You’re asking me? You’re asking me to invent your fiction for you?
I mean I could, but if I were doing it, I’d probably come at it from a narrative standpoint: I’d think of what my story is trying to accomplish, and how this large sheet of scratch paper can serve my story. Of course I don’t have a story in mind that needs a large sheet of scratch paper, so nothing is currently leaping to mind.
One gets the impression that you have a narrative that you think this sheet of scratch papers serves, though. But since you’re the only one that knows that narrative (because of unclarity, sadly), only you can describe what you want this large sheet of scratch paper to act like or do.
The scratch paper was actually your idea, but if you don’t want to go with it, that’s fine. My point was that there is no one THING that comes to mind, universally, when one uses the word Life. You keep telling me to nail down the definition and I’m telling you flatly that it cannot be done. Life is a nuanced word that has a different meaning for everybody. What do you picture when you think of the word Life, for example? I picture a new plant sprouting from the soil, but I also picture bacteria growing on a faraway planet. I picture someone who is taking control of their life, but that’s a far more abstract sort of representation. I also picture a lively intoxicated person, the life of the party." I would not be surprised if the next person pictures something completely different. I’m wondering how anyone can suggest Life is NOT an abstract noun that can represent thousands of different concepts. What do YOU picture when you think of Life?
I challenge anyone to prove why Life should be classified as a concrete noun rather than an abstract noun. I think I understand English far better than some have suggested I do.
Just so you’re aware, from your own cites, “abstract noun” doesn’t mean “noun with lots of definitions”, it means “noun describing intangible things”. So if your definition of life is anything like “plants” or “bacteria” then it is not an abstract noun.
I think that if you’re trying to say “noun with lots of definitions”, then there’s a better term you can use for that. Wait for it…
Wait for it…
Wait for it…
Okay, now: “noun with lots of definitions”.
(:D)
And I do think that “life” is a noun with lots of definitions. Bacterial life is not necessarily the life of a party, and all life comes to an end though life goes on. I do freely concede that this means you have to take care to be clear what you mean when you use the term in a discussion like this, but it does not mean that every time you see a word every single possible definition of that word has to apply or mingle together simultaneously. For example, it’s possible to fare pretty well even if you can’t afford the fare. (Which fare? The fair’s fare. It’s fair for the fair to charge a fare. Fair’s fair, no matter how you fare.)
So that’s why we’re asking you what definition you want to use - there are a lot of them to choose from and they do not all apply at once.
(Plus you keep capitalizing the darn thing - that suggests you want to use it as a proper noun or technical term. I know of no definition of the word “life” that I would associate with persistent capitalization.)
I have never read so much fuzzy, poorly defined pseudo-spirituality… no, make that serially defined, because what Life and God and Experience means keeps changing from one post to the next.
Biffster, I’m sorry you weren’t starting this discussion back in 1968 when dorm rooms were full of this sort of “logic”. “Logic” and “magical smoke”… You would’ve found fellow voyagers who’d say “Whoaaa, heavy, man!” They wouldn’t understand what you were saying any more than we do, but they’d “grok what you’re into, dude”.
It doesn’t really matter which definition of “life” anyone uses because no matter what it is, you will alter your position to say that that definition is the one you think God is.
A fair reply, I would say. I capitalize Life because I was equating it with God at first, and now it just auto-capitalizes for me. I could personally care less if life is capitalized. Or god, for that matter.
When I say life is an abstract noun, I meant exactly that, even though it has multiple definitions, and some people (I can’t remember who) suggested I was out to lunch for saying it is abstract. It doesn’t name a specific person, place or thing. It is an idea, and again I say, whatever I think life is, whether I picture a budding plant or bacteria as an example of life, it’s still just a drop in the bucket of possible examples. Or possible meanings.
So again I ask you, what do you picture when you think of life?
Chakras are pretty cool, though I confess to having no idea how they work, let alone how I get mine aligned. The hippy reference was nicely put, by the way.
I’m not asking you to define life—I think Merriam-Webster provided plenty to work with. I’m asking what you think of when you think of life. I’m also guessing you think of some sort of example of something that’s alive, but that’s only a guess. What do you picture?
No one thing. The term has a lot of meanings, and you’re currently asking for my interpretation of the word without providing what context I should be thinking of the word in.
As an example, one thing that flitted through my mind was “Monty Python’s Meaning of Life.”
God appears in it, but I don’t really think god is it.
A great example. Another reference from the MP gang that has God close by would be “Always Look On the Bright Side of Life.” Hard to think of without whistling.
Next question might be, so what do we learn about life from the Monty Python group? Something about how life is absurd perhaps?
Speaking in all seriousness, what I learn is that not everything that talks about something is equally important to my definition of things. Anyone can say things about things (and most people do) but I don’t sway my mental image of things based on every single thing I hear.
For example, on the subject of whistling, one of the lines is “Life’s a piece of shit, when you look at it”. Taken alone, that means we might as well promptly commit suicide! But if you look at the surrounding lines you see that song itself toggles back and forth about the value of life and what you should take away, to the point of allowing multiple interpretations, which in theory could all be taken as valid.
My actual takeaway is “They were trying to make a funny and peppy song, which is even funnier when being sung by people who are being tortured to death because it makes no sense that they’d feel that way.”
