I think my perception of reality is closer to actuality then most people's or at least the few who take the time to post their own threads on here. Hopefully I am not alone and there are people that can even expand on my thoughts. That being said, I'm going to lay everything on the table and see where this goes. -There is no god. -There is no free will. *Whew.* Now that I got those out of the way.. I heard somewhere that asking what the point is, or blatantly, “the meaning of life,†is a silly question. It is like looking at a rock and asking, “how does it work?†The question is flawed (silly). A rock doesn't work. It sits, it is small, it is hard, but it does not work. You must understand that when asking “what is the point of life†that you may very well be asking a silly question. So if there is no point to life – the same way a “rock does not work†– how should one live their life? Continue to make scientific progress to keep understanding the realities of word? Drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die? Your thoughts?
But if everything is as meaningless as I have to come to think.. of fuck it. I was going to ask a question starting with "why" which is dumb because I just explained that my stance is why is silly question. So where to go from here?
I guess what I'm asking is.. is this the end of philosphy? Why waste your time with trivial life philopshy when you go as deep as I do. What you think at that level has more to do with your life than just about any peice of philosphy in the history books.
I'm about rougly the same position as you, but I'm not so certain about the free will issue. I think more needs to be learned within the quantum realm before I'm ready to settle on a position regarding that. Either things are determined, by an unconcious outside power, that being the deterministic qualities of matter and energy; or at some level, the reactions that happen within our brains are a result of some quatum randomality or wierdness, and we ultimately have no control over it anyway. Anyway, I'm with you in that there is no inherent 'point' to life. I think people looking for a point is nothing more than an evolutionary need to find patterns, in this case on a very large scale. A inherent purpose for us would be how we could fit ourselves in a pattern, and since not fitting in to a pattern is an unorganised, abstract thought, humans are uncomfortable with it. As far as 'where do we go from here'? Go wherever you want. To me the largest and most ambitious goal would be to change humanity for the better, even if in some small way. I realize though that in the larger, universal scale of things, even this is rather futile. Even if you change the world, what's the world amongst an uncountable number of other worlds? The way I deal with this is by trying to make the most amount of positive impact, while still remaining realistic in my aspirations.
Ah great. Somebody who is on my level. Really the only thing I have to say is that helping humanity is a flawlessly good goal and all.. but like you said, "there is no inherent 'point' to life" so why pick that goal? A goal which has it's basses in being remeberd some how? Or maybe just to gain general acceptance while living - to be seen as the good guy.? Why even do that? I mean, it means nothing the second you die. So why even do that? This is pretty nutz because I think what I'm getting at is why not just put a gun to your head and stop all this curiousity and stress-like mental torture?
(Trying Not to sound too high) but what when i was wondering what kind of replies you would make to my last post, I thought to myself possible counter arguments and I had this idea. You've seen the movies where something happens where 99 guys quits because they "can't do it" but that otehr 1 guy goes the distance, does the hard work, and as his reward - he gets something special. That applied to our situation. You could argue that maybe that scenario would hold water in this case. But then I thought.. nahh. Even that's bullshit. There isn't anything.
Well, the idea of doing my best to help humanity is personal. I wouldn't expect anyone to adopt that goal without reasons of their own. There isn't really a point to it, it's just a point I've chosen for myself because it's the one that is the least uncomfortable. I imagine that if everyone focused on trying to make humanity a little bit better, a little bit smarter, we might feasibly be able to avoid being vaporized by the sun when it goes super-nova, if we make it that far. You don't have to choose a goal for yourself, I won't think less of anyone if they decide to discomfort of life weighs heavier than the comfort of life. You'll have hurt the people around you but ultimately that doesn't mean anything either. The difference between living and dying is that if you're dead, you'll have decided that you'll never know anything else. Knowing is the most important thing for me, and the only way to make sure you'll never know anything else, would be to blow your brains out. Personally, I find it illogical to end one's life. There is a wealth of things to know, so much that it's impossible to know everything. Life can be uncomfortable, but I think almost everyone has the ability to make their lives at least bearable, and to learn as much as possible.
I'm going to sleep, I'm exhausted. If you are contemplating suicide, I'll hope you'll hold off at least until we've finished our conversation. Cheers.
