We are here for the man

That sounds like a pretty shitty existence.

 

Naw I don't think that is the true meaning of existence. That's what we are eventually forced into doing should be choose to live with the current society. It is a totally "man-made" system which does not exist eons ago. I just can't see any man made system being the point of life. What is the point of life for lets say, a crocodile then?

 

Weird subject you bring up two very different topics.

Your socio-economic role in our western culture is up to you. Everybody is presented with limitations; economically, socially, physically and event cognitively, but we ultimately dictate our own level of contribution to society. Myself as an example, I work my 9-5 job, but I also volunteer extensively with a number of organizations, I also paint as a hobby, and am an active member of a half dozen political lobbying groups. Government is by no means the end all and be all of our socio-economic existence. It's up to you to determine how much interaction you want with your fellow humans. It takes hard work and sacrifice sometimes, but all things worth doing are this way.

Secondly, in regards to sentient life in our universe; there are several models within cosmology and astrobiology that provide an explanation why our biosphere is currently the only life we have observed. If you're interested, a good place to start would be reading some of Sir Martin Rees' work.

 

You don't realise how insignificant we are. None of our lives have a point, no matter what we achieve, everything in the universe will keep churning through the great celestial opera. There is no 'meaning of life', just the degradation of a complex collection of chemicals.

 

That's such a sad way to look at things. What if your life did have some meaning to it that you simply weren't seeing? And if that were true, wouldn't it make it so much nicer to live?

 

It's not sad, it's just truth. It doesn't make me unhappy, the fact that nothing means anything. I, and you, can still eek out our insignificant existences in blissful happiness, even though our actions won't have any real great consequence in the grander scheme of things. I mean, think about all the great wars for land in the past, all the great conquests of human history (the actions which have shaped our species and are therefore some of the most meaningful actions, by therefore the most meaningful people, of all time), all the lives lost in them and the names immortalized for history, all for a most tiny, insignificant piece of a tiny lump of rock floating around a middle aged, relatively small (?) star stuck on a minor arm of our galaxy.

 

Are you saying ignorance is bliss then?

Seems to me that if there's no purpose to life there's no real reason to live it well or become more than you currently are. To open to experiencing a level of reality that reveals that this life is just a small part of consciousness changes things completely.

I assume you're participating in this forum because you use or have used cannabis? Have you never had an experience where you've felt connected to something greater than yourself? I don't mean 'god' or whatever that word means to you, just some fundamental aspect of the universe that is always present yet rarely experienced during 'normal' everyday consciousness?

Just wondering.

 

I never said ignorance is bliss, just that we can be aware of our place in the greater scheme of things and still lead a happy life, just because we're insignificant doesn't mean we have to be unhappy.

The pursuit of your individual happiness should be the driving force behind your life. I don't think there really is a great reason to better ones self, other than the sense of self satisfaction you get from the action, whatever it may be.

And no, never really felt a 'connection with a higher force' or whatever. When i'm stoned I don't get all spiritual, if anything it accentuates my feeling of insignificance. So yeah, I guess that feeling of insignificance could be that thing 'greater than myself', as you put it....

 

That feeling of insignificance, as you put it, could be how you're interpreting this something 'greater than yourself', as I put it. What it's actually showing you is that there is nothing but you. Everything is you, created by you, interpreted by you, and populated by you. The apparent division between you and that which is not you is simply a perspective we all have in order to participate in this play. It doesn't mean there isn't some higher truth, or that we can't experience that truth for ourselves if we want to. Generally though, we're always looking 'down' rather than 'up', so to speak. While that's the case, there is nothing to find outside ourselves, and that would of course mean that life has no other meaning.

May I ask if you've ever taken Psychedelics? (if you have done and you wish to discuss it, it might be prudent to PM me as the thread could be in danger of deletion otherwise).

 

I said that the feeling of insignificance probably was the thing that was greater than myself, and if that's the case, then my belief that we are totally insignificant is correct surely...?
And everything is not me, everything is a lot of particles etc floating in 'space'. It's not an abstract concept which is open to individual interpretation, it's a tangible, real thing which is all around us extending an unimaginably far distance away from our little rock.

 

“If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.”
- Carl Sagan
​

I would concur from a strictly materialistic standpoint, but I think you don't give enough credence to the significance of human interactions within their own context. I personally find great significance is participating in our species, even in light of our absurdist tendencies.

You're correct that once I die, once my culture collapses, once our species is long gone and once our planet's biosphere degrades beyond repair and fails to host even the most primitive prokaryotes, that our significance may be washed away, but within the context of our species, our cultures, our communities and our peer groups, we can wield great influence and dramatically impact the course of events.

That being said, I also think our species, and even our planet's biosphere in general has great potential to interact with our cosmic habitat in an incredibly meaningful way that could echo through geological and cosmological timescales, defying some of the most profound forces of entropy. Of course though, it seems a neigh certainty that entropy will prevail in the end.

I suppose what I am trying to say, is that the value of existence depends upon your perspective. I have some very tangible goals I wish to achieve during my limited existence; some I have already accomplished, many I have yet to even begin. To me, those things are the meaning of my life. In that perspective, the meaning of life (liff) in general doesn't have any bearing on my existence.

P.S. -- On the subject of cosmology, we're not entirely sure what will become of our universe, it's contents and it's natural properties. Entropy may not necessarily win in the end. But that's a whole different subject.

 

We are bacteria, very complex bacteria with "little tricks" to keep perpetuating the species.

When I woke up--
I realized that our current system (government/money/religion/media/wants/desires) is one big game. we're all playing monopoly and the goal is to acquire as much as possible (consumerism anyone?).

Ready to have your mind blown? Ready??

It all goes back in the box. We die.

My research into DMT (Dr Strassman's book "DMT: The Spirit Molecule"), and study of quantum mechanics/physics has reaffirmed my belief that the consciousness lives on after death.

So If I don't fear (death, losing materialistic shit), then I can truly focus on creating a better life for those that I love, and creating a better world for those that I am a part of.

 

The title of this thread sounds like a line from the 2015 blockbuster ' catching Saddam'

 

But, even though to us, our actions and interactions may seem significant, and they may well be in the context of humanity, in the broader scheme of things they just aren't. I don't doubt the significance of human interaction amongst ourselves, upon ourselves, but all human interaction will have no effect upon anything except on this ball of rock (until, maybe, we've developed far enough as a species to be able to exert influence upon the state of our universe, and even then, who knows quite what the extent of everything is).

I do agree completely that as a species we've been blessed with the potential to reach out into the vastness of 'everything' and I believe that it's only through this path that we can give our existence as a species a true, meaningful, meaning.

My logic though is that, surely because of how ineffectual we are and the summation of all our actions are, the accomplishment of an individual in achieving his life's ambitions really is utterly insignificant and valueless. After that individuals death, they no longer have that sense of satisfaction, humanity may benefit from their actions for what would be a brief period on a celestial scale, and then it would slowly fade into nothing. The only way which I can see (although i'm far from the alpha and omega) for us to give our existence meaning (as i've said) would be to, as a collective, stamp a definitive mark upon our universe, however, having said that, who knows the vastness of everything and who knows, the universe could just contract in a few trillion years and everything everywhere becomes nothing...

I apologise if i'm being overly bleak in my outlook, I just can't see how a single human being could exert influence on such a cosmic canvas.

 

All we really have to go off of is reality, so the best way to live life is to become happy with your reality and to learn to move through it effortlessly and fearlessly. Of course everyone has the ability to make reality like a heaven for themselves and they can also help their loved ones make their realities like a heaven as well.