This is the first post of my Philosophers Notebook blog project and if you don't know what that means then go to the blog post right before this one. Hopefully that will clear things up.
Can humans ever experience the world objectively?
My initial thought is no, of course not. We are individuals who were born as certain people or beings. This fact alone makes it seem impossible for anyone to see the world objectively. We only know the world as we see it through our own personal eyes. I suppose one may be "better" at attempting to see the world in an objective view when compared to someone who never attempted to, but even those attempts are futile because it just simply is impossible for an individual to see the world objectively. I italicize individual and objectively because they are not able to come together and form a truth. There is no world where an individual can be objective on anything.
What happens to us after we die?
On a good day, we just disappear and don't exist. On a bad day, maybe just maybe there is some higher power that lets us continue living in some way or another. I say that because on good days I have no reason to sugar coat any of my beliefs because I am feeling good and don't care much. If it is a bad day, it naturally makes me feel slightly better thinking about how there could be something after death. But I would say in general that I have no fucking clue what happens when we die. Why stress about it. I'm alive right now. I will deal with death when I die.
How free are we?
This isn't a main topic for me currently. I would say that we all have free will because if I wanted to set my house on fire and then drive away in my truck right this minute, I could. Would some people say that if I did that then it was meant to be? I guess. At the same time that I believe in free will, I think about how many people are alive and how we are somehow all living our individual complex lives without everyone getting in everyone else's way.
Does life have meaning?
We covered this in my philosophy class that I took at IUP last semester. I actually emailed my professor about this very topic and he told me some incorrect information about my beliefs. I will copy and paste what I wrote to him about my view on meaning of life: I fully agree that life is absurd. I've accepted for years now that life is meaningless and any meaning there is in a life, is created by that person. I can understand why some may find that depressing or debilitating but I think it is actually pretty awesome that we are able to control what has meaning for us personally. This belief that life is absurd was first proposed to me years ago and it didn't take long for me to fully believe it. I think that most people are simply too afraid to accept it, and that that is for the better. If everyone accepted that life was absurd and meaningless, society would fall apart and everything would become chaotic. It takes a certain type of person to understand that life is absurd while also continuing to function like a normal citizen in society. As you just mentioned about sitting in a coffee house smoking long cigarettes all day long, I don't believe that an existentialist needs to do that. I try hard to always do what I want to do or at least do what I know will help me get to doing what I want to do. I have always tried to put meaning towards doing what I want to do because why waste a life not striving to do what you truly want to do?
Is the universe intelligible?
I don't know what that is asking. Like for the life of me I can't think of a good response to this question. Maybe later on I will come back and answer this one. Maybe not.
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