Is there actually any point to life?
 

If you think about it from a nihilistic point of view, existence is utterly meaningless and has no intrinsic value. The core reason for life seems to be to procreate and 'continue the species', but what is it that we're actually continuing? What's the point of humanity going on just for its own sake? Particularly when so many humans tend to be very scummy people? Apparently we are here to foster relationships with friends and family members, but most people don't even like each other anyway.

We've become a sentient species, and we are capable of fantastic things. But much of our energies seem wasted - what's really the point of building skyscrapers which rise thousands of feet into the air? What's the point in running around a field or a court kicking or throwing a ball? Is watching films really of any substantial merit?

Despite my comments on how meaningful I find the turtles, it certainly isn't of a high enough level for me to consider it a counter-argument to wiping out our species. If an asteroid was due to hit Earth and send us the way of the dinosaurs, it would probably be for the best. I'd feel pretty relieved, to be honest. We've destroyed this beautiful planet, and we treat each other with absolute contempt - the social stratification which is a major part of our societies is actually unforgivable, and calls into question the claim that we are an enlightened species. There's something highly repugnant about living in a society where some people can't afford to eat or drink, but others live in mansions composing of sixty empty rooms. It truly is reprehensible.

I enjoy things day to day on a micro level, but on a macro level I know this world will always be rotten. In a sense I really can't wait until I hit my 70s or 80s and expire (assuming I don't die before then). I don't really believe in religion or an afterlife so that will be it for me, and I won't have to think about the absolute fcking state of this planet economically, socially or environmentally. And I won't have to feel dislike for my fellow man and woman.

I realise this is a fairly heavy thread, but what is the actual point? Why do we even exist?

People who make comments like I have here are derided as crazy or deeply troubled - their arguments are overlooked and the focus is turned on to their psychological well-being. And, somewhat ironically, that's yet another reason I have a problem with humanity and hope we are eliminated.

Deep. So deeeeeeeep.

Yes, someone opens up a question for debate and all you can offer is sarcasm. I bet you felt very smug when you typed your utterly witless, unoriginal and generic response.

Actually, strike that, I didn't know you were just a young boy. But still, that doesn't grant you license to go around mocking people.

I think people have obligations to each other, which gives life meaning. Humans are social beings and love is important to them, otherwise, their life feels like **** when they don't receive any. Especially, if you have kids, they need to feel loved. The love of oneself is, just, as important, but, only compliments the love from another. I'm not talking sex, I'm talking about the sense of feeling wanted or needed. When people lose that, they have nothing that is worth living for.

That's true. But the point I am making is that we only feel these things because we exist in the first place. They're a part of our existence, but they don't justify its ends. They're not really a reason for existence, but more a by-product of existing.

Unless humans die off from disease or an asteroid, we'll probably go on for another million years.

The only 100% extinction is when the sun goes supernova and expands to destroy the Earth, but that's millions of years by now. By then humans might find a way to leave the Solar system and colonize other Earth-like worlds.

Sci-fi has already shown us the future of the human race, sans all the aliens I guess.

Can't see humanity lasting that long, not with the way we are quickly degrading the planet and exhausting natural resources.

It's a race against the clock to find and colonise the other worlds you mention. But human beings aren't intelligent enough to do it in time.

But, that assumes that everything is fixed, where the meaning of things can't be changed.

You're speaking from an objective view where meanings exists in nature, it's fixed. I'm speaking from an objective view, where all beings could agree. It's socially objective (and relative to living beings) because all beings would agree, not because it's something that exists within nature.

You make good and thought-provoking points, but the idea of being reaching a consensus is too fanciful. Technically speaking, equality, harmony, fairness, and ultimately a utopia-like society is achievable, in fact it probably wouldn't even be that difficult to manage. But human beings are far too petty and far too obsessed with what separates us (religion, class, colour etc) than what actually links us together.

On the more philosophical point you are getting at - I just can't see how life can be argued to have substantial meaning, even in a better society. It just doesn't really seem like living is something which is worth holding onto - there is too much wrong with life and not enough right.

Aside from the one you assign yourself, probably not.

Look at the difference between where we are now and back what we were in the year 1900. In only a little over a 100 years the world has changed dramatically.

The world changes dramatically every decade now, what we have now was science fiction back in the 80's. This isn't like how stagnant the world was for years back in the ancient past.

I can certainly imagine by the year 2050, and I hope most of us are still alive by then, will see a totally different world than what we have now. Let alone the year 5,000.

There's got to be more to life than chasing down every temporary high...

Yes, that probably sums it up well. It's subjective to a person, and if someone really finds purpose and happiness in how they operate day to day, week to week, year to year, then that really is all that matters. But on the objective and philosophical level, I have to wonder if they're lying to themselves, or perhaps just blissfully unaware of the greater issues.

