Matt Fradd

It doesn't mean that nothing has any meaning except the meaning I give to it.

Well, the two different things that he's talking about, of course, I've come across that particular distinction, passive and active nihilism, I haven't come across.

But he says, well, maybe the universe doesn't have any meaning, but you can still create meaning.

I'm sorry, the only reason that we can even do what people call creating meaning is that there are some meanings already there.

I am building a meaningful life with my wife, and my children are grown now, but with my children, with my grandchildren.

And that life came into being because of my activity and her activity and partnership.

But the only reason that we are able to engage in this meaningful activity and bring something about that wasn't there before was that marriage already existed and it had a meaning and it was a good meaning.

And it means turning the wheel of the generations and bringing new lives into existence.

That was already there.

We can do these riffs, if you want to put it that way, on meanings that are already embodied, that reality is already pregnant with, but we can't make something up from absolute scratch.

That's just crazy.

Yeah, but you can't really make yourself happy that way.

Giving up, you know, the idea everything is meaningless and so I'm just going to embrace the meaninglessness of it.

There are two things I want to say about that.

The first thing is you notice that she wasn't actually giving a philosophical argument for any of this.

She wasn't giving a reason to believe that this is true.

What she was saying is, well, this is easy for people.

This might be a relief for some people.

If you have this kind of personality type, this might be attractive to you.

That's not the question.