Comments and Insights Assignment #2

Video Comments

Gavin's Video

I like it alot when you say "life isn't always meaningful, we just need to believe it does" That brings the question to mind that "if humans create and define meaning, then can't we make our lives meaningful by adjusting the criteria and definition of meaning?"

Jace's Video

I liked the video and the choice of music in the background.  I also liked how how you showed improvement in the video.  Your point about meaning being enjoyable and good for you is simple and agreeable

Henry's Video

It was good, I liked the editing on it and how yu listed what was and what wasn't meaningful in your life and you gave good explanations why.

Maxiel's Video

Cool, I like how you've put everyone in the video, everything fit together well and it showed what a close relationship you have with people which looked very sincere and that's very meaningful.

Ian's Video

I liked it, it was very relaxed and calm.  You explained well how somethings are meaningful and others aren't and they aren't always entertaining.  I'll make sure to pass on the hugs for you :D

Insights and Conclusions

1-When people know the purpose of their lives it drives them into depression and misery -Gavin (roughly) This leads me to question this and ask, does someone's life still have meaning when they're aware of it? Will the knowledge of your purpose cause you to not fulfill it?  This sort of brings to mind to conundrum about Pinoccio saying it's opposite day and his nose grows.  There is no answer to why it happens and the situation would present itself in a loop which would define the event as impossible, in short its impossible to know the meaning of your own life and knowing that meaning will take it away.

2-We each have our own definitions of meaning but most of them all boil down to 2 things, things that we enjoy and things that are god for us.  From watching these movies I've realized that the enjoyability of something has nothing to do with its significance.  Somethings already significant like reading, will always be meaningful if you like it or not, whether YOU do it or not is based on how much you enjoy it.  Entertainment may make you think that something meaningless is meaningful, people enjoy video games (as do I) but I can admit that they aren't meaningful, whereas someone else may view them as significant.

3-Meaning in my and some other's opinion's is a significant change, to challenge that thesis I ask "Is a significant negative change also meaningful?" I say that yes it can be meaningful and can sometimes be more meaningful than a positive experience.  experiencing the death of a loved one can have a great impact on someone's life and possibly change them for the better, but better or worse, its still a meaningful and significant event.  This is yet another example of how something meaningful isn't always enjoyable.        

Marco g Life Meaning

                                                                   Description

1-In this Video I've included some video of myself talking to the camera about my personal criteria for meaning and my opinions on it.  I've also included photos of things that I find meaningful or meaningless that I've put voice over to and talked about.

2-I've related the internet in terms of information, communication and research in the meaningful side of my life, things like google, wikipedia and sometimes youtube can be used to learn things.  I also talk about Myspace and Facebook as good sights for communicating but they can take away from real face to face conversations.  I listed storytelling (reading in my case) as meaningful because it serves as a form of entertainment and as a way to learn about ourselves through other characters 

3-If I had the technology I would have included better video than the kind that can be taken with the camera and microphone on my computer, I also would have liked to put in more pictures and made more commentary about the meaning of life with those pictures.  All of these regrets are due to technological errors.  I would have also liked to get video of me doing things in my spare time, like practicing martial arts, playing videogames etc.  and been able to decide which were meaningful and which were meaningless.        

                                         

                                                             Insight and Analysis

4/5-I asses meaning as something that has an impact on our lives, to further that definition it has to change our lives, preferably in a good way.  A sign that something is meaningful is that its remembered.  While this is debatable I feel that if something is recognized by many people its meaningful, take the American Revolution for example, it changed every Americans life and we all know about it, that would be a series of meaningful events based on my definition.  Another thing I say in the video is that the line between entertainment and meaning gets blurry because people want to say that whatever they do, which entertains them, is meaningful, therefore their life is meaningful.

6-I don't see this as a fairly good depiction of my life because, due to technical difficulties, I couldn't show my whole life the way I'd like to, I wasn't able to get video of the things I do in my spare time nor was I able to take photos since I only had my computer to use.

7-From an outside-in perspective it may seem meaningful but I wasn't able to show my love of videogames which would have likely tipped the scale in the other direction.  From an inside-out perspective I see it as meaningful because I have changed peoples lives, not in a big way or a "life changing" (other than the literal term I use above) way but enought that their lives would be different without me, as any other kid who goes to school and has friends and family could say.

8- N/A