Poll: no title, to keep the poll more accurate

[Pretender]

Every life has an impact on history and the future, but does that impact have any purpose in the grander scheme of things? Does my being here, posting on anandtech, cause the world to end sooner, will my existance be worth anything in 600 years when I, these forums, and the electrons speeding between my phone line and the servers at anandtech are somewhere probably far away from where they are now?

Is the purpose of life to exist in the minds and memories of someone else infinately, or is it to create others? Maybe there is no purpose except what you make of it, after all our existance is simply the firing of neurons in the brain, a chemical reaction from here to there, causing a finger to twitch slightly enough to hit the key which hits the sensor which causes an electron to go from the keyboard to the computer into the BIOS which sends a signal to the processor which causes the signals created by the OS to tell video card to update another letter on my screen, and the mouse click which sends all this crap from my screen to yours?

Who knows.

 

[Elledan]

imhotepmp

You totally missed the point. I was looking at a time which lies much further in the future.

There are those two options:

1) Time will end; The Big Crunch, the Universe ceases to exist

2) All stars in the universe will become black holes, the universe keeps expanding and slowly the universe will become inhabitable for any species, for there will be no planets, solarsystems or any other materials left.

Either way every trace of life will be erased and in case #2, the universe will keep expanding forever, while all particles in it fall apart in the most basic particles (those little strings, if the Superstring Theory is right) and all energy will be absorbed by black holes. If it would be possible to take a look how things would look at that time, then it would be dark, not a single photon could be seen and temperatures would be freezing (the absolute zero).

If we are lucky we will be technically advanced enough to either create a new universe which we could inhabit or we could influence this universe we're in now so that we could 'maintain' it.

 

[arod324]

Just voted

 

[Pyxis]

I voted

 

[zippy]

Life is what you make of it. You have the freedom of choice- if you choose to kill someone, you made yourself a date with prison. If you hit the books and work hard, odds are you'll go far in life.

Nothing is out of the realm of possibility- the purpose of your life is for you to decide; it isn't waiting for you hidden under a rock in your grandmother's flower garden.

Here is a lil something I wrote about life, the universe, etc. here

It's pretty rough, but I don't care, I handed it in- it was a free writing piece and I wasn't really up for editting that sucker too much because it needed it. I think the ideas will get me an A. No 10th grade teacher expects that kind of thought to be put into a free writing assignment (even though I had already thought about it a lot), so that will help too. The organization is kinda weak though- oh well.

 

[GrimReefer]

Sometimes I think about ending mine

 

[Dexion]

Life isn't meaningless at all. From my brief life of 24 years, I found my purpose to live a life prosperous, and be as successful as you can be. Although there are many questions that no individual can answer: why am I here, why do I have to face all these challenges, why this time and place? And ultimately, why do I live?

I feel that these answers can be found during the life you and I live, by success or enlightenment or death.

 

[imhotepmp]

Elledan


<< There are those two options:

1) Time will end; The Big Crunch, the Universe ceases to exist

2) All stars in the universe will become black holes, the universe keeps expanding and slowly the universe will become inhabitable for any species, for there will be no planets, solarsystems or any other materials left. >>




The universe cease to exist? How do you know that hte universe is all that exists? I think our understanding of the universe is too primitive and simple to fully understand anything. Do we really know anything? Things that we thought we knew fifty years ago, is hogwash now. After a million years of evolution and existance(8about the time the universe wil scease to exist) I think humanity will be able to go beyond the physical universe. Therefore, we will always exist and my argument holds. Me, you everyone would have contributed to their existance making the question of whether our life is meaningless a moot point.


imhotepMP

 

[Bignate603]

your purpose in life may be to convert food to crap, but hey it's a purpose.

 

[imhotepmp]

<< your purpose in life may be to convert food to crap, but hey it's a purpose. >>



lol..absolutely true


imhotepMP

 

[GregGreen]

^^^

 

[poop]

Everyone here who thinks we have a meaning is ignoring the BIGGER question. Hell, this is perhaps one of the greatest questions humankind could ponder:

Do we have free will? It has been shown that there is at least a 1/2 second propogation delay between the outside world and your internal consciousness. But we nearly always react faster than that. So do we have complete control over our lives? Probably not.

On a deeper level, do we have any control at all? Do I really have a choice in posting this? Or have an uncountable number of variables led my brain to react in a preset way so that I type this? Noone really knows.

The point being: No free will=no meaning. Perhaps, in a strange twist, we will never discover our lack of free will, because the proper chain of events has not taken place. We will keep zooming through the emptiness of space, never fully comprehending our own emptiness.

 

[Mountain]

of course life exists in your mind. by life do you mean &quot;that which exists?&quot; or &quot;the dna replicating type of life&quot;. anyway we are sensory creatures. are you saying that the &quot;you&quot; is all their is to existence. that reeks of massive self-importance. could be there is more to existence(life?)than the &quot;you&quot; can perceive. is it possible that there is &quot;something&quot; more Powerful in the creation than &quot;you&quot;. it has been my experience that opening to the possibility of &quot;lack of coincidence&quot; or &quot;creator in charge&quot; or &quot;not my will but thine&quot; manifested evidence of the existence of a &quot;higher power&quot; by having actual occurances which seemed to benefit me. Or at least demonstrated the existence of some higher power in charge of reality. have you ever seen something that was so amazingly beautiful and perfect that it overpowered your willpower to avoid seeing it. has your will power ever been completed eliminated. has the feeling of &quot;really love&quot;, and the key word here is &quot;really&quot; believe it or not, ever entered into every cell of your being.
well boys it will make a believer out of you trust me on this one. and all this senseless garbage about reality being in your mind becomes so much metaphysical claptrap. so you just go on thinking that you know something because until you decide that maybe you don't know everything, you will, in all effects, know nothing.

