'profound' - what does that even mean in this context?
'magical' - Speak for yourself. Me & my brothers had our lives destroyed by appalling parents. It's not something you recover from. You don't speak for everybody. Don't try.
The point really is that it is a question, that you can ask yourself. Whether you immediately conclude that the answer is "certainly not" does not deny the question of being asked. "Surely" is simply there to suggest my opinion on the matter, not a demand that I am correct.
Edit - I can't resist:
My own life is not without misery. My history still troubles me to this day. I feel possibly a similar grievance to my upbringings as you do. That is not to say there is something interesting about "life". The seemingly unfathomable nature of it, is to me a wonder. It's magical in the sense I have absolutely no idea how it works, but it definitely seems to exist. Biblical Hell of course would not be excluded by this definition. I am not making any mathematical arguments, my comment is just an attempt to summarise my feelings in this regard.
Btw, if my comment angered you then I apologize.
Precision and meaning matters when debating IMO, as I've outlined elsewhere on this thread, that's all I'm getting at. Lack of it causes lots of problems, beyond random guys exploding at you on the interwebs.
Don't worry about offending me, you hit a very exposed nerve by accident, wasn't the first time. No probs.
Edit: that is to say, you only have one life, and comparing the whole to individual parts doesn't really make sense.
> 'surely'? - how does one justify saying that?
life is the superset of all possible experiences. If any element has a property (i.e. is deep) it will be contained within life.
I don't think anyone is trying to take anything away from your tragedy, but we are discussing semantics. Life can be "not very deep" and still be the deepest thing in existence, by definition.
I'll try to leave out my life experiences except where relevant. I suppose we have to start with that. The original comment I was replying to said life was great (I summarise). Without qualification it covered everyone's lives (mathematically it was implicitly universally quantified), and said life is great. No it's not, not universally, and it can be quite the opposite. In many cases yes it's lovely (or I hope so!) but you cannot speak for everybody. Therefore, don't.
Further, if you talk about existence ("Surely life is the most...") then you cover animal's lives. Do they have magical and profound existences? Point is not to answer that but to say be careful what you drag in with lax pronouncements. I'll not take the animal thing further.
So, 'profound' - I asked what this means and have not got a reply. This is about semantics, so what are the semantics of this word, in this context? I literally do not know. Words like this are too easily used without thought. There's nothing profound (I assume defined as having hidden depths or meanings) for me about waking up in the morning, going to work etc. It's just life. If you break it down this way I suspect most people would say the same. The phrase The Daily Grind is a bit cynical and used thoughtlessly too, but it suggests another side to the coin. So what does 'profound' mean here, and is it justified. It needn't be a complex or long answer, but if words matter, this matters.
OK, 'magical'. If you're american (I'm a brit) this kind of pretty but ultimately empty (or at least ill-defined) word gets broadcast at you from an early age by disney. It just gets parroted back. When I hear more disney turds about how Precious Family Is, ruthlessly equating family with something wonderful (which I assume it often is, I hope so!) then I tend to well up with either disgust or dry, bitter cackling laughter. I probably sound like macbeth's witches. That's not about semantics so much as using words properly, to mean something. I've read some philosophy that is just a tangle of words because the writer is not clear themselves on how to justify a thing and are really trying to fog things up like a squid with its ink (conversely I picked up a book by some philosopher and it was wonderfully clear. You might not agree but at least you could get exactly what he was saying, and with that comprehension, you could agree or not, but at least you knew why).
All I'm asking for is clear, thoughtful and justified use of words to clearly express ideas. I guess this is the basics of philosophy, so it's relevant especially here.
I agree with you that he could have been more specific, but I do not agree with > said life was great (I summarise). In my interpretation of their comment, I took it to mean life has the potential to be great.
For the other two terms I have no opinion, will leave that to OP. But damn, if this is at all representative to what studying philosophy is like, isn't it exhausting?
Worthless slop is worthless. To make it worth something you need to be precise. Yes, it can be, not exhausting, but sometimes tedious. But that attention to detail is necessary in any constructive endeavor be it software, hardware, mathematics, engineering, governing, why do you think philosophy should be any different?
The end results can be worth it. I used to argue a lot with someone, it's only when we agreed to be precise about what we were saying that we got anywhere (to be precise 'got anywhere' = 'started to understand each other's positions and assumptions').
Edit: trying to debate with someone who can only respond with emotionally based certainties and often descends into shouting and blank denials is a wearing and disheartening experience. Also not useful if you're arguing about important things like, I dunno, what to do about pandemics.