I was just sitting around one day and got to my philosophical thinkings. One of these thinkings was related to, just why do we exist? What is the point? I have found the following conclusions, and was wondering if anyone could give their views on them so I can have a greater understanding of just who we are, why we are, and what we are.



#1. There Is No Meaning -

The reasons I thought of this is largly because so meny people have spent so many years attempting to find out just why we exist, that someone should of came up with something, even if just a little idea. As well, I was also thinking that maybe there is no meaning simply because of the cause and effect; We live only as an accidental product of the bigbang, nothing more.



#2 - The Meaning Is So Easily Found, We Are Just Ignoring It -

This is just stating that, what if the meaning of life was so simple, so easy to understand that we are just ignoring it. That we are looking for something we have already found but do not know we have found.

Sorry if this is the wrong forum to post this, but seeing as this is a religious forum and the meaning of life generally has a religious basis I thought this was the proper forum to post this, but again, if it is not, I apologuise.

Well people never understood life, so the meaning was hard. Especialy since they already knew god created them, and that clouds the truth. The truth to me is you could say there is no meaning but realy it can be even more simple. We are life, we live. Whats the meaning to the word life? Living things. The meaning of life is to live.

My life is about chilling, thinking about life, boxing, making passionate love to the woman I love, psychology, and bitching about the need for less aspartame in low calorie foods.

I feel you guys are on the right track, but with the absuridty of existance exposed it's up to you to give meaning to the meaningless. To understand and appreciate a work of art one must not be confused into thinking the art is actually "reality", live life in this way, make a beautiful piece of artwork out of your life. Give it some style all your own instead of letting it slip into patterns of meaningless drivel in the name of comfort. Perfect your life so that even flaws become pleasing to the eye because it's pulled off with your own meaning laced all through it.

I believe Nietzsche described this (loosely translated) as the overman. In the tragic era of slave morality that is nearing an end the overman was looked upon with detest because he lived life his own, actually thinking for himself. The comedy of existance is becoming concious of itself do not get lost in it's absurdity. Paint your colors on the canvas of this constant flux as vividly as you can.

well, Number 1 has my vote.

"Utterly meaningless!

Everything is meaningless.

What does man gain from all his labor

at which he toils under the sun?

Generations come and generations go,

but the earth remains forever.

The sun rises and the sun sets,

and hurries back to where it rises....

...All things are wearisome,

more than one can say.

The eye never has enough of seeing,

nor the ear it's fill of hearing.

What has been will be again,

what has been done will be done again;

there is nothing new under the sun"

-Ecc 1:2-9

How obout this: Life on earth began when a life carrying comet crashed into earth. I choose a comit to do the crashing because the long cycle of freezing and reheating could create self replecating combinations of atoms, as any combination that succeded would replecate again.(every 30-200 years, depending on the orbit). when it collided with earth, the cells with the mutation to survive prospered, and mutated more to fit the environment better. soon more complex creatures were evolving, and it is here where I assume we got our biological drives. things go on until monkeys start evolving better brains, and the truly violent monkeys had a large advantage over the less violent ones. Somewhere in here somone might have cooked his dinner to long and created the first religion when his life was saved in the morning, and he told his buddies and soon burnt offerings were being sent towards the great hovel in the sky, and this would keep happening because the ones who survived would do it again, and the dead obviously didn't burn enough turkey. The moral? You evolved from pond scum, your desire to live stems from the fact that people who desired death are all dead, the people who ignored religion ended up dead (social darwinism, I doubt if this was genetic), and anyone who doubted religion or found out how to cope with a meaningless life ended up dead(more social darwinism.)

So the point is that there is no greater goal for humans, we are just a very successful combination of self replecating atoms. So have fun, and enjoy yourself because all that happens to you when you die is that you rot.(most of this is hypothetical, by the way. I can't back it up, but I figured the religious fanatics would get a kick out of me using darwin to explain religion.)

If one is referring to a purpose for all of life then maybe it is to feed the end? Maybe life is just a test? Maybe not. Or maybe it is to learn? To grow?

