I started thinking about the meainng of life today and ........

[Moonbeam]

Do you ever get that after Christmas blues feeling. I think it has to do with the memories of Christmas past. Who knows, but for some reason, in a rare moment of quiet I started puzzling over why things are as they are. We got, for example, 59 nations at war with two more ready to do it big time. We got mental illness, poverty and suffering. We got all kinds of cruelty and human caused misery. Why are people so screwed. Alot of you know what I think about this already, but today I went somewhere else.

I started thinking about the will. When you are born, you have needs and later wants. But the universe doesn't care. We can't make life be as we wish it to be. We are all going to die whether we want to or not. We can't make someone we love love us. Think about how hard you can want something and think about the fact that you may not be able to make it happen. A ball of protoplasmic jelly arises from the slime and says I want and the universe says no. Unbelievable.

I was thinking about how much of life is about self protection from that disappointment, and how much misery is the result of not being able to accept it. My will doesn't cut it, so I'll call it the will of God, or I just decide to take what I want and do in what ever gets in my way. We are not in control and we cannot control and yet it seems as though that's all we strive for. Some sense of control.

It seems we need to yield and yet that's the last thing we want to do.

"The fool on the hill stands perfectly still........." words from a song

So there I was talking to myself trying to clarify the situation. Would you rather not investigate the wellsprings of motivation, or do you prefer to try to make sense of yourself?

I'm not asking that question so much as welcoming your thoughts in general.

 

[snut]

you should take philosophy if your into the stuff...Im currently taking it,and its has totally chage my way or thought,and way I percive things....I agree with the theories in my book that there is really no meaning in life..were just matter ...and thats all there is to it

 

[EDoG2K]

Speak for yourself! I plan to live forever and rule the world!


hehehehehe.....

Seriously though, life is good! soo many alcoholic beverages and beautiful women out there waiting for us!

 

[Willoughbyva]

I choose to think that we are here for a purpose. It is rare that one person can change the world, but you can always change yourself or part of the world around you. I think that life has intrensic value, but we sometimes fail to make the right estimates. If a poor and rich person is happy does a persons wealth make his/her happiness more fulfilling?

How do you look at the world/yourself?


Arestotle said "The meaning of life is happiness". I tend to think that he was right then and it still holds true. Do we get bored with happiness? Maybe, but it is good to questin life (to a certain degree).

 

[Ns1]

there is no purpose for human life

only humans kid themselves to thinking there's anything else besides reproducing and dying

 

[lawaris]

Any indication of what is right or wrong is an indicator of arrested intellectual development .........

 

[Ismisus]

ha ha being 'good', improving changing the world. Charity, not stealing, ethics, morals, commandments, bibles, religions. it is ALL propaganda. If one human does these things then it makes a better place for 6 billion people, if all the people do this crap then it makes life better for me, since I don't know what ethics, values, and morals are. If I see a chance to improve my life, I do it, I don't care if someone is trying to put propaganda on me saying its immoral, unethical blah blah. So if there was no jail, I would be stealing everyone's money to make my life better. I only do things that help me. Church is trying to sway you in doing good things for others, by creating virtual hell and virtual heaven. Charities do the same. When I do give help, or money, I do it for myself, it gives me happinness. When I give money to homeless people, I am virtually paying them to entartain me, I like how they smile, and how they say thank you. I am selfish, and ALL people are selfish, no matter what they say, even mother Theresa, who gave help for her own 'entartainment'. Also its so obvious that there's no meaning of life, you're just bunch of atoms moving in all kinds of directions. You're all just part of a very lucky sequence that has formed such amazing combination of atoms such as humans. In fact it is so amazing, that people actually are starting to think that they mean much more to the universe than an ant, a tree, or a virus.

 

[lawaris]

Ismisus

WOW !!! That was some heavy stuff

 

[Elledan]

The meaning of life is reproducing to keep a species alive and allow it to evolve. Does this have any meaning? Nope.

The whole universe is without meaning. It just is, and we're 'inside' it.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

i mostly agree with elledan, life is what you make out of it. your parents f-cked and now youre here, make the best of it, but dont dream up grand schemes about why you are here.

 

[lawaris]

I just noticed......get the spelling right on the heading

 

[AnyMal]

There is no universal answer to this question. I am sure everyone at some point in their life starts asking the question. However, I believe that the answer is quite simple; the meaning of life is whatever it is you are willing to die for. In other words, your passions, things that in your mind justify your own existence. For some it's their children and family, for some it may be political or religious believes. You don't have to dig deep in annals of history to find the names of people who found their true meaning of life. Just my two cents..

 

[J3anyus]

"No damn cat, and no damn cradle." Read Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. if you haven't already, good book...

 

[voodooguy]

The meaning of life is to introduce order into the universe in order to combat the impending (and ultimately unpreventable) chaos / heat death / entropy.

A species introduces order by evolving. An individual introduces order by inventing or discovering new things, and by creating works of art or knowledge.

