Does life have purpose? Why or why not? Just curious what you all think about this. As for me, to be perfectly honest, I don't know. I can go either way just as easily. If i had to pick one, I'd say it does. But I only say that due to the absolutely marvelous biological processes that distinguish between living and non-living entities. The physical processes that take place in rocks and even stars are of a different order of complexity than the wonderful electrochemical feedback systems involved in sustaining functionality in even the simplest cell. Or are they? But maybe the difference between rocks and men is just that and nothing more - that is, merely different degrees of process complexity, signifying nothing beyond that fact that could be construed (or misconstrued) as having some "purpose". And what do we even mean by purpose? What would make something have purpose rather than not? To me, purpose demands some kind of intent by something that can intend. And no, I'm not trying to argue for or against anything. Just wondering...
I view this question more as "Does the universe have a purpose?" rather than do individual human lives have a purpose. I'll explain. You do not ask "Does cell X in my body have a purpose?", "Was this cell created with the purpose to do this or that specific thing?"... If it is a red blood cell it carries oxygen, if a white blood cell it provides immunity, etc. but that is merely a role. The reason for it's existence and why it was created sure, but no individual cell has a special purpose that it must fulfill. If that cell was removed, another cell will be created to fulfill that same role. We are no more than the cells of our society. Sure, some people seem to achieve things so far above the average and I can why people could construe that as having to have been their special purpose, but that is false logic. Was there anything special about that white blood cell that saved you from serious illness? No... it was just in the right place at the right time, ready to do it's job. And that is all we are to our society. So what is our societies purpose? Basically, something only has a purpose if the layer of abstraction above it, which it aggregates into, has a purpose. For example, if we were to have a purpose, then thus do the cells which make up our body. The furthest up we can abstract without becoming extremely theoretical is to the level of the universe. So does the universes have a purpose? Does it exist to achieve something? Or does it just exist because it does? Maybe the universe merely plays a role in an even grander scheme. Who knows. If it does have a purpose, then surely we are here to play some role in that. Maybe our societies purpose is to learn how to love and live in harmony? Maybe... I can certainly see some anecdotal evidence which supports that theory, the key words being anecdotal and theory. Maybe that could give us some clue as to what the universes purpose could be if it were to have one. In other words, if the universe has some special purpose or plays a role towards some special purpose... then that does almost certainly cascade down to us. We are part of that. We are here to play a role in that. If it doesn't then neither do we. But what to me is absolutely clear is that no one person is 'born to do' some special specific thing, that is nothing but fanciful and/or delusional thinking. Is that what your question was getting at? On the other hand, do we play some role in some grand purpose? I don't know but I'm very much open to that opinion, and would probably actually lean towards it. "A reason for existence" and "a specific purpose to be fulfilled" are two very different things. The prior is a possibility, the later is not IMO.
Have your fun while your young and can. Live for yourself. And not for someone else if you think that's what you are supposed to. Do your own thing, fuck what anyone thinks. Keep your eyes open. And the right person/purpose will come along and then you will see When I was young, and Dumb, I did all types of shit, so many situations I have been exposed to could have lead me down bad paths I had fun though. I guess I can say I lived for that day, and not tomorow. And I have no regrets.
Great post! And by referring to a single cell I was thinking more in terms of unicellular life forms such as bacteria and archaea, etc,. rather than a single cell as part of a larger multicellular organism. But, no matter. I pretty much agree with everything you said. And you said it very well!
That's kind of they way I've done things, too, but I would be less self centered if I had it to do again - which, in a way, I do. I've been transitioning to others-centric. But maybe I'm even doing that for self-centered reasons - to feel better about doing my part to make things better for everyone else is still doing it so I can feel better. That's still a self-centered motive. I'm not judging you or anyone else for anything. It's just a quirk in my own head. But I do have this deep-seated notion that self-centeredness is the root of a helluva lot of misery in this world, while other-centric people tend to affect human existence in more beneficial degrees. Maybe that's so - maybe it isn't. Not totally sure. But as far as "purpose", I guess I wasn't thinking about individual human life purpose, but rather a purpose for there being anything at all - (especially life, regardless of it's form) since I think it may very well be "The Crown of Creation", as the Jefferson Airplane once put it, referring to sentient beings.
