#1246 Rivka Weinberg: Does Life Have Meaning?

00:00 Ricardo Lopes: Hello everyone. Welcome to a new episode of The Dissenter. I'm your host, as always, Ricard Lops, and today I'm joined by our return guest, Doctor Rivke Weinberg. She's a professor of philosophy at Scripps College in Claremont, California, and today we're going To talk about her latest book, The Meaning of It All Ultimate Meaning, Everyday Meaning, Cosmic Meaning, Death, and time. So Dr. Weinberg, welcome back to the show. It's always a pleasure to talk with you.

00:29 Rivka Weinberg: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me back.

00:32 Ricardo Lopes: OK, so, um, first of all, I, I would like to start by asking you this. So what is the premise of your book, and I would also be interested, uh, be interested to know whether, uh, you wrote the book. I, I mean, just because it's a topic that you're interested in or that. Or because you have a particular timing in mind that you thought that uh such a topic in this particular time period in the particular context we're living in would be relevant. I, I mean, what motivated you to write it?

01:10 Rivka Weinberg: So I. I'll answer your second question first. I think that the topic of the meaning of life is always relevant at all times, in all places, and so there's nothing particularly topical about it. And I wrote it while thinking about, I mean, I've thought about these questions my whole life, and I wrote about it when I thought I had something I could say, could make a contribution to say something new and illuminating. Uh, WHICH certainly took a long time, but I've been thinking about these things always. Uh, WHAT would, what could be a more common question about the human condition than to ask about its point, its value, its significance, its effects, uh, you know, all of the things that are included when we think about meaning. So it's not particularly timed. This is time, I think. I think these questions are always relevant. About the premise of the book. So in a certain way, a premise is an assumption, and I try not to make assumptions in my work. I try to build the arguments as much as possible without assumptions, but the approach, uh, which is a kind of premise when I started thinking about meaning was to be very expansive and inclusive, to think, what do we mean when we talk about meaning, so that we could get all the kinds of meaning and all the characteristics of meaning and sort of sort it all out and think about. The broad question, meaning. That's why the book is called The Meaning of it all, uh, because it includes ultimate meaning, cosmic meaning, everyday meaning death and meaning, time and meaning. And so that was sort of the approach to the book was to be, uh, comprehensive.

02:47 Ricardo Lopes: Mhm. Right. Uh, BUT I mean, why do you think that we as humans, or, I mean, at least I imagine that most people out there, I mean, I'm not sure if there would be, for example, any culture where people for some reason just do not care much about asking. These types of questions, but why do you think that people in general seem to be interested in asking a question such as what's the point? I mean, what's the point of living? What's the point of life, whether life has any meaning or not? I mean, why do you think that people are interested in that?

03:27 Rivka Weinberg: I think people ask what's the point because a point is a valued end and that we work toward within, you know, in some of our efforts or our projects or enterprises and so of course because you're putting forth the effort, you want to know why you're doing it. And so it's just a natural question to ask and to worry about, especially because a lot of times our efforts don't succeed or we have a lot of suffering or a lot of loss, and then it's like why am I still working. And so I think it's the effort and the investment we make in our projects, uh, in the things that can be meaningful in our lives, in the values we have, uh, that, uh, that cause us to ask what is the valued end. If you are working towards something and putting forth effort, uh, uh, aiming at a value, you're going to ask. Why is this a worthy value that I'm aiming at? Am I gonna get there? And those are all kinds of what's the point questions that we ask because we put forth effort and investment in our lives and in the things that are important to us in our life.

04:29 Ricardo Lopes: But do you think that this is a question that everyone should consider? I mean, I'm asking you this not to diminish, not to try to diminish its importance, of course. I mean, I personally am also very interested in this kind of question, but I mean sometimes maybe people just go through life and they, for example, got from their A cultural context, a particular kind of, uh, answer that they accept. I mean, it might be from religion, it might be from some other source, and they just run with it and don't think much about or don't question much of what they've learned from the society they live in or the particular socio-cultural context they live in. Uh, uh, SO, uh, I mean, do you, do you think that people, um, should ask themselves that question?

05:27 Rivka Weinberg: Yes, because you want to make sure that you're living a life that actually has meaning. And so, otherwise you're working for nothing. So if you're working for something pointless and or for some negative value, let's say, in a, in a Nazi culture, you can just accept it, but then what you're doing is contrary to value and we'll have what I call negative meaning. And so, and each person, you have this one life to live, you're responsible for yourself, uh, and so I think it is, yeah, incumbent upon everybody who acts as an agent. To reflect on what they are aiming at, what values ground what they do, uh, what's the purpose of their efforts? Are they doing something significant and valuable? I think that's part of the responsibility of agency, and I think it's also good for the person. Because you want to make sure that your actions are actually or that your investments and your efforts are actually meaningful and that, you know, so if you're sitting, if you're doing something contrary to meaning or not meaningful, you are wasting your opportunity for meaning and that is, I think, bad for you.

06:32 Ricardo Lopes: OK, so we'll come back to that question later, but in the book you explore three different kinds of meaning, or at least what you label as three different kinds of meaning everyday meaning, cosmic meaning, and ultimate meaning. Could you explain the distinction and why you think the distinction between these three different kinds of meaning matters?

06:57 Rivka Weinberg: Yeah, so I think that everyday meaning is the meaning in our everyday lives. It includes all of what I call the characteristics of meaning. It includes the point, which is the valued end at which that grounds our efforts or that our efforts are aimed at. It includes the purpose, which is the reason something is done. Significance, why something matters, um, impact, the effects, uh, um, explanation, sort of coherence and sense. Did I get them all? Value, let's see, point, purpose, value, impact, significant, and explanation. Yeah, those are the things. So that's uh everyday meaning and an example would be, let's say you are uh. Growing plants or taking care of a child, or I don't know, washing, you know, doing your job, which is probably valuable. Let's say you, uh, you're a dishwasher or a teacher or whatever you are, you can think about, well, what is the reason for what I'm, for what I'm doing. That's part of the meaning. What is the point, the value end that I'm aiming at? Well, like here, I'm, I'm doing this to benefit. THE people in my life or to help the environment. Those are values. Love is a value. Kindness, I mean, the knowledge, uh, beauty, those are all values that our actions can aim at. How much do they matter? Uh, WHAT kind of effects do they have? Do they make sense? Do they cohere with, you know, with my life? Am I doing something that, that fits together? So those are, that's everyday meaning. Uh, COSMIC meaning is based, is meaning based on our cosmic niche or our cosmic role, and a lot of theological accounts, uh, fall into this category of cosmic meaning. This is your place in the universe to, I don't know, unite with God or to do God's will or whatever. It could also be, uh, secular. There are secular accounts as well of cosmic meaning, meaning based on our role in the cosmos and our shape and, and. Cosmic niche. So what is the purpose of our, of our role? What is the reason for our activity or whatever we're doing, our efforts within the cosmos, how much it matters? What's the value of it? Uh, DOES it make sense? What's the impact? Those are all questions of cosmic meaning. Ultimate meaning is a different kind of question. It's kind of a meta question. It's a question that that someone, an agent who's living a life and running your life, as I think we all do. IS asking, well, what is the point of this project I'm doing? I get why I'm doing the other things, why I'm raising my kids and washing the dishes and, you know, Uh, listening to beautiful music or composing or whatever I'm doing, uh, but why am I doing this other thing? Running my actual life, running my leading a life? Why am I doing that? That's sort of ultimate meaning, and I think that sort of, uh, just the only characteristic it has is point. Why am I doing this whole thing? And I think that we don't, we, that, that is metaphysically impossible, which we can talk about. And that is why I separate it out because it also makes sense of some common experiences. Like you can say, you know, I'm living a life that's meaningful. I have meaningful relationships. I have meaningful work. But why do I have this separate question still going on in the back of my mind? Uh, WHAT'S the point of the whole thing? That's because that is your ultimate meaning question. And so even if you have everyday meaning, because you cannot have ultimate meaning, you might still have these doubts that persist while you know that you are doing and having everyday meaning.

10:19 Ricardo Lopes: Do you think that most people, if they're or if they think or are asked the question of whether their life is meaningful, that maybe they tend to conflate the Three different kinds of meaning and then that could have negative consequences for them, I mean for how they live their lives or even their mental health or something like that.

