What is the point of life?

[gozpel]

No, I'm not depressed or anything, but as I get older and learn more about older cultures I see many things.

We start from scratch and then we run rocket ships to other planets. We will only get smarter as time goes, or maybe more knowledgeable.

So we have humans, they kill each other, they kill other things, they kill everything.
They torture other people, rip their hearts out while alive, they burn them on the cross.
Much more of that, no need to put it in here.

We kill the world, animals, trees and even the sea. Soon it will be all gone.
And we will still fighting each other? Of course, over the scraps that are left.

All the struggles humankind has in itself, is self inflicted and will only go on.

I don't believe in a god, so praying wont help us when ever it happens, something catastrophic will happen to this world, and we will have no answer. We have done our best or worst.

So, the real question, what is the point of life? Why do we have it and why do we want it.

I'm really curious to see if there is a real answer to this, I don't think so.

I want to live, but don't really understand why. I don't want to die, but why be afraid?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

No, I'm not depressed or anything, but as I get older and learn more about older cultures I see many things.

We start from scratch and then we run rocket ships to other planets. We will only get smarter as time goes, or maybe more knowledgeable.

So we have humans, they kill each other, they kill other things, they kill everything.
They torture other people, rip their hearts out while alive, they burn them on the cross.
Much more of that, no need to put it in here.

We kill the world, animals, trees and even the sea. Soon it will be all gone.
And we will still fighting each other? Of course, over the scraps that are left.

All the struggles humankind has in itself, is self inflicted and will only go on.

I don't believe in a god, so praying wont help us when ever it happens, something catastrophic will happen to this world, and we will have no answer. We have done our best or worst.

So, the real question, what is the point of life? Why do we have it and why do we want it.

I'm really curious to see if there is a real answer to this, I don't think so.

I want to live, but don't really understand why. I don't want to die, but why be afraid?

Humans are still evolving, both as as a physical species and socially. According to Star Trek, we'll have some sort of magic epiphany when the Vulcans make first contact and stop engaging in wars and being greedy.

Personally, I don't believe it. It's going to take much longer than a couple of hundred years to remake our collective psyche that currently revolves around KTAATTS.

 

[Zardnaar]

As a species the planets better of without us.

As an individual do what you can and enjoy life while try and do something better. I skipped having kids because this world.

Why inflict my upbringing in another or even if you do a better job why inflict this world on someone?

 

[gozpel]

I see what you're saying, but what is the point of it?

We are like those dayflies, that live for a day, why struggle so hard when you know it will be lost one day? Human spirit, lol.

But if you look outside your daily box of LIFE, why is it even there?

 

[Samson]

I'm really curious to see if there is a real answer to this, I don't think so.

It depends what you mean by "real". Individually leaving the world better off for being in it is a goal I have. As a species spreading around the universe I feel should be a goal.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

The fishbowl thing is spot on.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

There is none, beyond what you find for yourself. One of the things that tends to get lost in AI research IMO is that defining HUMAN terminal goals in a satisfactory way is something I've yet to see done. I don't think we know of a consistent human utility function. Even at the level of a single person.

While defining that would be useful, I don't think it's sufficient to assign "meaning" or a "point" for life.

We kill the world, animals, trees and even the sea. Soon it will be all gone.

It will all be gone regardless, only question is "how soon". Humans, despite their destructive nature, are the only chance life on this planet has to live beyond the life of the sun (if we don't see lethal global warming sooner, we will DEFINITELY see it then!)...which is a small fraction of the life of stars in the universe in general. Sooner or later entropy will catch up even to red dwarf stars and black holes, but perhaps humans can make it "later". Or perhaps we kill ourselves off in the next 50 years. At the scale of life in universe in general or even life in solar system it won't change much if we kill ourselves off vs don't, if we can't become spacefaring.

 

[Samson]

I don't think we know of a consistent human utility function. Even at the level of a single person.

Darwin had one.

It will all be gone regardless, only question is "how soon". Humans, despite their destructive nature, are the only chance life on this planet has to live beyond the life of the sun (if we don't see lethal global warming sooner, we will DEFINITELY see it then!)...which is a small fraction of the life of stars in the universe in general. Sooner or later entropy will catch up even to red dwarf stars and black holes, but perhaps humans can make it "later". Or perhaps we kill ourselves off in the next 50 years. At the scale of life in universe in general or even life in solar system it won't change much if we kill ourselves off vs don't, if we can't become spacefaring.

This i really agree with. We may temporarily make a mess of the place, but we are the best chance of terrestrial life expanding beyond the solar system.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Darwin had one.

I can't think of anybody who actually operates with maximizing individual reproductive fitness as a terminal goal. Even at national/societal levels that isn't a good predictor of behavior.

It's predictive of which animals survive long-term, but not of human actions/utility function.

 

[Farm Boy]

Why would a people hallmarked by high communicativeness and the development of tools capable of handing down information/experience across multiple generations be a people who are measured by individual reproductive fitness? The comparison of somebody operating like that to a tumor in the human body seems pretty accurate.

 

[Samson]

I can't think of anybody who actually operates with maximizing individual reproductive fitness as a terminal goal. Even at national/societal levels that isn't a good predictor of behavior.

It's predictive of which animals survive long-term, but not of human actions/utility function.

Very true. It is a perfectly consistent utility function though.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

We can define all sorts of consistent utility functions that don't map to human actions and would be terrible if humans optimized for them .

An actual human function will almost certainly have multiple terminal goals (with different priorities), and I suspect those goals differ between people.

 

[Kyriakos]

Humans aren't easily letting go of life (probably other beings can't even do it willingly, assuming no other being on earth is able to kill itself). It seems that the instinct to self-preserve is far more important than actual happiness.
As for meaning in life... maybe in some distant future (a few centuries from now) humans will be able to become biologically immortal, by scientific means. Then it will be realistic to amass all kinds of massive information and keep advancing. I highly doubt it will be a world with billions of humans, however; even now you don't see more than a tiny fraction advancing any field of knowledge.
Maybe, for such a person of the future, our own timeline will seem as boring and useless as the medieval era seems to us.

 

[Farm Boy]

It seems that way to you?

 

[Kyriakos]

It seems that way to you?

It is different if you are the Emperor.

But yes, I don't find the medieval era interesting.

 

[Farm Boy]

Weird. There was an awful lot of cleverness going on at the not-emperor level. More than at the emperor level, if I were to guess.

 

[Kyriakos]

Science and math basically stopped, due to endless barbarian hordes. Even in the ancient era you would have a much bigger chance to witness something of interest in those fields.

Progress is slow even now, I suppose. The internet happened something like 25 years ago (on a mass scale), and one would have expected things to pick up. Even in movies from the 80s (or even the 30s...) you would see a much more futuristic and advanced version of the 21st century.

That said, it is true that people went from horse-drawn carriages to airplanes, in the space of half a century. So who knows.

 

[Josu]

Does it has to have a point?

 

[Kyriakos]

Does it has to have a point?

 

[Farm Boy]

Science and math basically stopped, due to endless barbarian hordes. Even in the ancient era you would have a much bigger chance to witness something of interest in those fields.

I'm not so certain. That almost feels like a Roman conceit. Certainly some things didn't advance equally, but it's easy to forget how much the Roman Empire sucked ass and how far there was to go. I mean, it essentially was the never ending barbarian horde for a goodly while.