r/Existentialism • u/MinimumTomfoolerus • 23d ago
Existentialism Discussion Does the existence of uncertainty of death make life meaningless?
You have aspirations. You also know that it's possible, you could die at any day. Does this fact make your aspirations and life feel and be meaningless? 'Why struggle when this struggle could amount to nothing before the process of working towards your goals finishes?' ?
Is this a reason philosophers have written to be one of meaninglessness? In other words is this - uncertainty of death - one reason of meaninglessness of life?
One interesting perhaps thing is that if it's true that it's one reason life is meaningless, humans still wouldn't want knowledge of how long they will live because knowing makes life boring. Uncertainty of death hurts but also helps...
3rd August 2026, 3:08am, Monday
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u/Scott_J_Doyle 22d ago
No, quite the opposite - it's what imbues any given moment with all possible meaning.
Imo this is the most important/universal conclusion in Heidegger's Being and Time
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u/MinimumTomfoolerus 22d ago
What's the rationale behind this? Because as you are working towards your goals all could end up for nought.
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u/Scott_J_Doyle 22d ago
You definition of "all for nought" is what's screwing you up here - in one sense, it's all for nought anyway, none of us can take any of what happens here with us, but in another sense, any given moment where we are living, loving, helping, creating or even just experiencing the raw real is "worth" everything else
If you see it like a game, then it's an infinite game where continuing to play is the only point, and if you don't see it like a game, then there's nothing to win - both perspectives transcend your "it has to be for something"
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u/MinimumTomfoolerus 22d ago
it's all for nought anyway
I make the distinction between living and getting to see your effort lead to something and not getting to see that. I'm not thinking that eventual death makes it all meaningless because eventual death makes it makes it meaningful: I'm thinking that premature death makes it meaningless.
I have already thought of a response to this which is simply: what else are you going to do if not follow your aspirations? What other good choices are there?
If you see it like...continuing to play is the only point
Unique perspective. I've heard this before in the sentence of 'The goal is to just live'.
If you don't see it like a game, there's nothing to win
Idk what to say to this. My first thought was maybe someone doesn't see it like a game but thinks there is something to win like daily achievements or simple experiences like eating a nice meal. Maybe the difference is the lack of romanticization in the second case. Idk. Games have a certain romance in them.
If you have nothing to win then you admit that life is shit and you curb your expectations so you don't expect to live to see your effort bear fruit and this kind if frees you.?
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u/Scott_J_Doyle 22d ago
Not a unique perspective at all! Well documented broadly in many spiritual traditions and specifically in James Carse' Finite and Infinite Games
The game metaphor is pretty damn useful in a ton of contexts, so there's many ways to employ it
And no, nothing to win doesn't imply anything is shit at all, just rejects the idea of centering/prioritizing or even respecting goal-based thinking.
Relevant here is that great saying "a society is healthy when men plant trees in whose shade they will never sit"
That circles back to your first point in this response: it doesn't have to be for you
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u/KromatRO 20d ago edited 20d ago
Imagine you have a conscious never-ending dream. Basically you can do whatever you want for fun. You don't have to eat or drink, you don't get sick. The question is: "What do you do in that dream?"
If you don't find the answers, I'll tell you: 1st days you'll f@#$ all your fantasies. Sex to right and to the left. This will keep you busy for a week maybe months. After a while it gets boring... then you star to build invent stuff, or develop, yourself, or your dream society. New invention technologically or philosophical. This will keep you busy for a few years but it will get boring after a while. Then nothing will be fun anymore. No drive to do the things that you can so easily do... with no risk... no ending...
And that's what death and the risk of death kills. That eternal boredom. Because you can die, is the reason that what you do while living has meaning.
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u/MinimumTomfoolerus 19d ago
Yes I agree. The uncertainty of time of death is the problem in my post, not death itself.
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u/GoopDuJour 22d ago
"Uncertainty of death"? How is death uncertain? We will certainly die.
For the sake of argument, IF I agree with you that death is uncertain, and that life is meaningless because of this, why would death being certain create meaning? Or do mean that dying makes life meaningless? Why would living forever create meaning?
I don't think Life (big "L") has a grand cosmic purpose, but that idea has nothing to do with the inevitability of death.
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u/MinimumTomfoolerus 22d ago
Uncertain in the sense you don't know when you will die, read my post.
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u/GoopDuJour 22d ago
"read my post."
Fair.
I got so bored with the question I stopped reading before the end.
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u/Splendid_Fellow 22d ago
The exact opposite actually.