10:47 Rivka Weinberg: Yeah, I I think it can be. Um, VERY clarifying to understand like where that buzz is coming from, that it's not that your life actually doesn't have everyday meaning, that you should, you know, abandon your projects or, or give up, uh, but that you just have this sadness and feeling of, oh, but There's this other meaning that I want, ultimate meaning. It makes sense to want it because you run your life and that is also work. That's effort you're putting forth, kind of doing it for nothing. That's kind of sad. And it's good to separate that out so you can see the meaning that you still have and understand the feelings of meaninglessness that can come from a meaning that you cannot have. As for cosmic meaning, I think that cosmic meaning when we really try to think about how it works, even assuming all theological assumptions or any natural or supernatural assumptions, it's really hard to see how it is, uh. Makes much of a difference either way. And so if you're putting your whole sort of life efforts toward cosmic meaning or a cosmic promise in the afterlife or something like that, that could be a waste of your everyday meaning opportunities if people are doing that. That is not a common thing, I think, because most religions also advocate for meaning for everyday meaning when they tell people to be kind. To others or to, you know, study and things like that, that is also everyday meaning. An exception would be, uh, for example, um, some Buddhist recommendations to live only in the moment, which is because of, uh, and I think those work to reduce suffering, but as maybe we could talk about later, I think that those, that approach, uh, reduces meaning.

12:21 Ricardo Lopes: OK, so, uh, let me ask you more about each of these types of meaning and starting with ultimate meaning. I mean, is there such a thing? I mean, is there a point or valid end to living life? Is it possible at all to find that kind of meaning?

12:42 Rivka Weinberg: So the reason that you cannot have ultimate meaning is because the reason I argue that it's metaphysically impossible is because a point is a valued end and ends always lie outside of the projects or efforts that aim at them or that ground them. And so it's this metaphysical fact, the nature of values and the nature of efforts that make ultimate meaning impossible because let's say when I play with my children, uh, the, the value, the everyday meaning of the act is the stacking blocks, let's say. That's not very meaningful. Pretty boring. Uh, THE, the meaning lies outside of the act in the love, in the intimacy, in the people, in the children. If I, if I'm building a house, that's a lot of effort. The value of that, the point of that lies, it's not the house itself. Why are you building the house? It's not the value is not the meaning is not in the house. It lies in the valued end. The point is to provide shelter for people. That's a valued end. And so that uh if we think about what So that's the first step. Value always lies outside of the effort that it is aimed at or that grounds it. When you think about the project of running your life, all your values are in that project. That's why you're doing them. That's what, so if you care about justice, let's say you give it a place in the project, the meta-project of running your life, and that, because it's in that project. The project of running your life has nowhere outside of it to reach for meaning, and you can't say that justice, you, you can see that justice itself is not going to be the meaning because what happens when things are just already. Things are just enough, right? At some point you have to stop, otherwise you're being nitpicky and annoying and making sure everybody has exactly the same amount or whatever, you're becoming obsessive, it's counterproductive. You can go too far. So let's say things are just enough. You hit, you've hit that goal, but what's the point of the rest of your life? And you can see that, uh, your life contains that, that is the, the justice value is in the project of running your life and so it cannot serve as the Point of running it. So it's this meta effort and meta project of the running of your life that cannot have a point because it has nowhere to reach outside of it for a point because all the values and the things that you're aiming at are in the project. That's how you make them part of your life project. You care about justice. You include it in the project of running your life. So now that project of running your life, it's got nothing to reach for for a point and remains pointless.

15:04 Ricardo Lopes: Do you think that people tend to care about this type of meaning?

15:11 Rivka Weinberg: I think that uh not everyone thinks about it, um, but I think that it is only natural to care about it and it makes sense to care about it because the same way that when you're working toward, uh, your college education, and if you found out that that was for nothing, you're not gonna learn anything, you're not gonna get a better job, you're not going to help support your family, all the reasons you're doing it, well, that, that's not gonna happen. It has no point. Well, you want to know about that, right? You care about that. And the same way you run your life. You don't you care to know whether this is a pointless effort or not a pointless effort? I think it makes sense to care about it. Because you're putting forth the effort.

15:49 Ricardo Lopes: Uh, BUT I, I mean, but ultimately, does it matter if life is pointless?

15:57 Rivka Weinberg: I think it does because I think it is really sad to recognize. It doesn't mean that your life is worthless because you have these other kinds of meaning. You have everyday meaning, maybe you have a little cosmic meaning. Uh, BUT you're, but so, but you, but it does make sense to care about it because it makes sense to want it, because you're working for every effort or project or enterprise that you're working for, you want there to be a point. So it doesn't make sense to say, well, I don't care that it's pointless. What, what, you know, because you're doing it for the effort, because you're putting forth work into it. Now, I can see one of my, I was talking to a friend of mine about this some years ago, and she was like, well, I don't care if it's pointless, it's fun. I could see that saying, well, it doesn't have to have a point, because it's so much fun. But it is, it is not. It is not so much fun. Life is difficult, right? It is very, uh, I don't think it is, you can, it, it is not the case that life is always fun for everyone who lives it. It is sometimes fun for some people who are running their life project, and so I don't think that is uh enough to say. I don't think that's a satisfactory answer. I think we put it is, we, we put forth effort, we suffer, and to have that for nothing. I think it makes sense to care about it. Now, how much are you going to care about it? That goes in proportion. Some people are more goal-oriented and it bothers them more. Some people are less and it bothers them less. But if you don't care about it at all, that means you're giving up your humanity and your agency because you're not running that means, you know, because anyone who makes plans for the future, who thinks about, should I raise, you know, children or chickens, should I build a house? Should I take a job? Should I take, you know, and, you're, you're running your life and And you're doing that for nothing, and that, that should, that's a sad thing. It's like I said, it doesn't mean that you should spend the rest of your life crying about it. Uh, THAT would be, uh, silly. There's nothing you can do about it, and you should, so, but it makes sense to be sad because that's the appropriate reaction to a sad fact, and then you carry on with the rest of your life where you can have a lot of everyday meaning.

18:09 Ricardo Lopes: Mm, uh, but I mean, picking on the example you gave from your friend who said something along the lines, oh yeah, life is pointless, but it's fun, so it doesn't really matter if it's pointless. Uh, AND this I guess is a question that we'll return to over the course of our conversation, but, uh, what if there are people out there with particular kinds of, uh, psychological personality traits, or I, I mean, whatever kinds of psychological. TRAITS that make them look at life in that particular way and for them that is just good enough. I mean, OK, so for me life is pointless, but it doesn't really matter because I'm having fun and they have enough fun for for it to, I mean for it to be worth living or worth continuing life. I mean, do you think that That, that is a plausible position to have and to what extent do you think that we should consider subjectivity when dealing with these kinds of questions?