 

[poop]

<< could be there is more to existence(life?)than the &quot;you&quot; can perceive >>

- Mountain

You forget that our reality is made up of our perception. So there is nothing more to existence than perception. If you cannot percieve it, it might as well not exist. Hell, everything mankind has ever done is based on this conception of reality.

 

[Mountain]

poop- agreed that all we Know is that which we perceive. but is that all that there IS? you know the answer to that one. the Known , the Unknown and the unknowable. are there &quot;glimpses&quot; to indicate the existence of some &quot;ordered&quot; universe? and the thought occurred to me a while ago, is the question here, &quot;is LIfe meaningless&quot;, or is this guy's life seem meaningless to himself?
i am definitely with you that we are creatures of perception but i'm telling you that sometimes we percieve some awesome things if we &quot;go looking&quot; . but you know. you cant see the flow of the river too well till you get out and go up on the bank. Oh but sooner or later you gotta get back in &quot;life&quot; so to speak. treasure that &quot;bank&quot; time. lose &quot;vain self-importance&quot;

 

[Mountain]

HEY WUMING dude, you dont sound too happy. you mentioned tired. why cant you rest? chill? you will get your rest. healthy or sick, you will get your rest. please examine what your value system is that make you push yourself without achieving &quot;peace&quot;. youve got work to do and it looks alot like undoing is what you need. good luck

 

[Sundog]

 

[Jalapeno]

I'm alive. And I love it!

 

[poop]

Mountain - Your approach to finding more in life is a good one. Searching for answers is something us humans love to do. The problem is that when we search too hard, we find either the wrong answers, or interpret valid data invalidly. That is, we see a perceptible event as evidence of something we are unable to perceive.

In my searching I have come to one final conclusion, and it is this: I am. There is not much beyond that that I am able to prove to myself. I suppose I am committing an error in logic by believing I am worthless based on the lack of evidence of worth. Yet in my short time on this Earth, I have found nothing that gives my life a deeper meaning. Perhaps it is my pessimistic nature, but I eventually accepted that there is no Truth in my life.

I simply live my life as it is, enjoying it when I can. I too love, and sometimes hate. I see beauty and grandeur in the world as well as you. The fact that I associate no metaphysical significance to these feelings does not take away from their value. For there is no value to these feelings beyond the fact that I feel and live.

Jalapenon - Loving life has nothing at all to do with meaning. Perhaps my definition is different than yours, but enjoy my life as well. I actually began to enjoy it more once I concluded there was no Truth.

 

[Mountain]

hey poop
I was very preachy in my younger days, but it seemed that those that i thought listened wound up joining, lets say, some group that did not advocate individual interpretations. even if you decide that YEAH there's something up or out there and i want to get into the good groove, how does one &quot;KNOW&quot; the communication process. very difficult to decide and to discern. might have to go a little toward the &quot;crazy&quot; side to be &quot;real&quot;. looking for &quot;signs&quot; is crazy but i did it. and sometimes i mean &quot;signs&quot;. no logic here. strictly self interpretation but then who else is going to give you a guide? something is happening though and it aint random. try talking in your head to a possible &quot;creator&quot; and ask! for some non random occurance that might be a possible &quot;glimps&quot; of proof of existence. dont tell anybody. hey might not work. might.

 

[Elledan]

<<The universe cease to exist? How do you know that hte universe is all that exists? I think our understanding of the universe is too primitive and simple to fully understand anything. Do we really know anything? Things that we thought we knew fifty years ago, is hogwash now. After a million years of evolution and existance(8about the time the universe wil scease to exist) I think humanity will be able to go beyond the physical universe. Therefore, we will always exist and my argument holds. Me, you everyone would have contributed to their existance making the question of whether our life is meaningless a moot point.
>>

Agreed, but in that case, it all comes down to one factor: Human. Will they (we) be able to technically and intellectually develope themselves fast enough to do something about the 'extinguishing' or ending of the universe?

Those two different theories of the ending of the universe are the two most widely accepted. The existance of a universe outside of this universe is still very unlikely at this moment, but not impossible.

[/i]If[/i] Humanity indeed manages to survive the ending of this universe, then no, life is not meaningless. But it requires an awful lot of faith to trust the capatibilities of the Human race, seeing that the biggest accomplishments of Humanity lies on the territitory of warfare and the greatest events in history are wars.

 

[8ball]

Saxman-
I'm beginning to worry about you.

 

[limsandy]

If life is meaningless, y not u go kill urself now?
Wait, please don't.
I don't wanna get sued for provoking suicide.

 

[saxman]

8ball - why, because I don't nef as much as I used to

 

[8ball]

Nah. I've slowed down, too. Lately, most of your threads have been stuff like this one. Not the usual you.

limsandy- shut up.