I too aspire to be in service-to-others rather than service-to-self. It is my suspicion that learning this lesson is the role our society has in the grand scheme. After all, service-to-self does seem to be one of the things our society has the biggest problems with, and which causes much of the grief and sadness in the world. If people were to stop thinking only for themselves, and transition towards service-to-others (and I don't just mean other people, the planet etc. too!) If everyone were to follow this path... We would have harmony on Earth and it would benefit everyone. It takes an extremely strong person to stand up and be a leader in this cause, when everyone around them is still in the mode of take-take-take. Anyone who chooses the path of service-to-others has my absolute respect, in these times more than any. I think the key is to learn how to love unconditionally. Yourself, your enemies, all creatures, mother nature and the whole universe. When you have unconditional love, being in service-to-others is easy, and make you feel GREAT. Something that I say to myself which has given me strength at some really low moments: If you have love in your heart, you have love in your life. It means that if you have love in your heart i.e. learn how to love all things, then you will never be without love yourself. I went through many years of intense isolation and depression by telling myself this and came out the other side stronger, ready to serve the world. I even made a little motivational graphic for it, I'll dig it up.
Stay alive and reproduce until I can no longer do that. Then I'll die. Everything else we do is just added significance. I'm don't plan on reproducing or dying a natural death at ninety-fuckin-three. Cause fuck the world.
You don't have to fuck the world. Enough peeps are already seeing to that task. [kidding - but not really]
Interesting discussion. I started reading it and something Plop said caused me to create another post and i never got back here. If life has a purpose, is it even knowable? Just as the bloodcell or single-celled life has function, it may not be able to know its purpose. It seems to me all creations have a purpose, the question then becomes, is the universe a creation? I find the arguments in favor to be sound. I dont claim to know, i certainly dont claim to know the answer to the resultant questions either. I dont think i can agree that there is a seperation between purpose and role. Whether or not white blood cell A was the chance cell that stopped the infection doesnt add or subtract from its purpose. Perhaps if there is a grand purpose, my small role, no matter how trivial in the grand scheme, is exactly what i am doing. If spreading truth and love is the means to the end, and all lies and apathy are utilized for self correction, then my growth toward being more truthful and loving is fulfilling an individual purpose for a greater end. No gears of a watch can tell time, but in unison, they perform their endgoal, their ultimate purpose.
I'd like to add, we humans, whether we believe in a creator or not, tend to think of ourselves as the pinnacle of the universe. This may or may not be the case. Our purpose may be less significant that we might like to think. If indeed we are the pinnacle , perhaps we dont have a purpose but ARE the purpose. Im sorry if i have asked more questions than i have answered.
Humans are made of the same stuff as the rest of the universe. All we are is the universe becoming self aware of itself through our living human structure. If we do have a purpose, it hasn't been revealed yet. But since we have to ability to create our own purpose in life (separate from the universe) I'm not sure it's relevant.
I agree. This is kind of what I was getting at when I said that if the universe has a purpose then we have a purpose. We a composite part of the universe after all.
I believe the mere act of consciously perceiving the universe through life gives the universe meaning, kinda like the whole "if a tree fell in the woods" kinda thing. I'd consider any meaning beyond that as subjective to individuals, but then again, that's just my subjective opinion...
That doesn't really make any sense. We give the universe meaning? The universe is not some separate thing which we live in. Our conscious perception itself is a composite part of the universe - it is the universe consciously perceiving itself. You could argue that the universe consciously perceiving itself is giving itself purpose, but that doesn't make any sense either. That's kind of like saying that my purpose in life is to not have a purpose.
I would bet that he'd say that means there really is no meaning other than the meaning subjectively assigned by the individual. That's my PoV, that there is no universal, objective meaning to life.. the only meaning to be found is subjective. One could say that the objective meaning of life is for life to find it's own meaning.. but when life was still primitive, it wasn't trying to find meaning.. it was trying to find food and fuck.
It's almost like our conscious perception of the world is one way (out of many?) that the universe is self-aware. After all, our consciousness is a function of biochemical reactions in our brains which are a subset of all the energetic interaction taking place in the universe. But I'm not 100% convinced that it ends there and nothing more to consciousness than chemistry. We can certainly alter and even halt consciousness by suitable chemicals (anesthesia and euthanasia drugs, etc). But I can't say for sure that there isn't more to the story. We see thru a very tinted set of windows.
Agreed. A radio functions based on it's wiring and components, but still needs that 'signal'. I think it's like that.
My point was that us (the universe) perceiving the universe gives the universe significance. If the universe wasn't observed then would it really matter? (Hence the "tree falling in the woods" analogy) Whether you believe that this significance gives purpose or not is beyond that and is subjective.
Yeah I get what's you're saying, that because we are aware of the universe, the universe has significance. Yes we give it significance, that goes without saying, but that is so far removed from whether the universe has a purpose or not.