The Fountain (film)
The meaning of life in this film can't clearly be inferred, but it's a negative can be ruled out. The Fountain is the story of a 21st-century doctor, Tom Creo (Hugh Jackman), losing his wife Izzi (Rachel Weisz) to cancer in 2005. As she is dying, Izzi begs Tom to share what time they have left together, but he is focused on his quest to find a cure for her. While he's working in the lab, she writes a story about 16th century Queen Isabella losing her territory to the Inquisition while her betrothed, conquistador Tomás Verde plunges through the Central America forest in Mayan territory, searching for the Tree of Life for his Queen. Eventually Izzi does die, and Tom doesn't want to admit to himself that he was ever wrong for trying to save her rather then surrender to death. Tom believes "death is a disease, and {He} is going to find a cure." Which he eventually does find: Future tom is the version of him in the far future after the apocolopse, traversing the cosmos in his biosphere like space ship with the tree of life. He is afraid of dying because he doesn't want to surrender to death, the one that took his beloved from him against all efforts. The Fountain doesn't really tell us what the meaning of life is, but what it is not. And with the end of the movie hugh jackman giving in to death from the begging of Izzi (who manefests in his mind to stop him from his futile journey to stopping death and viewing it as a negative entity) to "let go." Even with Immortality (as long as he is with the tree of life) Tom Creo decides to die, because he has learned the meaning of life has nothing to do with preserving it.
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Interstellar (film)
One of the most touching scenes in Christopher Nolan's sci-fi film is when Cooper (played by Mathew McConaughey) returns to the Endurance, their space ship, after 23 years have passed and Cooper sees the video messages that have been transmitted to him over that time. SOME BACKGROUND INFORMATION: they discover that the planet is so close to Gargantua (the planet they are investigating as a future Earth) that it experiences severe gravitational time dilation; each hour on the surface is seven years on Earth. So that means in that 3 hours and 15 minutes Cooper was gone, he missed 23 years of his daughter's life. In the Scene when Cooper is watching these messages, "Murph" (his daughter) displays her anger at him for leaving. In response, Cooper tearfully says he is sorry. In a later scene where Cooper falls into a black hole and emerges in a five-dimensional location, where time appears as a spatial dimension and portals show glimpses of Murph's childhood bedroom at various times. Cooper gets very emotional and repeats to an unaware Murph, "Don't let me leave." Its obvious there that Cooper would have chosen to stay with his daughter and die with the rest of the world then to save Earth. Cooper has shown constantly throughout the movie that his daughter's life is of utmost importance because with out her his life is meaningless. Interstellar shows us that the people we love are what give our lives meaning.
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Alan Watts Interpretation of Oriental Philosophy
Like many things in life, life itself is purposeless. But it doesn't carry the negative connotation that western cultures give the word purposeless, but in Chinese culture purposeless is a great and blissful description. In Chinese culture, they believe Chinese culture is purposeless in a way that it is not tied down to meaning. Watts uses musical as an example of purposeless. Music doesn't get anywhere, it isn't efficacious in anything practical. But it is an institution that we all love and appreciate. It is exactly the same with our life: it has no purpose. Its like the waves washing against the shore going on and on forever with no meaning. Like the birds going poo-tee-weet, or have colors and designs on them -- they say its a mating call or they have created these designs for self-protection; all in order to survive. Watts claims this is the "engineering view of the universe." When asked the question why do butterflies and birds have all the colors and designs, they say it is in order to survive. But when asked why do they try to survive: what is so important for living, they have no answer.
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Aristotle's Ergon Argument
Ergon in greek means "work" or "job" or "function." Aristotle reasoned that just as artificial things (such as tools and workers) have characteristic capabilities with respect to which they are judged to be good or do well, so each kind of natural thing (including plants and humans) has characteristic capabilities with respect to which can be judged, objectively, to be good or do well. For plants and animals these mostly have to do with nutrition and reproduction, and in the case of animals, pleasure and pain. For humans, these vegetative and animal capabilities are necessary but not sufficient for our flourishing. Since reason and the use of language are the unique and highest capabilities of humans, the cultivation and exercise of intellectual friendships and partnerships, moral and political virtue, scientific knowledge and (above all) theoretical philosophy, was argued by Aristotle to be the ultimate purpose of human life. So fulfilling our "Ergon" is to contemplate philosophy and by doing so we are reaching our fullest potential.
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Surfer Philosophy: The Meaning of Life
This category is one of my personal favorite. To long time surfers, surfing is more than a sport, but a way of life. Don't laugh Mrs. Fajardo just here me out. Especially if you speak to surfers who have been doing it their whole life in someplace like Bali, Indonesia or in Honolulu, Hawaii they will tell you that meaning in life comes from simply enjoying it. You may have thought it was to catch the biggest and baddest waves, but that would be looking at it from a surfer athlete's point of view. As a surfer philosopher, or surfing philosopher rather (lol see image 1), you surf for fun not for numbers. And when you spend 3-9 hours everyday out on the water surfing waves (riding one wave itself is already an incredible feeling) you are literally saturated with fun. You couldn't see life any other way. So there you go, on behalf of all surfers, what gives life meaning is living it to the fullest and enjoying every minute of it. Mele Kalikimaka!
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