19:21 Rivka Weinberg: So I think there's 3 different things. One is everyone has a reason to keep living. Just because you don't have ultimate meaning, you have everyday meaning. So not having ultimate meaning is not a reason to kill yourself. Or to stop trying to run your life. Uh, NOW, but even the people who are enjoying life are still working for it. When you put forth effort towards something, when you're running a project or make or or an enterprise, it, it is kind of, it just doesn't make sense not to be sad if that work is for nothing, that work if you're, it's so that I just don't think that that is a reasonable response. Uh, YOU can say it doesn't bother me that much because even though I'm working for nothing, I'm also enjoying it. So it can bother you a little less, but I think it should, it should bother you because the same way you want all of your projects to, to have a point, all of your efforts to be going somewhere, you should want this other effort, the meta effort to also be going somewhere. So, that's why I think that that response is not sufficient, uh, even if you have a cheery temperament. The next question is, is meaning subjective? I do not think so. And the reason I don't think so is because I don't think that value is subjective. Uh, AND so, um, I think that things like beauty and knowledge and freedom and truth are objectively valuable or, or at least, and let's say, and, and I don't give independent arguments for that. I accept the arguments of the classic ethical theories that argue this like Kantian ethics, utilitarian ethics, consequentialist ethics, Aristotelian ethics. I accept those. I think they make good arguments and a good case for objective value, but even If I didn't think value was completely objective in that sense, I would still think that it is, uh, that value is objective because there's a concept of good for, for any functional system we can ask what is good for it. Is sunlight good for a vampire? No. Is sunlight good for a plant? Usually yes, right? And so the concept of good for can ground certain values. What is good for a person? It's a It's an Aristotelian concept. What is conducive to human flourishing, and that can grant that can sort of show you what is valuable for a person. Things like creativity, knowledge, beauty, health. These are all things that are good for a person. Amar Jaen and Martha Nussbaum have developed this theory more based on Aristotle, it's sort of an objectiveist conception of what is good for a person. And so because those are objective. VALUABLE, uh, and value is very in a very important aspect of meaning. I don't think meaning is subjective. For example, uh, if you're gonna count, and this is an example in the literature, if you say, well, what I'm going to do with my life is count the blades on my front lawn every morning, unless it's like performance art or some other kind of way that you can find this meaningful, you are making, if that's what you do with your life, you are wasting your opportunities for meaning. It is not meaningful. In addition, and this is, and, and some people, some philosophers do take this up and reject subjective meaning for this reason. Susan Wolffe is one person who does that, but they don't, uh, but they still think, some of them, that you still need the subjectivity part, and I don't think so. I think it's purely objective for because here's the other example, the flip side of that. Uh, LET'S say somebody does something very meaningful, like creates a vaccine like Jonas Salk that cures that prevents polio, uh, or does something like, um, Gandhi, who was a freedom fighter and had a lot of success in liberating India from colonial rule. What if these people who have done clearly meaningful things, meaning they're valuable, they're significant, they're impactful, they have a purpose, they have a point, they make sense. And what if these people later in their lives say, my life was meaningless? What I did didn't matter. They're making a mistake. And so, uh, that is why I think that, um, meaning is not subjective. Your subjective experience has objective value and in that sense is included in objective meaning, but I don't think that meaning is subjective.

23:24 Ricardo Lopes: OK, so I mean, I, I don't want to go off on a big, on a lengthy tangent here because I mean those are, that is a particular question that I've already explored on the show with other philosophers and It's, it doesn't really, I, I, I, I, I mean, it, it would lead us astray, I guess, when it comes to exploring the topics of your book, but, uh, I've had people with different kinds of views on this topic, but do you consider, um, I mean, for example, and I've had this conversation with Doctor Owen Flanagan on the show, uh. Uh, WHEN it comes to, uh, for example, uh, anti-moral realism and looking at, uh, uh, um, anthropological science and, uh, psychological science and so on, basically about how people vary in terms of their values cross culturally and Inter interindividually and so on, uh, are, do you consider that those kinds of explorations have any bearing on whether value or meaning is at least to some extent subjective or not.

24:49 Rivka Weinberg: So this. The fact that there's disagreement doesn't mean there's no fact of the matter. There are plenty of scientific disagreements and we don't decide that therefore, there's no answer or the answer is subjective. So mere disagreement does not prove subjectivity. That's the first point. The second point is, even though there are cultural differences and variation in value, there are still extreme commonalities. Every culture values life. If they didn't, they would cease to exist. Every culture values relationships. Every culture values. Every culture values justice and fairness. Every culture values knowledge and truth. And so, uh, I actually find that if you're thinking about the, you know, agreement as a criteria, you will have widespread agreement on basic intrinsic moral values, the kinds that I'm talking about. So I actually don't, I think first of all, that is not a way to decide whether that's something is subjective. And I think that the, uh, that if it is a way to decide, you will see that if you're thinking about root values, intrinsic values, That I think that they are very widely shared.

26:02 Ricardo Lopes: So, uh, moving on to everyday meaning then, I mean, how does it manifest in people's lives?

26:12 Rivka Weinberg: Luckily, it manifests everywhere, not everywhere, but it is there are many opportunities. Not everyone, some people can have it, you know, terrible life circumstances, but most lives have opportunities for meaning because, uh, if you are engaging with objective value, which includes, like I said, love, knowledge, creativity. Uh, uh, BEAUTY, freedom, all of these values are things that many people, most people have an opportunity to engage with in their life. Not everybody's going to be equally significant and do, you know, have the same sort of intensity of meaning or opportunities for meaning, but I think most lives, uh, can have many opportunities for meaning. Most people can have an opportunity to have personal relationships which can be made very meaningful based on their values of intimacy and love and faithfulness and all the. Other ways in which we can have meaning between in relationships. Most people do some kind of work. The world needs all the jobs unless with the exception of things that have negative value. So you are contributing, you are being significant. You're making it, you know, uh, you matter in that way, um, and, and you can be a moral person which also has great value. Uh, YOU can be a curious person, try to learn things. You can learn all kinds of things. You can learn about the plants in your garden. You can learn about your environment. You can learn about book, you know, you can do book learning, that experiential learning. All of these things have value and so and have meaning and significance and make sense and so I think opportunities for everyday meaning are abundant.

27:53 Ricardo Lopes: Oh, OK, so, uh, I mean, about, uh, uh, let me just pick on one of the examples you gave there, the example of knowledge, just because I mean, with the kind of work that I have and talking very regularly with academics and intellectuals, it's, and because I myself, uh, like to learn a lot. So, uh, I would like to ask you, because nowadays, um, in, in an academic context and also even outside of academia. Because of the economic system we live in, people tend to tend to try to reduce the value of knowledge to the economic value it can produce. So if a particular kind of knowledge directly or directly correlates in some way with Economic value than for people that is valuable, but if it doesn't, then it is less valuable or not valuable at all. I mean, do you think that knowledge in and of itself is valuable independently of it generating some kind of economic value or not?

29:07 Rivka Weinberg: Of course, I, I think that's a very peculiarly narrow view to take of knowledge. That is one value of knowledge can be the impact it has economically, but it can also have the other impacts of enriching your life and enabling you to appreciate value which is meaningful. For example, uh, I went to Brooklyn College, it's a City College, and then when I went there, the city of New York, they had a very extensive uh uh core program of requirements. They made everybody take everything. You have to take art and music and And so, not appreciating art very much, I had to take it, so I took it. And now I appreciate art. And it wasn't because it was the most mind-blowing class. It was a regular art appreciation class. It was fine. I learned about art. I appreciate art. I love art. I do art. I take my children to museums. I go to museums. I, I, I actually do some art myself, and that has been very meaningful in my life. I have made $0. It has nothing to do with economics, and that can apply in many areas of knowledge. It doesn't just have to be art. Uh, BUT the point of, you know, knowledge is valuable for its own sake. It's, uh, it enriches a person. It expands a person's mind, and it is meaningful. Of course, it's, it is, it can be meaningful economically, but that is only, that's sort of a derivative way. But I think it is valuable for its own sake, and you can see that by the way that people pursue knowledge and enjoy learning when it is not sort of pressured or too expensive. People, you know, it's, uh, it's appreciated.

30:39 Ricardo Lopes: Uh, WHAT does it mean to fulfill our human potential? I mean, what, what does that mean from a philosophical perspective?

30:49 Rivka Weinberg: Yes, so the reason I discussed this in my book is because I'm talking about, uh, everyday meaning, and I'm thinking about what is good for us, uh, because those are the values that we should aim at in our everyday meaningful efforts and, um, some of the things that, that are good for a person are to, uh, do, do the sort of person type things that we can do, which is an Aristotelian way of looking at it. So we have these amazing abilities for creativity and emotionality and. INTELLECTUAL development and all of moral development, all of those uniquely, uh, it doesn't just, you know, it doesn't have to be unique to people, but this is something, these are our sort of higher human functionings, and it is good for us to exercise them. It will be more meaningful. Your life will be more meaningful if you exercise your human potential. So if you could, let's say, let's say, let's, I give this example in the book, let's say with Martin Luther King. Who was a civil rights leader and had tremendous impact. His life was very significant. He, he did things for very deep and important reasons. He, he aimed at valued ends, made a lot of sense, all of the, you know, so he had a very meaningful life in that context, in that sense, in the everyday sense. He could have, let's say he decided instead to be a small town preacher like his father was. His life would still be meaningful, but it wouldn't. BE as meaningful. And if he decided instead of that, that he was going to be groceries, which again is a meaningful job, but if he could have done something much, you know, sort of exercised his higher human capacities and done something even more meaningful that had a bigger impact and that was more significant, then he would be failing to use his potential, and that would be an example of waste. Waste is a failure to appreciate value. And when you don't exercise. And try to fulfill your human potential, you are making the value mistake of waste for you on yourself. You are wasting yourself, and that is a value error, and a value error is a meaning error because value is in a very crucial aspect of meaning.