 

[Nitemare]

<---- shallow and can't think deep before lunch

will read later after I have woken up

 

[atrowe]

42

 

[jjones]

while there may be no meaning to life this does not preclude a life without meaning.

 

[Shalmanese]

I think tha nihlism is overrated and become a fad but I do believe that it holds some fundamental tenents.

What I do agree with is that life should be savoured as an experience, not as a preperation for the afterlife.

I also agree with tenents of utalitarianism but I think that it is WAY to simplistic and would never work in the real world.

I tend to go by my own ethos which is a subtle mixture of many different beliefs.

BTW: 1000 posts, yay!

 

[IGBT]

I beleve in the mineral theory. We start out as minerals and we return to minerals. No burning bush or voice from above. No heaven or hell. Just minerals.

 

[Corn]

LOL

Good luck Moonie!

While I believe it's entirely possible to discern one's own motivation or perceived "purpose" of being, humanity as a whole is far too complex to draw any reasonable conclusions:

Glorification of one's god.
Money--perhaps as a means for power or sense of control, or simply out of a selfish desire to perpetuate one's own genetic makeup, or enhance it with "proper" breeding.
Some simply wish to be charitable.
Others are motivated to induce suffering upon others.
Still more are driven to explore the wonders of knowledge.
Yet there are many who are artsy fartsy.......

There are 6 billion people on this planet, each with his own "motivations" for being who they are. Perhaps if we were to strip each of material possesions, food, shelter, family, and religion it would be easy to define the simple motivation of man as just the will to survive......

 

[Train]

all these replies and only ONE iliteration to "Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy"!?!?!??

pfffft, what kind of geeks are you people?



[grabs towel and leaves]

 

[Elledan]

<< I think tha nihlism is overrated and become a fad but I do believe that it holds some fundamental tenents. >>

Why do you think that it (nihilism) is becoming a fad?



<< What I do agree with is that life should be savoured as an experience, not as a preperation for the afterlife. >>

Provided that there even is such a thing as an 'afterlife'. Right now there's a 0% probability that there's no such thing as an afterlife, simply because there's no evidence.



<< I also agree with tenents of utalitarianism but I think that it is WAY to simplistic and would never work in the real world. >>


Utilitarianism - things are right if they are beneficial for or useful to a majority.

It's never a good idea to fully support an ideology.



<< I tend to go by my own ethos which is a subtle mixture of many different beliefs >>

Good choice =)



<< BTW: 1000 posts, yay! >>

Nef!

 

[Moonbeam]

Ah, well, I have said many times that by going into your feelings and feeling them, you can profit. And so it is that my lament has returned meaning to my life. OMFg it's Corn. (My life purpose used to be straightening Corn out. Perhaps now there is renewed hope. )

Very good to see you Corn and thanks too for your intelligent and uncommonly and thematically on target response. I agree that one can devine many purposes and motivations to any individuals life. My point, perhaps clearer to me now, was to see what light can be shed or offered on the human situation when examined from the point of view, perhaps as a bell curve or other graph, of variations on the ways humans respond to the realization that their will is not The Will.

A number of the points Corn made, for example, might just be superficial manefstations of this deeper theme. Money as a means to achieve supremicy of will, acquire what you want, God as being on the team with the winning will, causing suffering as retribution for the frustration of will, and some of the other points as various good faith efforts to maturly adjust.

Any way, as I think about it, it dawns on me that this is surely a major theme of religion. His will be done etc. If I'm not mistakened, Islam is all about surrender.

I remember reading somewhere the notion that a saint is one who surrenders his will to the will of God and a Master is one who makes his will the will of God and the Prophet can do both.

Such notions surely complecate a simple nihilistic attitude and would imply some further potential development that may lie dormant awaiting exploration.

If nothing else, the all mineral attitude, even if fundamentally true, does not rule out or adequately explain the persistant recurrance throughout time of essentially mystical experiences that continually refresh the religious themes that run through all cultures.

linuxboy asked me the other day essentially for an existential reason for being on ATOT. It's an excellent question. I answered in part that it's probably because it's fun but that doesn't say much about what makes something fun for me. My opinion for a long time has been that there is a powerful barrier in our culture here in to US to discussing anything serious. You will get put down. And yet when you read some of the posts on depression, girl problems, divorce, killing the enemy, you name it, and infer the implied srffering, I don't see how anybody can conclude that people generally are already so sufficiently serious that they have nothing to gain by being more serious at least some of the time. And since I myself have already acquired some facility in absorbing put-downs, due no doubt in part that owing to some small and somewhat merciless attempt at self analysis, I have already long ago realized the essential truth and worse of such attacks, I guess I might have less to loose than some in regards to taking the risk of occassionally prevoking ideas that potentially evoke a mood of seriousness.

Said differently, I see everybody running from seriousness and everybody dying from its lack and even longing for it secretely That's not put too well, but think of it as a partially true generality.

So let us then boldly go where we don't want to but really do.