It's not necessarily
bad (I don't like to use words like that because it implies objectivety
). I said it was depressing because then you're faced with the reality that the vast majority of people that have ever lived have contributed nothing to society. Regardless, I share that view sometimes, and hold the opinion that the world would be a better society by most quantitative metrics if every single person was committed to empirical science. I fear, however, that there will be repercussions of living in a society without sport or art.
I see. Yes, I can understand that. For example, I'm an atheist, and fully recognize that I believe that I live in an unremarkable galaxy floating aimlessly through space without any real purpose. It would be much more pleasant to believe in a God who cares about me and considers me special, but I've simply found no empirical evidence for it, personally.
I don't want to imply that your diction is off, but that sounds more to me like objective truth rather than objective meaning. The connotation of "meaning" seems inherently subjective in nature since it relies on a conscious being to interpret the meaning.
That is definitely reasonably debatable.
This is what I think most people are having trouble with. You are asserting that science is the only thing that has objective meaning, but most people find football far more meaningful in their lives than the more complex laws of quantum mechanics.
I'm not sure how to help. I don't find medicine particularly interesting, either, but I fully accept that it has objective value. I enjoy baseball very much (my team won the World Series this year!), but I fully recognize it is ultimately meaningless. Further, I personally feel it's a shame I do not enjoy medicinal research more; far from being upset that medicine has meaning, I feel upset that I can't personally
extract pleasure from that.
And I wouldn't necessarily say sport and art have no visible evidence of meaning. I mean, watching football could certainly create a certain stimulus that fires certain neurons a specific way, which could lead to real, observable results. This pathway may be identical to other stimuli but I am severely disappointed in our knowledge of neuroscience that I believe any evidence for such a pathway would take decades to uncover.
Yes, if you could show that a sport was universally entertaining -- that it pleased people
even when they didn't care about it or actively disliked it, then that would provide evidence of objective value to that particular sport.
no one specific. your tone in this thread is offensive to those that hold value and meaning in sports. Whether you can argue with empirical evidence to marginalize the value that people hold with their sports is beside to point.
I am a person who enjoys sports, who still fully recognizes they are meaningless. If you hold "value and meaning" in sports in some more objective fashion, then I think the evidence strongly suggests you're wrong, and I don't know what else to tell you. It certainly isn't meant to be offensive.
Right, but it DOES improve physical well being. The question is does viewing something that is inherently meaningful (playing sports) give it some tangential meaning?
This is the obvious difference from your woodworking example.
Absolutely, I very much agree. Practicing sports creates a much more complex discussion than watching them.