No, lets continue. I'm too much of a chicken shit to commit suicide at this point. Explain what you mean by illogical. The part about ending one's life.
I used to be in the same position as you... but then I started to think, well, since I'm here, playing the human game with all these wondrously different options and opportunities available to me, why not have some fun with it you know? Don't take shit so seriously bro, just sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.
I do believe there is free will, because as far as we're concerned scientifically, actual randomness exists at the sub-atomic level. Perhaps there is ultimate point to existence, but this doesn't mean you can't try and give your life some meaning, however that may be.
People ask the question, "What is the meaning of life?" as if they want an answer... What kind of answer are these people looking for? I don't quite understand the perspective they are coming from. Do you want a job? Do you want the universe to give you some divine employment? Life would be awful if you knew the answer. That is like reading the spoiler alerts before you go to the theater. Life is a mind game. Understand that. It takes discipline and patience. Anxiety is a bitch but she can be silenced. The first step is to truly love yourself. Love for yourself means that you will be less likely to plague your own mind with dark or unsettling thoughts. Love for yourself means that you can truly love the ones around you. and for the one's that push you away, say a prayer for them because in all likelihood they need the help. (i know you are not religious, and neither am I. but I am spiritual. you may think that is cliche, but once you find something you believe in things will become much more clear) You want to know know the meaning of MY life? The meaning of life is to be happy. If your not happy doing what you are doing, stop doing it, and find something new. The future is now, and that now will always be with you. The power to change things is within your grasp. Don't let the past rob you of your future. I wish you luck my friend, I really do. I hope this world is able to prove itself to you. But seriously man, stick around, things are just starting to get interesting. Feel free to PM me about anything.
I think your on the right path, but somewhat off base here. For one a rock does work, it just does what an idea of a rock is suppose to do. Take a single rock. It takes many many years of chemical reactions within the earth to put the minerals together to make a rock. This happens billions of billions of times within the earth, so just because a rock is sitting on the ground doesn't mean it didn't have it's own journey, it's own story to get there. The rock also seems to have a point or purpose as well. For one he mining of rocks for their metal ore content has been one of the most important factors of human advancement! So a rock is much much more then just some chemical composite sitting dumbly on the ground. In fact it's part of a greater idea, a greater working of things, a greater system of things. Now is this the point of why the earth cools lava into hard workable rocks? I dunno, but without this effect in nature there would be no life here on earth, and possibly anywhere in the universe. The point is, the rock just sitting there, not doing a thing, looking stupid, is just a gear moving a greater machine. Weather this machine is controlled by an intelligent being or not I have no clue, I don't pretend to know. Lastly, about free will. I think I see a contradictory in your ideals that there is no point and no free will. How can that be? If there is no point, everything is some random accident, wouldn't that mean that all there really is is free will? If there's no God directing this machine, then who is laying out the plan on everything?
So you are suggesting that I just evolve my thinking away from it? That just sounds fucking wrong. But I guess either through will ignorance or some kind of twisted acceptence, it'll get the job done and I'll continue to live. Untill I die. fuck
We cannot so much say that a rock does not work as that we do not observe it working nor any way that it can do any work as we define work within the structure of what we consider to be working. It's possible that rocks are spying on us for aliens. But then, anything is possible. It doesn't do to obsess on the possibility that a rock is spying on me, especially since if that's what it is there for there is little I can do to prevent it that makes honest sense. I could avoid rocks, but at that point I am a slave to something I have decided might be possible. Once I am acting on that impulse, I am giving of my time and therefore of my life to something that could far more easily be untrue. I ask: why would a creator give me the ability to question religion if he did not intend me to question religion? The only way I can answer this question is if I assume (granting the existence of a creator) that the idea is to keep me from going astray with superstitions. I'm sure someone might say that it's all about faith, but when there is a "right" way and the "wrong" way carries a punishment, faith isn't very meaningful. Nothing amuses me more than the idea that an afterlife indeed exists, and might be a place where people will be judged on how gullible they were during their lives.
I hope you read the rest of my post and agree with that, too, so that you're not living your life as if you have to worship rocks or something. Although, if that's what you're doing and it's working for you, who am I to differ?
I wouldn't concern yourself to much with what I agree with or how I live my life. I'm not asking for anybody's acceptance or approval. sorry,I'll delete my post if it bothers you that much.