What is the point of life?

[Kyriakos]

It's all about genetics, being born to the right parents/family, first world country, and demographics.

Your non genetic impulses are almost entirely determined by your parents and upbringing, so it's not like anyone has any real agency in life.

Everything was determined from the moment you were conceived as to whether you'll be a failure or not. Learning and improvement has nothing to do with motivation, an ability to successfully learn and improve is all genetic despite what overly optimistic teachers would tell you. Otherwise chimpanzees and dolphins would be starting fires!

Even if everything is determined, there is still the journey itself. I mean... ok, maybe I couldn't avoid any of the mistakes I made, but it was still sort of cool to have developed a beyond massive theory when I was in late elementary school, about other humans being puppets of a demon who forced a strict caste and used them as his eyes and ears, and emotions being physical forms translated in the mental realm thus enabling you to metamorphose. Certainly it was all a massive mistake, for which I paid dearly in later years, but it was impressive nonetheless.

Now, hopefully, if I ever have to relive the same life, I will at least pick different paths in the thousand forks of the road.

 

[gozpel]

@Birdjaguar, you can look as long as you want, you will never stop to be amazed.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=stephen+wiltshire

 

[gozpel]

Ok, you meta-physicists, the small matter that is us is not in the original question.
Basic re-learning: Why is life and why?

What's the point of life?

From a human point we can find many different reasons
Beyond that, why are we here?
Why are we we even thinking that we're here.

What is the point?

 

[Kyriakos]

Ok, you meta-physicists, the small matter that is us is not in the original question.
Basic re-learning: Why is life and why?

What's the point of life?

From a human point we can find many different reasons
Beyond that, why are we here?
Why are we we even thinking that we're here.

What is the point?

Anything that exists, is going to have trouble with stopping to exist.
It is at least likely that human-level self-reflection was either a freak accident or an inevitable development, and in both cases we seem to be living in the interim period between being downright a low animal and an actually important being.

 

[Joij21]

and in both cases we seem to be living in the interim period between being downright a low animal and an actually important being.

That's a bit relative. I could hardly say anything remotely important exists, or is capable of existing in this universe. If the universe itself was randomly created, then nothing is important, and therefore it is impossible to ever become important.

 

[Gorbles]

Why does the universe being random (assuming that's true) mean that nothing is important?

 

[Kyriakos]

That's a bit relative. I could hardly say anything remotely important exists, or is capable of existing in this universe. If the universe itself was randomly created, then nothing is important, and therefore it is impossible to ever become important.

There is at least relative importance. Surely a human's existence would be more important if we lived on average for a few centuries? Or if we could cure all disease. Or be all as intelligent as we would wish, etc.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Important for what?

 

[Sommerswerd]

There is at least relative importance. Surely a human's existence would be more important if we lived on average for a few centuries? Or if we could cure all disease. Or be all as intelligent as we would wish, etc.

I agree. I don't know how meaningful an assertion of importance versus non-importance is without some baseline agreement/understanding of what the subject's importance is in relation to.

The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way holds our entire galaxy together... but it has no bearing whatsoever on what I'm eating for dinner tonight. So is it "important" or not?

 

[Gori the Grey]

Depends. What are you having for dinner?

 

[drewisfat]

Eating donuts is a sign that a supermassive black hole's accretion disk is weighing heavily on your subconscious.

 

[gozpel]

Anything that exists, is going to have trouble with stopping to exist.
It is at least likely that human-level self-reflection was either a freak accident or an inevitable development, and in both cases we seem to be living in the interim period between being downright a low animal and an actually important being.

I agree with you there, but we humans or sub-humans have had it for millennia.
So where does this get us to?
The start, my question: What is the frigging point of life or anything?

LOL, I planted this idea with a couple of workmates, they come back after the break and look at their workload: What's the frigging point.

I'm not good at this, but at least I got 2 ppl thinking.
But then, what's the point doing even that.

This is fun.

 

[Kyriakos]

I agree with you there, but we humans or sub-humans have had it for millennia.
So where does this get us to?
The start, my question: What is the frigging point of life or anything?

LOL, I planted this idea with a couple of workmates, they come back after the break and look at their workload: What's the frigging point.

I'm not good at this, but at least I got 2 ppl thinking.
But then, what's the point doing even that.

This is fun.

There's a couple of short stories by Dostoevsky on that theme. Dream of a Ridiculous Man and Notes from the Underground.

I don't think that human life, as things are, means anything. It is too short, too miserable, too fleeting, not much can be achieved and even what can will not allow much more for the same person.
If humans lived for a couple of centuries, it would already multiply everything.

That said, we are better than the ridiculous other creatures on this planet. And some people are indeed happy - which is always positive; after all, it is the only rational goal, since without happiness you don't have a basis for anything else in the long-run. Unhappiness burns fuel at incredible speed.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Depends. What are you having for dinner?

Fish and chips is what I ended up going with. Beer battered.

Speaking of the cosmos... TIL that the distance from Earth to the Moon is greater than the combined diameter of all the planets in the solar system... yes, including Jupiter and Saturn. I thought that the notion was utterly preposterous when I first heard it, but upon investigation, it appears to be true.

 

[drewisfat]

Wait til you hear that the closest planet to us on average is neither Venus nor Mars, but Mercury.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Fish and chips is what I ended up going with. Beer battered.

Then that black hole turns out to be very important indeed. It kept our galaxy intact for long enough that you could eat your fish and chips!

 

[Sommerswerd]

Then that black hole turns out to be very important indeed. It kept our galaxy intact for long enough that you could eat your fish and chips!

But if our Sol system had somehow been ejected from the galaxy, but stayed otherwise intact, wouldn't I still have gotten to eat my fish and chips?

 

[Gori the Grey]

But if our Sol system had somehow been ejected from the galaxy, but stayed otherwise intact, wouldn't I still have gotten to eat my fish and chips?

Well, I don't know about you, but I can't eat after a bumpy ride like that.

 

[Kyriakos]

An added problem with the existence of dumb and useless (not needed for the foodchain to remain under control) beings on this planet, is that it makes the possibility this is an experiment even smaller.
Wanting to think that something superior exists and is actually related to us in some direct way, serves the purpose of diminishing the sense that humanity is insignificant. But it is far more likely that it is, and if it is to ever stop being that it will have to happen by human actions.
And I highly doubt anyone alive currently will make it to such a day - assuming such a day will indeed come.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

That's a bit relative. I could hardly say anything remotely important exists, or is capable of existing in this universe. If the universe itself was randomly created, then nothing is important

cannot believe I am agreeing with you, but this. I don't like the world random because it implies some sort of dice roll, but in the end it is fundamentally true that the universe is chaos, in the best sense of the world. as are many of the "forces" governing life on this planet, like genetic mutation. your second sentence is a non-sequitor, so I will just skip over that.

Why does the universe being random (assuming that's true) mean that nothing is important?

because nothing can be inherently important, just like how nothing can have inherent meaning. both importance and meaning are, per definitionem, assigned to something, not inherent to something.

There is at least relative importance. Surely a human's existence would be more important if we lived on average for a few centuries? Or if we could cure all disease. Or be all as intelligent as we would wish, etc.

important to whom? your position already presupposes some kind of human observer. what do geothermal forces care about whether humans live for 100 or 100,000 years? they just do their thang. what does the sun care for if we're all incredibly intelligent? what does a dead person care for if we cure all disease? things simply converge. we invest meaning into them for highly specific reasons, for example in order to make sense of the world.