what is the Definition of existentialism?

Some thing my more simple brain can understand.
I think it means living life without feeling that what we do has effects on other humans??

2012-03-20T22:35:32Z

Doc can you tell me more.
For instance my essence is something I understand, as I do existence.
Does it mean that i must exist to have an essence, but an essence isn't necessary, but existence needs to be there and whether or not a person had a poor or well defined Essenes doesn't really matter as much as existence
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?2012-03-20T23:30:23Z

Favorite Answer

Existentialism to examine everything from a human standpoint reason etc.The problem is of course that what we do affect others you can read 2 novels " The Outsider "by Camus or "Crime and Punishment " by Dostoevsky I do not recommend these books until you have your values perfectly clear but they do set out the existential values remember the categorical imperative " Do unto Others" has not been improved on yet even if religion is under a cloud "Crime and Punishment is a classic and a bit hard to read I think because its Russian

Dr. Girishkumar TS2012-03-21T05:28:41Z

Existence Precedes Essence. Giving primacy to existence that all other things, which makes the philosophy a negative one.

Unknown2012-03-21T05:51:25Z

It is that there is no meaning to the Universe and any subset of it. Humans: relationships, animals, everything is just "there" and meaningless.
Question: Then how did the big bang appear?

??????????????????EDIT 3/24/2012!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

May I take a shot at this question. In mathematics we have what we call sets, which are a group of objects the set relates to each other;

As Homo sapiens in this world we are put in a set of around 7 billion souls. If however, I look at the set of persons in my fair city, Lincoln NE, there are ab out 260,000 persons.
To the earth, to the solar system to the universe there at at least 7 billion intelligent beings

Take the universe and an individual, do they exist?

Call the universe existing an Axiom. If we are the only Intelligent beings in the universe, capable of understanding the universe, and we all annihilate each other, does the universe still exist?

.Or if the universe doesn't exist could we exist and have essence? No. by axiom. Each of us are related by groups, if the set of everything is empty, can it exist? Yes by our axiom, then what is the universe? Nothing. The conundrum is that the statement I made that the Universe is nothing requires existence to state that nonexistence would be nothing. Therefore nonexistence is logically inconsistent by the very fact is that it is defined, and is an element of a set...not empty.

Sandra E.2012-03-21T06:07:16Z

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080929002551AACd0wh

What the best answer said and it sounds much like humanism to me as well.