33:03 Ricardo Lopes: And what if we fail to fulfill our human potential? I mean, does that necessarily mean that our lives are less valuable or less meaningful?

33:17 Rivka Weinberg: So when we think about failure, uh, sometimes there can be meaning in failure if you learn a lot from it, but generally speaking, we aim at success because success is more meaningful. So if I am engaged in a project and that project fails, I will fail to reach the point of it. Let's say Martin Luther King completely failed as a civil rights leader. It's not that his efforts would be meaningless because they would still be valuable. They were aimed at, it was, it was a good try. But they are more meaningful if they succeed. They're more meaningful in terms of their impact, their significance, their, their purpose, their point, and the sense that they make. And so to the extent that we fail, it generally undercuts meaning. But if you never fail, you didn't aim high enough. And so you have also sort of failed to, to, to fulfill your human potential, and that's kind of the, the double-edged sword of failure like. Failure undercuts meaning. It's and, and it feels terrible and it's not meaningful usually. You can learn certain lessons from it, but as a whole, as in general, it is not sort of good for meaning to fail. But if you never fail, it means that your life is not as meaningful as it should have been or could have been because you did not aim high enough. To reach your potential.

34:32 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, but I, I mean, let's say that someone has a particular kind of goal in mind or they want to do a particular thing or achieve a particular thing with their lives, and I mean they have that sort of do or die kind of attitude, and I mean they try as best they can, but I mean, it might not even be their own fault. It might just be the circumstances that are not good enough, or, I mean, it's just that the person cannot reach their goal or cannot achieve whatever they have in mind, and I mean, taking, taking. Into account a do or die kind of attitude. They, they just die. They never reach what they wanted. I mean, can that still, can that process itself of trying to reach that end goal be meaningful in and of itself?

35:32 Rivka Weinberg: Yes, I think the effort is meaningful, but it is more meaningful if it succeeds. And so if you are trying to Come up with a vaccine for a certain kind for a disease and you fail, it is not as meaningful as if you would have succeeded, but it is not meaningless because there's meaning in the effort, there's meaning in your good intention, there's meaning in whatever you else you managed to do along the way, and your life, if you, if you reduce your life to only one goal, you do risk. You put all your eggs in one basket, and if that basket, and so if you don't succeed, it's sort of, you don't have these other things to say, well, I had these relationships, I appreciated art, I enjoyed nature, I, you know, all the other ways in which you, a life can have meaning. If you have this sort of project life and you're just aiming at one thing, then you have narrowed your Your meaning to one area. Sometimes that can make for great success and incredible achievement and so you can't always say don't do that. Uh, THERE can be times and people for which it makes sense to do that, and then if they succeed, yes, their life would be more meaningful than if they fail, but if they don't succeed, it doesn't mean that there was no meaning in the effort, but there's more meaning in an effort that does succeed. That's where we aim at success. I mean, even objectively on objective measures, of course, there's more meaning. It has more impact, it has more significant, it has more purpose, it has more point. It, it makes more sense. So success is more meaningful than failure, but it doesn't mean that failure. Just wipes out all the meaning.

37:03 Ricardo Lopes: Right, I, I mean, uh, but, but, uh, do you think that, uh, people then should perhaps be, uh, flexible or adaptable in terms of how they deal with failure, because I, I mean, just to give an example, it's a sort of a banal example, but, uh, I'm, I like some sports like soccer and wrestling, so let's say that someone decides that they want to be a, WWE wrestler and for some reason they just never achieved that. I, I mean, do you think that if they become completely miserable and depressed because they never achieved that goal and they have that, as I mentioned, that sort of do or die kind of attitude, uh, that, uh, I mean if they just. Try to be a little bit more flexible and adjust their lives according to the fact that they failed at that and try some other thing that is a better attitude to have than just simply thinking that their life is completely meaningless because they haven't achieved that goal.

38:17 Rivka Weinberg: So because there are many opportunities for meaning and the different ways to to have a meaningful life, of course it's a mistake to think that there's only one way, because there isn't only one way. Um, AND, uh, especially the goal you mentioned, which is not especially meaningful. I mean, there's creativity in sports and it expresses things about, you know, there's an art to it, but it's not, uh, the most meaningful thing. It's fake. It's a game. Uh, I mean, I shouldn't say it's fake because, but it's, it, there's an artifice to it, and of course there's many ways, other things that you can do in your life that will have, uh, a deep impact and, uh, be very engaged with. Values in a, in a very sort of uh human uh aspirational way, uh, but generally to speak to your answer to be very narrow is probably generally a mistake. I don't want to say always because there's different ways uh to have meaning and also meet uh a value, um, freedom is a value. People should do what they, what, what resonates with them and, and go after the values in a way and meaning in a way that uh. Fits with their personality and their personal proclivities and all of that and sometimes uh some people who are extremely successful in one area and have and achieve a lot of meaning that way, let's say uh a profound a concert pianist that maybe their life is narrower, they can't do other things because they got to practice all the time and everything like that, and that can still be valuable and meaningful, uh, because of the exceptional achievement and because that's part of the, you know, some the way and um. They can still have other meaning in their life. They can have relationships or whatever. So I'm not gonna just say never be obsessive. I think that's too extreme to say, but I also think, of course, if you aim at something and you are not successful, well then aim at something else. Right, or go to the next thing. That's a little too easy to say because sometimes you've expended a lot of effort and then you fail. There's nothing to be done about that. That is a failure. That's terrible, that it would be more meaningful if you succeeded, and you, you, you're right, you know, it makes sense to be very sad about it, about an effort that has not succeeded, um, but. Uh, THEN there are also, um, other ways to have meaning in your life other than a professional success or any particular kind of success. Let's say somebody doesn't have success in personal relationships, uh, uh, that does not mean that their life is going to be meaningless because there are other ways to pursue meaning in your life.

40:44 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, but, but for example, do you think that it can be, I mean, do you think that philosophically speaking, it can be plausible for people to, OK, so let's say for example, that someone is very obsessive about Or they are aiming a lot at becoming a great philosopher or they want to develop, for example, and or they have the ambition of developing a new philosophical system in whatever area if with that goal in mind they decide to Sacrifice other domains of their lives like the social domain, uh, relationships, I mean romantic relationships, even perhaps sometimes friendships and so on, uh, that they, if they, if they have that goal in mind, they should go ahead with it, that it's worthwhile.

41:48 Rivka Weinberg: It can be. I'm not gonna say never do that. It is a, it is a high-risk kind of a life because you're putting all your eggs in one basket. I don't think that usually works. I think that, uh, you can be a genius and have relationships. You can focus in one area and still have other areas. I think if all you do all day is try to do one thing. Probably, and, and that's all you do with all your hours of the day. I don't know, it's not usually a recipe for success anyway at that one thing. So it's probably not a very pragmatic way to live your life, uh, uh, but it's not a meaningless way. It's a meaning risk because you're putting all your eggs in this narrow basket, and it's probably not the best, you know, not the most prudent thing to do, uh, um. I, I would say, yeah, that I think that's my answer.