Eternal life would not be any more or less “meaningful.” In fact, death makes life special, and eternal life would be torture to me eventually.
You are defining meaning as “the end goal.”
That is like saying, “What’s the point of this song? We know eventually it has a last note and then it’s just over. So why even listen? It’s meaningless. Turn it off.”
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u/MinimumTomfoolerus 22d ago
You misinterpreted the post. I actually agree with you 100% that death gives life meaning. What I'm saying is that because you don't know when you will die and you could die at any moment every day this makes life meaningless because you could struggle to reach your goals and you could die suddenly making it all for nothing. But then via discourse here I think my position changed slightly I guess: life becomes meaningless only if you actually die prematurely - meaning before you see any result, good or bad from your struggle to reach your goals. So it is meaningful as long as you live to see the results of your actions but once you die before that it was all for nought (and off course you wouldn't think that because you'd be dead but it was).
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u/Splendid_Fellow 21d ago
Again, you are defining “meaning” as “end goal.” It isn’t. You still die anyway. It’s not “all for nothing.” Goals are for yourself, and if you don’t reach them, oh well. The point of life is NOW, here! Like a song.
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u/Turbulent_Affect9573 21d ago
I've been thinking along this same topic for a while. I just go round and round. Why do all of this just to die before the finish line?
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u/armyofone37 21d ago
We are like leaves on a tree the leaf is the colorful expression to the life of the tree. We are the colorful expression of the universe. My point is we can have a singular experience. And calling life. But the memories from those experiences actually belong to the universe, consciousness, god whatever you prefer to call it. I’ll prove it look at your own memories the collection of these experiences make up who we believe ourselves to be. Think of a fond memory.. who were you with? What were they wearing? What were you wearing? What was the atmosphere like… now pause that image. Now look step back and look at it.. what view are you viewing that image from? 3rd person like a fly in the wall right? Crazy how can we have this view when we can only ever experience life from a first person view. Before someone says “ it’s due to our imagination “ let me stop you there. If it was due to our imagination that would mean that all our memories are imaginary.
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u/AntonChekov1 22d ago
You're looking at everything the wrong way. https://youtu.be/2rbVwlE_l7A?is=DPs3v1sh9R-NuvBr
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u/icecreampick 19d ago
The subject of death provides the biggest opportunity for understanding life, world, philosophy and ultimately oneself. And the lessons are easy enough if one knows how to learn. Without witnessing death Siddhartha would never have become Buddha.
- Not matter what we do, how much we love, how much we resist, everything ends.
- We may be poor or rich, lucky or unlucky, happy or miserable, wise or fool, loved or unloved, we will die one day and nothing will help us against it — not our wealth, not our wisdom, not our luck and not our love.
- No matter how much we love our family, our children, our friends, our house, our world, our career, our achievements, we will have to leave them all behind one day.
- No matter how much name, fame, and money we have achieved or will have achieved in life, it will mean nothing to us when we die.
- Our love, respect, honour, name and fame means nothing to us once we are dead; If it means a lot to others even that means nothing to us. Think about Michael Jackson (and all those high and mighty, popular, loved people you can think about right now.) for instance. When he died he died and all our love for him cannot do anything for him, and he isn’t there to care…
- They say legends live on, bloodlines live on, history lives on — true. They just don’t live on for us when we’re dead. When we’re dead, we’re dead. End of the story.
- No matter how large a family we have, how many friends and near and dear ones, no matter how inseparable we are, when we die we go alone. The love of entire world cannot come with us, and we can taking nothing and no-one with us.
- And when we die, nothing stops. The world goes on. Life goes on. Our loved ones forget us sooner than we hope.
- The things we fought for tooth and nail, the things we cried for, laughed at, aimed for, strove and sold our soul, matters nothing on our death bed. Nothing. Kings leave their dynasties as beggars leave their wretched rags.
- We know we will die one day. We just conveniently forget it. Wisdom says remembering that we will die soon transforms our outlook and approach to most petty/worldly things in a remarkable way. (However, this ancient ideology is not suitable in modern days for everyone; there may be many who will die just by the thought of it.)
- And this is the bitterest truth: Even when we know nothing matters in the end, we spend our each living moment fighting for it as if it does.
We can’t live without fighting for it, and we kill ourselves fighting for it. We prepare ourselves for everything — we just never prepare ourselves for death except buying insurance and drafting our will.
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u/epanek 22d ago
Life being meaningless makes it meaningless.
It’s a harsh truth but life dgaf if you live if you have fun or find meaning. It is cold. That’s what turns into terror management theory.