For an individual purpose, you make it. What do you wake up for in the morning? Wife? Kids? School for wife and kids? or just the entertainment system of a life time? It really doesn't matter because each one of us still gets out of bed in the morning. And we will may just never know our true purpose. After all every thing has an effect on something else.

Why do we ask ourselves this? Do we expect an answer? The butter fly effect happens and we are all caught in it. If that adds any meaning. And just as the butterfly effects us we just might effect it just as easily.

Have you ever stared at a dead bird? "eeewww thats disgusting." Yet somehow our eyes are drawn to the bird. I think that all of our answers will be answered in time. And I think thats why we stare at the bird. It has seen whats after (if anything) and just maybe it knows why? But the sheer thought of it getting close to why draws us to the bird.

Existence 'is'.

impossible for nothing to exist,

to say nothing exists,

is an oxymoron, therefore:

the universe, and all it holds, exists,

because it must!

Life has whatever meaning one 'gives' to it.

Look to this day!

For it is life, the very life of life.

In its brief course

Lie all the verities and realities of your existence:

The bliss of growth;

The glory of action;

The splendour of achievements;

For yesterday is but a dream;

And tomorrow is only a vision;

But today, well lived, makes every yesterday

a dream of happiness,

and every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore, to this day!

Kalidasa

(Lessons of the Lotus – Bhante Y. Wimala)

Namaste http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

[This message has been edited by redzed (edited 05-13-2004).]

Someone once said, "The purpose of life is to live a life of purpose".

to be the eyes,

and ears,

and conscious,

of the creator of the universe

The meaning of life is whatever meaning you're putting into it, deal with it, this is the truth. Everything else is a moot point. What other meaning can exist but the one you put into it? Other's meanings are not experienced by you, although you can understand, that's all you can do. Yes this statement is full of shit, but this is what I want to create, this is my game, what is yours?

The meaning of life is to die. What's a few decades on Earth compared to an eternity in heaven? I'm not religeous but if the heaven/hell thing is true then life would simply be a test.

it's pointless for this to be the only time you exist in space time, the majority of people can't even decide what they like in one lifetime.

i think a better question is what is the purpose of life i have though of 2 things

1. reproduce as much a possible and pass on your genes

2. gain as much power as you can

since i am in favor of genetic engineering i perfer the second one

my purpose is to have fun and kick ass

42

the meaning of life is simple

popcorn and tripe sandwiches

excellent do that until it no longer serves you

the purpose of life is to be whatever you can be.

nothing difficult hey?

Hah, 42, I can't help but agree, there's no arguing it :/

Anyways...

I dunno what the meaning/purpose is, kinda seems to me that there's not much of a meaning to this life... One could probably look for meaning in the patterns you see in everyday life... When you look at science and stuff, doesn't everything ultimately serve a purpose? Doesn't everything change somehow...?

Maybe there's an end for the universe, maybe everything we see and don't see happening is building up to some sort of climax...

Everything seems to serve some sort of purpose, there's meaning to every molecule that's out there because it's a part of something bigger... But that's where it gets tricky, we have a tough time seeing things in scale, we don't see just what we're part of...

Why is it that we can't really imagine what death is like, not existing at all, just like before we were born? Maybe it's cos there's no such thing as not existing?

I'm not sure about the whole eternity thing though, is there a thing such as forever?

Every day we see things come and go, everything has a beginning and everything has an end... But at the same time no energy ever ceases to exist, it just changes form.

Honestly though, I believe we're all in for a surprise when we die, cos I believe there will be something.

Anyways on a not so philosophical level I believe that one should just try to make sure that when you're lying on your deathbed, you don't go like crap why didn't I live a real life? Why didn't I do more good, why didn't I ask that girl out, why didn't I ever stand up for this and that, and so forth... Of course if when you die your mind and "soul" simply cease to exist then that doesn't even matter now does it?

But yeah I think all I'm really saying is that I personally don't see the there's no meaning to life option to be very likely, it just doesn't make sense to me, things tend to happen for a reason :/

Uhm yeah thanks for letting me make this very clarifying and meaningful contribution to this topic.