42:38 Ricardo Lopes: Right. So how about cosmic meaning? I mean, is it important and if it's important, in what ways is it

42:48 Rivka Weinberg: important? So when I think about cosmic meaning, that would be meaning based on our cosmic role or our cosmic niche, uh, and um You can have secular accounts, but most of the accounts are more theological and thinking about, well, what is our purpose, God's purpose. You, you think it's thinking about cosmic meaning in terms of, again, purpose and nothing can give you ultimate meaning, so that, that's not even God doesn't help. Uh, SO we would still going to think about. Cosmic purpose, cosmic value, cosmic explanation, and those are things that I explore to think about, well, taking all these accounts at face value, granting all the miracles or whatever else you want, taking all the premises as is, just taking heaven as described, um, how meaningful can it be? And I find that, uh, it turns out. Not very meaningful, uh, and so because of that, because of that exploration, it turns out like, well, I guess it just doesn't make that much, it's not this like big game changer, uh, either way in terms of meaning, and I'll give you one example which is cosmic purpose. I mean, wouldn't it be great if We had this cosmic purpose, this reason for our being here, that would be fantastic. Well, what could that reason be? And so if we look to theological accounts, a lot, uh, some people talk, some Christian accounts talk about heavenly bliss, uh, but bliss sounds blissful, but it doesn't sound meaningful. It's like a, a drug trip maybe just a state, an emotional state. OK, but that's, so let's, uh, but, but most of these accounts, um, many accounts realize this, and they're not, they say, well, we're not talking about bliss. We're talking about communion. When you commune with God and you can imagine this sort of sublime, intimate, transcendent relationship with a perfect being, uh, and wouldn't that be fantastic. All right, well, let's think about how that would work. First of all, it, in some ways, it is fantastic. You're gonna appreciate greatness like appreciating nature, appreciating nature or something like that. Uh, AND these accounts also talk about partaking of the divine nature that, you know, sounds, sounds great. Certainly more meaningful than bliss. However, there's some problems. Uh, FIRST of all, the relationship is profoundly unequal, right? Uh, AND so it sort of works against, uh, the value of equality in our relationships. It's not the be all and end all. Not everybody cares about that, but it's sort of like negative factor, at least, uh, it can't, you know, because it doesn't have that value. But even worse, in terms of a purpose, it's a pathetic purpose because it's derivative. Your, your whole reason for being here is just to appreciate something else. It's like you're being cast as audience in your theater group's play. You're a partaker of the divine nature. You're like sucking on God's infinite teeth. There's something that it does not. Uh, LIVE up to human potential about that as our purpose. Another cosmic purpose, and you some, there are some Buddhist accounts of this, some kabbalistic accounts of this as a cosmic purpose is to return to the mind of God or become one with the universe and, uh, your ego, you, you shed your ego, you cease to exist as an individual and you go back from whence you came, uh, you know, like a wave returns to the ocean. Um, AND your suffering is over, you're over, but what kind of a purpose is that? What was the point of the whole journey? That seems especially pointless to me. And so, and that's just an example of cosmic purpose, but similarly for all other kinds of things that we think about in terms of cosmic meaning, they just don't turn out to, to seem so great. It's not like it's nothing or pointless or like. Bad, but in terms of meaning, it just doesn't seem like very like a like a great source of meaning.

46:33 Ricardo Lopes: Oh, OK, so, um, I mean, do you think then that, er, the kinds of experiences that religious people report and their belief that they, for example, will be in commune with God in the end. Afterlife or even as in this life as they understand it, they're trying to do their best to fulfill God's mission or the mission that God supposedly gave them. Do you think that that can be meaningful at all, that can give them some sort of cosmic meaning or not at all?

47:12 Rivka Weinberg: It depends what the mission is. So usually the mission is some kind of goodness. To be kind to others, which has its own value, cosmic or not, because it's valuable. I don't think the cosmic aspect adds very, the fact that let's say it's God's purpose. Well, what is the the meaning of doing someone else's purpose? If it is consistent with your purpose, uh, then great. If it's not consistent with your purpose, that's actually bad. You're doing something contrary to your own purposes, uh, but if it's something consistent with your purpose, it's like. Helping your cousin pitch a tent. How much does that add, right? OK, so you, you're in a relationship with your cousin, it can be meaningful in that way. And if you are in a relationship with God, to be joining with God in a joint project of goodness can be meaningful in that way, but not sort of in a qualitatively different way than being joined with other people or joined or yourself in a project of, of, uh, good, when I say good. That's not a good word because goodness is just a placeholder for value, but kindness or love or whatever it is, um, uh, it's just not, it just doesn't add sort of a different kind of dimension to your meaning, uh, other than, you know, and so what, what if these same people were doing the same things without God, they would be just as meaningful. God just adds another agent. Into the, into the, into the mix, um, which again can be nice for a cooperative effort. Now you're not just building a house by yourself, you're doing it together with, with your friend. OK, that's an ad, that's like, it's a nice thing that can add a little meaning, but it's not going to change the kind of meaning.

48:52 Ricardo Lopes: OK, er, but I, I mean, I, I'm an atheist myself, uh, I mean I'm assuming, er er if not, please correct me, but I'm assuming you are as well. So, er, I mean, er what if religious people were right and God in fact existed? Do you think that would make any difference in terms of our cosmic meaning?

49:15 Rivka Weinberg: Uh, NOT very much. Uh, I am in, I hope I made this clear. When I think about cosmic meaning, and I'm thinking about religious accounts, I accept the premises. I accept if God exists, if, if you're going to commune with God exactly as you described, and I also try to imagine myself, what kind of God could exist? How could this work? And so even accepting the premises, all the premises, theological, natural, supernatural, all, right? I, I, I grant you whatever you want. And now tell me how it works and explain to me why it's meaningful. And when I consider the kinds of meaning and whether it's meaningful, I don't see that it is very significant either way, as I just described with, let's say, our cosmic purpose.

50:00 Ricardo Lopes: OK, uh, so from a purely naturalistic and materialistic perspective, uh, do you think we have Any cosmic value that we have any relevant role in the cosmos.

50:18 Rivka Weinberg: So when we think about cosmic value, we can think about our value in the cosmos. I think that people are very valuable. We are intrinsically valuable. We have Uh, moral potential, intellectual potential, and we are in the cosmos, so we have cosmic value, but I don't think it makes, I mean, who cares? That just tells you where your value is located on Earth, in your house, in the wider world. We have that kind of cosmic significance and, uh, and cosmic value. Now, there is, so that's based on our intrinsic value. The value that we have in ourselves. Value can be intrinsic. Value and significance can be intrinsic, and it is also, there's a relative aspect. Well, how relatively significant are we within the cosmos? Are we special? Are we the only ones who can, you know, do the things we do? Are we unique? And that would be a relative significance. We don't really know because we don't know that much about what's out there, but, but let's say, but we should hope, I think that we. We are not the only intellectual. I mean, first of all, we're not the only valuable beings on Earth. We share the planet with other, other valuable beings, but even if we were, uh, we should hope that there is more. We should hope that we're not so cosmically relatively significant because if we were, then that would mean that the cosmos has less value in it, and that's a high price to pay. So for example, if I have an oak tree on my front lawn that's beautiful and significant. Uh, IT is intrinsically significant for its beauty and its shade or whatever, well, it's beauty is this intrinsic significance, and it is relatively not so significant because there's plenty of oak trees. Should I hope that there should be that all the other oak trees should burn down or disappear so that I have the only oak tree? I don't think so because that would be a decrease in value, which is also meaningful. So in terms of cosmic significance, I don't think we, I think we are intrinsically significant cosmically, but I don't think that makes much of a difference, um. Because intrinsic significance lies in you and it doesn't matter where you are, um, and I think we should hope that we are relatively cosmically less significant because that would mean that we live in a more valuable cosmos.

52:31 Ricardo Lopes: But I mean if we are the only, I mean I was going to say the only intelligent species, that's probably not the correct way of putting it because there are other intelligent species even on our planet, but I mean, let me put it this way, if we are the only human-like species in the cosmos, does that make us more valuable?

53:01 Rivka Weinberg: It makes us more relatively significant. So, right, because you're the only one, and so relatively you are more significant in that way and more meaningful in that way. But then you are less, you know, but then you're in a then you're in a cosmos living with less meaning in it because it has less value. So, um, but that is because their significance has both an intrinsic and a relative aspect.

53:28 Ricardo Lopes: So let me ask you this, if the physicists are correct when they predict that somewhere in the future, I don't even know exactly how many years in the future, but even if it is, for example, a quadrillion years in the future, I mean just a ridiculous amount of time in the future at a certain point. The cosmos will no longer be able to sustain life and basically anything, any even small trace of what humans have ever done will just disappear. Will that, does that make human life or human life in terms of Thinking in collective terms less meaningful.