The short answer here is I recognize that it’s easy to grab a few thousand different references, similes, homilies, and fortune cookies referencing or describing life. And I base my definition on none of them. For my definition of the term, well, it’s a synthesis of years of understanding it, but a good shorthand can be found by looking at dictionaries.
None of which tells me what you mean by the word, because you don’t appear to be operating off the same dictionaries - or at least not only on them.
You are perceptive, mon ami. I don’t really think of life as ONE thing so much as a concept that permeates much of what I come in contact with. There’s also the concept of my life (as in FML) as opposed to life in general as a thing in the universe. It’s bizarre when you think about how often we use this word of many meanings and just kind of take it for granted that we all know what each other means.
“Life’s a laugh and death’s a joke it’s true,” I think was the next line. I got the sense that the song was about being cheeky in the face of danger, kind of like whistling past the graveyard. Though it was meant to be flippant, I think the Pythons showed some perception in their lyrics, with the juxtaposition of mirth and torture so obvious and yet understated. “Crucifixion’s a doddle” the old guys says at a different point, and “at least it gets you out in the open air.” Cheeky to the end.
I’d hate to have to stick with one narrow definition for life, because it would kind of suck the fun out of it. I think of life as a mystery, a puzzle of the universe that I discover the meaning of a little more each day. Having conversations like this one help, but I’m far from understanding the big picture. Yet.
Nobody thinks that the word life has only one definition, but if you’re going to say that God=Life, then it’s going to be a real hard sell to say that God = any and all interpretations of the word “Life”. And not just because some jackanape is going to promptly say “So God’s a board game?”, but because that equal sign means something.
Consider the three following definitions of life.
1: Being energetic (the life of the party)
2: Moving autonomously (It’s alive! Bwahaha!)
3: The board game (the life of the party)
Now consider that God equals all of them.
God = Being energetic
God = Moving autonomously
God = The board game
Being energetic = God = Moving autonomously
Moving autonomously = God = The board game
Being energetic = Moving autonomously = The board game
Now, I may just be being a pedant here, but I have a problem with this. Specifically, if I have to be energetic to be alive I think I’ll probably die. (I’m pretty lazy.) Also I’m not terribly thrilled at the idea of my life being just a game somebody else plays, or the idea that the board game on my shelf is actually self-aware, and probably plotting my demise.
So, when you say that God = Life, I’m not going to just shrug and say, “Sure, the board game on my shelf is my lord and savior.” I’m going to ask you if you meant that my board game is my lord and savior, and if not, which other alternative meaning of “Life” you meant to granting divinity. And then if you shrug and refuse to clarify, then I get annoyed. Because I don’t want my board game to be my lord and master! Among other problems, given how rarely I win it it clearly hates me, and that would bode ill for my future if it’s also God.
Okaaaay, so you’ve posted a meme that mocks atheists. (And this also shows basically no comprehension of what an atheist is.) If I weren’t so confused about what you could possibly be hoping to convey with this, I’d assume you were trying to be insulting.
So, now you’re mocking that particular group of religious people who foolishly think that finding a religious image in a paint stain or a broken egg is some sort of message from (a) god. (Although ascribing such weird notions to atheists is too meaningless to rise to the level of dumb.)
At this point, I doubt that there is any serious point to your posts other than to keep this thread going for as long as you can. You have really not provided any serious arguments of discussion and your [paraphrased] “You make a good point; what do you think it means?” responses, where you want to appear to be trying (unsuccessfully) to imitate a psychologist, indicate that you are just playing games.
If there is a serious point to this, why don’t you try to actually set forth a complete thought and develop it in a way that has actual meaning?
Au contraire. I don’t think this meme is mo King atheists at all. It’s mocking those who see their Lord and Saviour in a piece of toast. Or a muffin. Or a shadow on a garage door. I assumed the meme was made by an atheist. Of which I am one part-time.
Life, the board game. I remember this though I didn’t really play it, but I think you’ve keyed in on a big problem with the God=Life hypothesis; both words are abstract nouns that can mean different things to different people. Not only that, but if I interpret the NDW woo quote the way he meant it, then he was attempting to bend the definitions by redefining god in terms of life. Problem is, life can also mean so many different things depending on the interpreter. Religious people may be really uncomfortable redefining god at all, depending on how attached they are to the concept of god they’ve grown up with. Atheists may get their backs up about bringing god in to a discussion of life at all. Do right away that’s two large groups of people you’ve pissed off right away. Not a great means of persuasion.
I think the God=Life hypothesis was meant to appeal to people who already believe in god but are searching for a new way to conceptualize Him. Or Her. Or It. One thing I like about this hypothesis is the what if life simply created itself part? A steady state universe as opposed to a Big Bang universe? What if life refers to the unmanifest world as much as the manifest one? What if we exist as a concept before we actually materialize? I know there’s a lot of “what it’s”, but it’s how I pass the time when I’m bored. I’m not saying God and Life are the same thing, but what if they were? Well, all the logical ridiculousness that would create has been pointed out multiple times by many dopers here. Fair enough. But if you look beyond the semantics, is there any possible truth that is revealed by the hypothesis? For me, it’s certainly revealed that while I have a fairly straightforward picture in my mind of what I think of when I hear the word God, there is a much more complex picture of what I think of when I hear the word life. I’m not what I believe at this point, but I’m pretty sure I think of life as a good thing. I guess I haven’t seen that movie of the same name yet.
