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Robert Nozick: The Meaning Of Life

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Life is often depicted with a metaphor. Each day people wake up and resume their own personal rat race. Whether that be the rat race of clawing your way up the corporate latter or the rat race of filling out multiple applications for university admissions. With human nature constantly striving to improve and attain goals, one odd questions was presented by the widely known philosopher Robert Nozick. If there was a machine that could simulate an alternate reality full of pleasure and success would you hook up to it? Personally, I think letting a machine simulate an entire life while you sit in a tank lacks true meaningfulness. Among many other things, the good life requires autonomy and some sense of meaning to be truly successful. Plugging …show more content…

In his article, The Meaning of Life, Stephen Law explains, “… in order for your life to be genuinely meaningful, you must exhibit a kind of autonomy. You must be …show more content…

Nozick’s principal motivation in posing this question was to disprove the ideals of hedonism (cite). Hedonism is a philosophical term to describe that pleasure is the most important component of human life and should be sought after above all else. Nozick’s results found that most people would not hook up to the machine which acts as an agent in disproving the theories of hedonism. When you break it down, true value appears to be more highly coveted than attaining pleasure. If you spent the majority of your life being deceived by a machine it becomes apparent that your life is devoid of any value in regards to joining fellow humans in the fight to become successful and by doing so improving the lives of all. Sometimes the struggle and hardship of reaching for goals can eventually improve quality of life. For example, if an individual studied extremely hard and endured long, restless nights to secure entry into a medical program, the very act of struggling and stressing could make this student stronger. After being under constant stress the student could learn how to cope with stress which could help them greatly in the future when they are posed with daunting tasks. The student could learn the value of a hard-earned position at a hospital which could result in greater

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In Susan Wolf’s article “The Meaning of Lives” she argues a meaningful life is engaged in positive projects to some degree of success. She also believes that the pursuits with meaning have an objective value that connects with the rest humanity. Susan Wolf’s did not write about her thoughts on the concept of plugging oneself into an experience machine like described by Christopher Grau in “Bad Dreams, Evil Demons, and the Experience Machine”, but her argument for what gives meaning to a life makes it clear that she would argue someone should choose to not plug in. The reason a person would choose to plug into an experience machine is because they could live out all of their fantasies and avoid all the discomfort experienced in real life. But

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Living in Conditions that Ultimately Made Them Stronger John Quincy Adams once stated, “patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.” In the world today, obstacles have an impact on the way one goes about their respective life. These obstacles range from emotions to illness to social class. How one interprets those obstacles decides whether that life goes down as a success or failure. As a society, we often admire those who take their obstacles and use them to create a better life.

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The question of meaning in life is a problem discussed intensively in different scientific areas such as psychology, philosophy, sociology, and even anthropology. This book by Susan Wolf offers a perspective which approaches the problem from a philosophical point of view. However, her focus is not on the question of the ultimate meaning of human life, as in some previous philosophical works, but on the question of how people seek and maintain meaningful lives. This focus shifts Wolf ’s work more to the psychological point of view, because it does not ask whether the world and human life has a higher purpose; rather, it asks what are the conditions in which a person experiences that his or her life is meaningful? Or, in other words, he or she

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The Pursuit of Grades Over Happiness There are many accomplishments that we have achieved, yet many to achieve, and the race towards them never seems to stop. Well, this is the case for many students because the race towards achieving high grades never comes to an end. Grades are meaningless in the grand scheme of things, as they do not control the rest of your life, but yet are still overly looked upon and can affect a student’s life drastically. However, a poet once said, “Life is not a race, but a journey, to be savored each step of the way” (Nancye Sims).

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Have you ever wondered why life was created and what your purpose is? Well, you probably have, you just don’t remember it. We ask ourselves a variety of questions every day. It might be a simple or hard question you are facing throughout the day, but the answer is the main thing you need to remember. The meaning of life is more than just a simple question like the others we ask ourselves.

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Learning how to face your hardships and succeed They are negative situations that can compel an impact in your life and could teach you to become better than what you are and push you to succeed in life. Tragedy and hardships act as sources of motivation for betterment and perseverance. Teenagers often have to endure hardship and tragedies that motivate them to better themselves.

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“Students suffer from anxiety, stress and mental health issues due to high cost of colleges (Dr. Teresa Sullivan).” More than 41% of students suffer from one form, the amount of stress added to students to pay off high student loans and/or not be able to pay for their next classes or even the material needed is alarming. We could relieve the stress off students which will in return allow them to focus on their school work and get better results. 2. Students can be more successful in their education and will have the information and knowledge needed to assist and give back to their communities.

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Moor: “Should We Let Computers Get Under Our Skins?” In the argumentative essay, “Should We Let Computers Get Under Our Skins?”, Moor argues that the era of cyborgs-part human and part computer-is coming whether we like it or not, but we should accept a policy of “responsible freedom” along with it. He argues against the thoughts of not allowing cyborgs. He thinks that instead of trying to fight and go against this coming of computer help, we should accept it but be aware of the things that come along with it. We should approach it with having the freedom to be able to decide whether we want computer implants or not, but also by being responsible in knowing the harms that could come with it.

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Leading a human life is a full-time occupation, to which everyone devotes decades of intense concern.” (Nagel, 719) Nagel also argues that we all reflect about whether life is worth it or not. To avoid this this absurdity, we try to give meaning to our lives through what we do “seeking fulfillment in service to society, the state, the revolution, the progress of history, the advance of science, or religion and the glory of God.” (Nagel, 720) But this leads to the conflict that if this thing that gives meaning to our life, it must be significant.

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To reiterate, this movie seems to be leaning toward the audience’s personal views on life and its meaning and purpose. Each individual should decide for him/herself the meaning of life. The ending of the movie seemed very anticlimactic. The presenter explains the meaning of life so casually and with no serious regard or consideration: “Well, it’s nothing special. Try to be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and

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Every human has four endowments self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom. The power to choose, to respond, to change. The ability to be independent is something that not everyone possesses. You need to be independent in order to survive in the world.

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Thus, stressors affecting students can be categorized as academic, financial, time or health related, and self- imposed (Goodman, 1993). Academic stressors include the student’s perception of the extensive knowledge base required and the perception of an inadequate time to develop it ((Carveth et al, 1996). Students report experiencing academic stress at predictable times each semester with the greatest sources of academic stress resulting from taking and studying for exams, grade competition, andthe large amount of content to master in a small amount of time (Abouserie, 1994). College students have many obstacles to overcome in order to achieve their optimal academic performance. It takes a lot more than just studying to achieve a successful college career.

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Therefore, When we give meaning to our life, I believe we also have to be realistic and focus on our meaning for living and set concrete goals. If we set our meaning of life to becoming the biggest super model in the world yet you 're not working towards it or you just set an unrealistic goal. Then eventually that 's going to alter your life 's meaning and cause you to live in Denial, and unhappy. Our life 's meaning comes from within us it 's something we have to think hard

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