54:21 Rivka Weinberg: So that gets to a question of and forget the physicists, the biologists give us less time uh before we go extinct. But um uh that depends on the relationship between transience and meaning, right? Uh, SO, what effect does it have on meaning that something doesn't last forever? A rock lasts longer than you, but it's probably less meaningful than you are. Uh, AND so when thinking about this, I suggest that we think about an ice cream cone, a sand castle, and a house, right? If you're eating an ice cream cone, if it lasted forever, that would actually be contrary to its meaning. It would be too cold, it would be too sweet, too coin. It's not supposed to, so it's contrary to its purpose. It's easy to get another ice cream cone usually, um, and so, uh, and you don't put that much work into it. So, and, and uh. And so that's, that it's transience actually is consistent with its meaning. If you build a sand castle, you want it to last for a while. You don't want it to last forever. You know the tide is going to come in. Uh, uh, THAT'S your expectation. You don't put that much work into it. It's just a fun thing, uh, and it's, and, um, and your, and its purpose is for a few hours. So when you come back the next day. You make a new sandcastle. You're not sad to see the sandcastle gone, but if somebody walks over while you're building the sandcastle and kicks it over, you're upset because it didn't fulfill its purpose. You didn't get a chance to finish it. You didn't get a chance to admire it for a little while. That's the sandcastle. Now let's take a house. You put a lot of effort into it. It's not a lot of fun. Your expectation is that it's going to last a few lifetimes. That's, and that's its purpose, long-term shelter. If it burns down and, and you spend more money than you have, which everybody does when they build a house, and then, uh, uh, and then it burns down 1 year later, 2 years later, 5 years later, that undercuts its meaning. It was contrary to its purpose. You put in a lot of effort. And you expected it to last longer. So I think the relationship between transience and meaning turns on the purpose, the expectation, and the amount of effort, and that, uh, OK, so that's the relationship between transience and meaning. Each person, uh, we don't have a purpose. We have no ultimate meaning, so you don't have an ultimate purpose. The things you do in your life, uh, those things, um. Depending on what they are, sometimes their purposes are, their meaning is diminished when they don't last, and sometimes their meaning that it, it aren't is not diminished if it doesn't last. Uh, THINKING of humanity as a collective, uh. We would have to think. It's hard to think in those terms for me in this way, in terms of meaning, because then you're asking not about the meaning of a person, you're asking about the meaning of humanity. I don't think the meaning of humanity would, would be completely wiped out just because it doesn't last, because transience does not exclude meaning. It, while it lasted, it had meaning and so it's not, uh, and what, what is our expectation? What is our purpose? How much effort do we put into it? Uh, AND so maybe it would be more meaningful if it lasted, but it doesn't mean that it is meaningless because it doesn't last forever because we have to look at the relationship between transience and meaning.

57:29 Ricardo Lopes: Right, is there such a thing as cosmic justice, and what would cosmic justice mean

57:39 Rivka Weinberg: exactly? So some people talk about cosmic justice as an example of cosmic meaning because we have In two ways. People talk about it as making more sense because what sense does it make that good people should suffer and bad people shouldn't suffer, and in terms of the value of justice. So in terms of sense, uh, I don't think it has anything to do with sense because Being a good person. Has nothing to do with whether you're going to get cancer or not. Like, what does one have to do with the other? They're not causally related and you only think it doesn't make sense for a good person to get cancer if you decided that a good person shouldn't get cancer. Well, why shouldn't it? Cancer is just a random biological genetic variation or, or a mutation or however it, so, so that I don't think works at all in terms of explanation because I don't think one has to do with the other, um. If we're thinking about the value of justice, can we fix it in the afterlife? Because in this world, we see a lot of injustice. People do things, nothing happens to them, you know, um. Let's say you think there's a God. He's not taking care of you and you're being so devoted, and so maybe the afterlife is a way to kind of fix this. Uh, AND you can, so let's kind of imagine it. OK, uh, I lived a good life. I got sent to jail for some, for a crime I didn't commit. Somebody framed me. They laugh. They have a lot of fun about it. I die in prison. Very unjust. OK, I get to heaven. God's gonna fix it. The I go to heaven. Things are good for me. Does it wipe out my suffering on earth? No, but maybe my suffering on earth kind of pales in comparison to the infinite greatness in heaven. The people who, who framed me, they're punished, and they suffer, but they don't suffer forever because that would not be fair, because that would be infinite suffering for a finite crime. So eventually, they too, their suffering is relieved, and they also have an opportunity to redeem themselves and have heavenly, you know, and, and, and, uh, Have sort of things be good for them in the afterlife. And that lasts forever. So the suffering, their punishment pales in significance. And so it comes out sort of balanced in the end. Uh, Thad Metz talks about this, and he says, well, maybe we should just have like a quick, a quick settling of accounts. Like you have a short afterlife where you just get punished or rewarded and. And it's over. I think that's, uh, uh, that's a lot of metaphysical work for this kind of cure, um, and it, uh, I don't know how satisfying it is. So, um, but those are some of the problems with cosmic justice. You can get a little mileage out of it, but it doesn't seem sort of perfect in the way that we might think about if we really think through how it could work.

1:00:17 Ricardo Lopes: Do you think that the fact that we suffer and depending of course on the level of suffering that we experience, that er that has any bearing, On whether our lives are meaningful at all. I, I mean if we suffer more or just the plain fact that we suffer, does it make human life in this particular case, since we're focusing on humans less meaningful?

1:00:49 Rivka Weinberg: Does suffering make life more or less meaningful? I think in order to have a meaningful life, you have to accept that you will suffer. It's not that the suffering itself is meaningful. It's just in order to have a meaningful life, you got to take risks. You have to invest. You love people. That won't always work out. Someone might betray you. Somebody will die. Uh, YOU put, you put effort into your work, you'll have failures. If you don't have failures, you're not trying hard enough. So in order to have a meaningful life, you have to accept. Suffering that comes along with it. It's also comes along with the, with, with the, the effects of time which, which imposes losses. People die, things fall apart, and you have to accept that in order to have a meaningful life. So it's not that the suffering is meaningful in its own sake. It's just in order to have meaning, you will have to accept suffering. Now, if you don't have a meaningful life, you'll probably also suffer. So you might as well aim at the meaning, uh, but you might suffer a little less if, for example, you take the advice of some psychologist. Buddhists that live in the moment and don't think about the past or the future, you might have less suffering. You will also have less meaning because meaning borrows from the past and the future. Things are significant to you because of their past and also because of their future. And so, uh, that's why I say you have to accept suffering in order to have meaning, but it's not the suffering itself that is meaningful. It is just a, a condition that you have to, that comes along with a meaningful life.

1:02:13 Ricardo Lopes: OK, but do you think that beyond a certain point, a certain level of suffering where perhaps someone is suffering to such a degree that they are no longer able to properly, I mean, even perform just normal daily tasks or something like that, that renders their life, at least from that point onwards, less meaningful.

1:02:42 Rivka Weinberg: It could be maybe less meaningful if a person can no longer engage with the meaningful activities and projects that they did before. I will not say that their life is meaningless, because I think human, I think life is human people, persons are intrinsically valuable. And so they, so they'll still have a baseline meaning. But yes, it'll, it's less life and there are many conditions that can make life less meaningful, and being unable to engage in meaningful projects, efforts, pursuits, relationships will make life can of course make life less meaningful. If somebody's life is less meaningful. It doesn't mean it's meaningless. It could be meaningful because they have intrinsic value for their, maybe for their family or something like that. But of course, it's less meaningful than if they're awake and running around and doing things and engaging with their life.

1:03:26 Ricardo Lopes: Right, so, uh, let me ask you then about death, because of course earlier when I asked you, oh, if at a certain point, as physicists predict, uh, the universe is no longer able to sustain life. I mean that, that's sort of, let's say, uh, thinking about time and the, the time frame that we're considering there, it's sort of the ultimate, uh, sort of cosmic demise in a sense. But when thinking about more of individual human lives, I mean, how do you approach death? Does death itself make lives more or less meaningful?

