicable to our 21st century society in which chaos appears to be worshipped rather than eschewed)
Everything that exists for us is an object of thought. (well, sure. Or pretty sure anyway.We are pretty sure that if we were unable to think, nothing would exist for us)
So, I can deduce that it is better to find meaning in things that are of lesser complexity, unless, of course you simply wish to rattle around, driving yourself mad with disenchantment and frustration. The choice is yours. Heck, you can even read philosophy written by those who are not really philosophers! Avoid Habermas, though. Unless you find solace in obscurantism.
HGN.

Don't all personal choices and "insights" have universal implications? If so, the idea of a purely personal "path" is fallacious. The case of Anne Hutchinson, in the early days of the Puritan colony at Boston, proved an intolerable disturbance to its faith. What pretended to be a purely personal devotion proved to be an insidious claim of divine voice. This was disastrous to the Puritan sect, since it's core belief was that a personal engagement with the text they deemed sacred would obviate a purely human edifice of devotion. The result was a fundamental disturbance that led to the gradual erosion of the idea of a personal "path", and the community in Boston would become the most secular, and most materialist, in the colonies. In terms of the "Family of Love" (Hutchinson's sect) they would evolve from the "covenant of grace" to the "covenant of works". The point is, the search for a "personal path" is an oxymoron. You see, if you come to some opinion or view, and look for reasons to believe it, you will find them. But this hardly means you have found truth. We can only reasonably believe we know anything if we have comprehensively searched for and impartially reviewed every reason not to believe it. In other words, knowledge is comprehension, not 'insight', not a sudden revelation on the road to Damascus, or any other 'path', but a slow trudge through all paths. You cannot cherry-pick your way to enlightenment! Habermas, by the way, is actually rather simplistic. But, like you and so many others, he assumes that synchrony, rather than responsible dissent, is the 'path'. And in doing so he condemns himself to the oxymoron of a personal universal.
By the way, Ophelia's dad, I don't remember his name, is intended as a buffoon, and the remark about 'to thine own self be true' is meant as a joke.