1:04:10 Rivka Weinberg: So in, in, in literature on death and meaning, most people, some people argue that death makes life more meaningful. Some people argue that it makes life less meaningful. Many people argue that it does both, and I think it is really time that's playing that role and not death. So I'll just go through it briefly. So some people think that you need death for meaning because you need death for the risk and the reward and motivation. If you live forever, why would you ever? Have to do anything, you could always do it the next day. Could you, uh, could you really have courage for a friend because you're not gonna, you can't risk your life for them, uh, and I, you know, what kind of shape will your life have if you live forever and it doesn't end or you'll be bored. So, I don't, I think that it is time, and even if we live forever, we could still have these meaning-making, uh, features in our life because it is time that affords us that. Time, uh, gives you. Uh, RISK, reward, and a shape of a life. What do I mean that time gives you that? Time gives you the opportunity for that. So if you live forever, you would still have plenty of risk because immortality does not equal invulnerability. You would still be risking something if you loved somebody. How will they treat you back? You would still have time pressure. Uh, YOU have to fix up your house because you're, you know, you don't have, you don't, your water is not working. You can take a shower the next day. What does it matter if you're going to die or not? You still have that time pressure. Uh, YOU, you have to ask the girl out before she leaves the coffee shop. You still have motivation because you have time pressure, even if you're going to live forever. You still have the shape of your life. Yesterday, today, tomorrow, that gives you a narrative arc. So it is time that provides these background conditions for meaning that are often attributed to death. Uh, um, THEN if we think about, uh, the why death, so that's why I think you don't need death for meaning, you need time for meaning. Now, the way death is supposedly works against meaning is because everything comes to nothing and it annihilates you. Again, I don't think you need death for that. If you live forever, you, it is time that erodes meaning, uh, not all of it, because as we talked about, transience doesn't exclude meaning, but the ways in which some things fall apart, you work for justice and then society reverts to injustice. Uh, SO, uh, you, you, uh, you, you compose or music and nobody's listening to it anymore. Everybody forgot about it. You don't need death for that. That happens over time. So if you live forever. That would still happen. You would just watch it happen, and you would see it happen over and over again. Um, AND so you don't need, and that's why I think that you don't need that death doesn't make life more or less meaningful in the way that people think about. It is really time that does that. Now, Something that's a little bit different about death is that it annihilates you, which is a loss of meaning because you have value, and, and it's also just a loss because you care about yourself, but, uh, it's not like it makes your life meaningless in this way because everything that you did and cared about, whatever continues. Has meaning in its continuation and it also has meaning even if it doesn't continue to the extent in which the transience has not been, uh, has not sort of wiped away the meaning because it doesn't wipe all meaning away. The love that you, your mother loved you, if she dies when you're 55 years old, she still loved you, you're still gonna have that. Um, AND so it's not like it came to nothing just because the person dies, right? The Mona Lisa isn't meaningless just because da Vinci is dead. So if you're thinking about your own personal annihilation, we have to think again your personal transience in terms of expectation, purpose. Um, AND effort. You, you, you, we, you don't have ultimate meaning, so you have no ultimate purpose. Life is a lot of work, so maybe it's better that you don't do it forever and you expect to die. So I don't think in that way your annihilation is such a threat to your meaning, and that is why I think that it is not death that is needed for meaning and undercuts meaning. Instead, it is time that is needed for meaning and that also uh erodes some of our meaning, not all of it, but some of it.

1:08:14 Ricardo Lopes: Do you think that the fact that eventually all of us will be forgotten, I mean, if it's not 2 or 3 generations from now, I mean, even if it's 1000 years from now or even a million years from now, The fact that people no longer remember us and whatever we did during our lives, that makes our lives less meaningful.

1:08:48 Rivka Weinberg: Uh, I think so again, that's, that's kind of still asking about transience and meaning. So, to the degree to sometimes transient stuff, your life might be more meaningful if you are remembered for longer, if you have a, because that would mean you had a greater impact, and impact is an aspect of meaning. It would mean that maybe you did things that were more significant, which is an aspect of meaning. Uh, SO yes, long lasting longer if it's consistent with the purpose and the effort and the expectation, uh, you know, then, then it would, uh, enhance the meaning of your life. But then the fact that you don't last longer doesn't wipe out all the meaning of your life because transience. Doesn't wipe all meaning out. It only erodes meaning to the extent that it is inconsistent with the purpose that it is for it not to last, and you know, you put in work and so in that way it, it, uh, it erodes meaning. It does not wipe it all out, um, and yes, it usually in many ways depending on what we're talking about, uh, lasting longer can be consistent with the purpose and in that way would enhance the meaning.

1:09:58 Ricardo Lopes: Do you think that beings that are not able to understand the meaning in this more intellectualized or abstract kind of way, so for example, nonhuman animals or even perhaps humans who suffer from Some severe form of cognitive impairment that the simple fact that they are not able to understand meaning in the way that we are exploring here today makes in some way their lives less meaningful.

1:10:35 Rivka Weinberg: Less meaningful? Yes. Uh, BECAUSE again, if we're thinking of meaning, we're thinking about, uh, engaging with, fulfilling your human potential, engaging with, with values, knowledge, beauty, love, truth, freedom, all of these objectively valuable things, uh, uh, all these objective values. Can you do things for a point? Can you act for a reason? Do you have significance? And, and does your Life makes sense. Does it have explanation? Uh, SO again, on all the characteristics of meaning, uh, uh, like I said, purpose, point, value, explanation, impact, significance, uh, your life will be more significant if you are able to reflect on it in that way and engage with it in that way. Uh, YES, that doesn't mean that you have no meaning. Uh, um, AND I, I can't, I didn't really think that I'm not going to say, certainly I'm not going to say that animals have no meaning. Animals have intelligence and they have emotions, uh, and it varies. And I am not a zoologist or a biologist, so I'm not speaking about, I'm not going to pretend to have authority on that. Um, BUT if you're thinking about these kinds of capacities, they are capacities that, uh, Enhance and increase meaning. And so when they are reduced, yes, I think meaning is also reduced. That doesn't mean that if somebody doesn't have cognitive capacity, their life is meaningless. But as we talked about, if somebody's in a coma, their life is less meaningful than it used to be. If some, right, and so in that way, yes, I'm going to bite the bullet and say yes.

1:12:07 Ricardo Lopes: OK, so, uh, earlier we talked about religious people and their belief in God and God's mission and all of that. Do the narratives that we create for our lives provide us with any, any meaning? Should we take them seriously?

1:12:28 Rivka Weinberg: So there's a, there's a lot written on narrative meaning, and that, uh, David Veelman writes about that, that the story you tell your life is very crucial to the meaning. I think that narrative value lies in the explanation aspect of meaning. It can make your life make more sense to you. And in that way, I think it is part of the explanation aspect of everyday meaning. I don't think it has a central a role as some people give it, right? I'm just giving it this role and explanation. Um, AND Ito Lando, who wrote a great book about meaning called Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World. Yes, I'm plugging that book. Excellent book. Um, HE, uh, he It's not in this book. He wrote a paper about this, argues against narrative meaning. He's like, you're mixing it up with value because he says, let's say we have a, uh, a drug dealer that their life has a lot of narrative meaning. If I, you know, their, their, their prior, you know, their, their efforts lead to greater success over time. Everything makes sense. But, and then you have somebody who just lives a life that's sort of more disconnected and less, and has less of a tight narrative or maybe their narrative arc is off and they have more success and happiness at the beginning and less at the end. But whose life is more meaningful? You're still going to go for the one that had uh more positive value and significance and impact and all of that. And so that's an argument against giving narrative, uh, meaning such a cent or nar nar narrative, such a central place in our conception of meaning. I do think it has a place, but I think its place is lies in explanation, and the explanation part of everyday meaning, and it's not the only way in which our lives have that, have explanation, that makes sense.

1:14:05 Ricardo Lopes: Going back to the topic of time, er, do you think that living in the presenter reduces the agony of time's erosions?

1:14:16 Rivka Weinberg: It, yes, I think it can reduce the agony of time's erosions. It can help you suffer less, but it will also reduce your meaning because the whole live in the moment, uh, if you're really living in the moment, first of all, it's impossible. You're living in the, in the moment, you're living like an amnesiac. You have no, your life doesn't make any sense at all. So it's not really advice that we can take because that is not how we are, we are wired to learn from the past and plan for the future and live in tense time. Uh, SO that's the impracticality of it. But let's say we succeeded. That would be terrible for meaning, because if we think about meaning, meaning borrows from the past and the future. So your, your, your candlesticks that you got from your grandmother are significant to you because of the past. Your, uh, the piano lessons you're giving to your child are significant to you because of the moment, but also because of the future. And so if you're going, you fight, let's say, uh, the value of justice. You try to right a wrong that was in the past, you build, you aim for a better future, and love, love is enhanced by the history you have together, which makes things more intimate with it, it projects into the future. You have faithfulness over time. All of these are ways in which you can see that every aspect of meaning, uh, especially purpose and point, but impact, significance and value, they are all, uh, more meaningful when you, when you, uh, appropriately. Appreciate and learn from the past, live in the future. I mean, you know, do, do whatever you're supposed to be doing in the present and project into the future that is a much more meaningful life, even if, as we talked about, you will then have to accept the suffering that comes with, with time's erosions and losses. Uh, AND so you might suffer less if you live in the moment. It's good advice for that. It is very terrible advice for a more meaningful life. It will give you a less meaningful life.

1:16:06 Ricardo Lopes: Mm. So, let me read a quote from your book and ask you to explain it. So at a certain point in your book, you say, quote, a meaningful life is one lived in the fullness of time, appropriately appreciating the past, present, and future, accepting suffering, acknowledging our tragic losses and limitations, and making the most of everyday meaning, end quote. So could you explain that?

1:16:36 Rivka Weinberg: Yes, I think, uh, it kind of is consistent with what I just said. If you want to have a really meaningful life, you learn from the past. It enhances, uh, the meaning in your life because it is the way to appreciate value most fully or to engage with value most fully, to think about impact. The past has an impact. You have an impact on the future. Things are significant to you because of their past and because of their future value, purpose, point, it all is more meaningful when you learn from and appreciate the past, uh, and also plan for and project into the future. Uh, SO, uh, meaningful life is one lived in the fullness of time. It, you will have to accept suffering because that comes along with time. Time includes entropy, things fall apart, relationships. Things that you, you, you know, uh, your projects, that your efforts, things, time erodes meaning in that way and that makes us suffer, and we will have to accept that people die, people get sick, so, uh, you will have to accept the suffering that comes along with it, uh, but that is the way to live a meaningful life. You're gonna have to accept the suffering that. That is part of living a life and time, but that is also the way to have a a meaningful life. You engage with everyday meaning. In the fullness of time.

1:17:58 Ricardo Lopes: OK, so, uh, I mean, I, I have one more question related to your book and then, uh, I also want to ask you a question that was, uh, forward to me by a patron of the show. So, um, When it comes to a nihilistic perspective and what the nihilists tend to say, I mean when they say that life has no meaning at all, I mean, what do you make of that? Do you think that perhaps They are conflating all of these three types of meaning and perhaps they would be in a sense right if they would just be talking about ultimate meaning. Do you think that they can have a point even when it comes to the other kinds of meaning? What is your perspective on that?

1:18:53 Rivka Weinberg: That's really interesting, and I never thought about it that way because I don't. I think if they're talking about ultimate meaning they're right, but I don't think they're talking about it because I think nihilists deny all value. Nothing has value, and I think that's a mistake. I'm an objectivist about value. I think a lot of things have objective value, and I also think that no one's really a nihilist because everyone cares about their own suffering. That's a value. Right, so, um. I, I just don't think nihilism really is a, you know, when you get down to the core, I don't think it's a real thing. I don't think anybody can really have that view. I think most people have some value, care about something, even if it's just their own. It's like, do you want to be tortured? No. So you're not a nihilist. You care about something, something has this value to you. Uh, AND so I don't think that that is what the nihilists are saying. Maybe that's kind of motivating them. And if they got clearer on it. Uh, THEY could stop being nihilists and just say, well, I have everyday meaning, but I don't have ultimate meaning. So maybe I got something to offer them.

1:19:59 Ricardo Lopes: So, I, I mean, do you think that they are mistaken? Yes. OK, OK, so, uh, let me ask you then, uh, the question coming from my patron, Robert Sundstrom. He says, uh, I believe Dr. Weinberg in another podcast has mentioned she would argue against pet ownership. It would be interesting to hear some. Summary of her arguments on that, although it may not pertain to the book or topic of this week's interview. So I mean if you could just make a brief comment on that question,

1:20:37 Rivka Weinberg: please. Yes, so I did write a paper on that. It's called The Opposite of an Ode to the Human-Pet Relationship, but it is not yet published. As you might imagine, not everybody wants to hear about that. Uh, SO, uh, my basic arguments against the human-pet relationship are that it is disingenuous, full of lies, as we can see, even in this, in the, every, all the euphemistic speech, we talk about, uh, creating an animal when we're putting it in a cage. You talk about, people talk about being their, their doggy mom or their cats, you know, your dog's mother is another dog that you stole your dog from. And if you rescued your dog, you rescued it from someone who stole it from someone else. Um, AND so, uh, so many of the, uh, we talk about spaying and neutering instead of, you know, um, Castraating, uh, we talk about a habitat instead of a cage. Uh, THERE'S, there's all kinds of euphemisms that really just pervade our conversation. It's not just one euphemism. Like we have euphemisms about sex and, and things that are a death which are uncomfortable or private. Here, when we talk about the human pet relationships, it's just pervasively euphemistic and, and all in one direction, obscuring how, uh, how Obscuring how we, how it's more like a pseudo benevolent subjugation. So that's one problem. It's disingenuous and that also makes it disrespectful. And so the second, as I also argue, so it's disingenuous, it is disrespectful, and um Uh, pathetic for meaning not living up to potential for humans and animals. It's disrespectful to the animal to take over its entire life in that way, uh, and it's disrespectful to yourself because you are faking something and to fool yourself is disrespectful to yourself, um, and it is also pathetic. It's pathetic for an animal to go from being owning. Itself and being part of its species and the world and instead to just being yours and belonging to somebody else, being so dependent on you in that way, uh, on a person, and it's pathetic for the person to want that kind of relationship, that kind of extreme inequality. Uh, AND even if you say, well, I have to do everything for my dog, I have to feed it, I have to clean up after it. Yeah, but you still, you still control its whole life and you don't have to do any of it if you don't want to. Uh, YOU could just not have a dog or, you know, give it, give it to somebody else, which people do all the time or. Kill it, which we also let people do, um, and, uh, it is also pathetic to want, and this comes up a lot, especially with dog ownership, that dogs will love you unconditionally, and I think that it's pathetic of a person to go after that kind of unconditional love. You should meet the conditions and be worthy of love. Uh, THAT about sums it up, I think.

1:23:28 Ricardo Lopes: OK, OK. Would you be willing to come back on the show sometime in the future to talk more about that?

1:23:35 Rivka Weinberg: Absolutely.

1:23:37 Ricardo Lopes: OK, awesome. And do you think that this conversation was meaningful?

1:23:44 Rivka Weinberg: Yes, I think it was very meaningful because we exchanged ideas, so that's a kind of respect for each other and a respect for the audience and sort of a kind of relationship. Hopefully this. Also, um, uh, increases knowledge, which is good for everybody, uh, gives me things to think about some of your questions, gives you and the audience things to think about. I hope it enriches people's lives, and I hope that it has an impact and a significance in helping people understand their lives and live a meaningful life.

1:24:17 Ricardo Lopes: OK, so, uh, I guess I will trust the expert here. Unless,

1:24:23 Rivka Weinberg: if we fail, that if we failed, that would be sad and less meaningful, but I feel like we had some success. So thank you.

1:24:32 Ricardo Lopes: OK, awesome. So let me just say that the book is again the meaning of it all ultimate meaning, everyday meaning, cosmic meaning, death, and time. And of course I will be leaving a link to it in the description of the interview. And Dr. Weinberg, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show again. I really love the book and I recommend it to my audience, to everyone in my audience. So thank you so much for doing this and for writing the book.

1:24:59 Rivka Weinberg: Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here and I'm really glad to hear that you liked the book. It means a lot to me.

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