While I see your point, and I liked your 'glorious time period' topic, I do feel you overestimate humanity and its progress. Much has changed, particularly technologically, but you're too focused on that sort of thing. In terms of science and medicine things haven't progressed at close to the same rate. As for technology, the fact that I am able to talk to you live from thousands of miles away - that's a fantastic thing (although a double-edged sword), but it's really an outcome of imperialism. As the world was colonised by empire and links were forged, even after the dissolution of these empires the next natural step was a globalised interconnected world. And part of that was using technological geniuses to create things such as the telegraph, the telephone, air travel, television and - ultimately - the internet.

I would argue that while technology is a fantastic thing in terms of being able to create it, it isn't actually something which had a radical and inspired idea over. In a sense, people didn't create a globalised technological community because it came to them in some sort of inspired vision, but moreso because it was the next natural (and necessary) step in connecting the world and making it smaller through globalisation.

These advances didn't happen because they have any particular value, but more because they were necessary in a practical manner.

This might be a problem of mine, as you seem to be implying. I don't deal well with the day-to-day boring grind which constitutes 99% of our lives. Most people accept and tolerate that in the knowledge that fleeting moments of meaning make it worth it, but I am not like that - for me the moments of happiness just don't compensate for all the boring, pointless and utterly forgettable sh!t which comprises most of daily life.

So perhaps I am chasing down lots of 'temporary high' in order to add up to an almost permanent high.

Life isn't bliss, it's just living. And life is at best bittersweet.

The point is to make what you think is the best out of the time you have, either that means make a difference or just be content with whatever you enjoy. Life moves on with or without us.

Isn't that the point though? Life is essentially making the best of a futile situation. How can anyone be genuinely happy when they know existence is deeply flawed?

Actually I was just quoting a song...

Just googled it - never heard of the artist. I tend not to be up to speed on today's musical non-entities.

I thought for a minute that you were actually involving yourself in the discussion - my mistake.

No particular point. Life is what you make of it, I guess. Some say the afterlife(if it exists, that is) will be the reward for what you've done all your life, but I think what makes life so precious is the fact that it's over one day. I mean, if nothing lasts forever, why would life be the exception to the rule? What would be the point of an afterlife? How different would it be from regular life anyway?

As for sports, games, movies and any kind of entertainment; if it wasn't for them, life would be even worse. They might be pointless at the end of the day, but they bring me more enjoyment than working or studying do. In fact, working and studying make me wonder more about the meaning of life than any other things do. I just cant' help but wonder if all the effort is worth it and if I won't just end up getting a ****** career.

Positive nihilism is the way to go, in my opinion. Don't let the pointless thing that's life let you down. I have no idea what's the purpose and the existence of our world or our galaxy and universe in general. And I'm sure I'll never find it out, but I'm fine with that.

My biggest gripe with life is how boring and ****** it can be more often than it should. Finding it hard to keep myself entertained despite living in 2014, doesn't help either. So many days I've wasted doing practically nothing memorable.

That's a nice point - the claim that life is precious because it could be gone at any instant. But the counter-argument is that if we did die, we would be oblivious to being dead anyway (assuming that people, like us, don't believe in an afterlife), so it's not like we can feel any regret about it. In fact, this further reinforces my point, as the actual regret is what we suffer while we are still alive, and feel like we aren't doing the things we ought to.

I agree that entertainment offers escapism, I've said so plenty of times before. But that again is my point - the fact that we need them to 'escape' the harsh realities of life really illustrates that we are living in a dystopia. Like I said, they are a means of coping with life - they don't make life worthwhile on their own, they just offer a comfort blanket or a band aid.

The thing about studying, education etc is that I view it differently than you do. For you, it seems to be merely practical, a means to an end i.e. finding work. For me it's about trying to understand things more clearly and learn about the world, whether it helps me find a career or not. It works to a point but I'm yet to find a theorist or writer who can convince me that life is worth living.

I agree with you about studying to some degree. Too bad school and even university can make learning feel like a damn chore. Look at how education makes people hate math and foreign languages, per example. And reading novels.

I find learning on my own to be a lot more fun. Imposition is more likely to breed aversion and contempt.

Yeah, I agree with all of that. Schools and universities often have their own agenda, so whilst reading it's important to think with a clear mind and know that this person (and the tone of the course) is prone to the same bias as everyone else.

Like Matt Damon says in Good Will Hunting - the other guy paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for an education. Hunting received his for $1.50 from a library. It's a crude reference but it is true.

What animates you, Davetello?

...Nothing

If the underlying idea under all of this is having existence mean something, and feeling that it doesn't, then I ask this question:

How would you define ' meaning?' If you could change something to make it meaningful, what would you change?

I've already asked myself this question many times over, and ultimately have come to most of the same conclusions as you.

When it boils down to it, the only possible thing that can be taken out of life is its availability of distractions - of "fun." No, there is no actual point to life. And that's something I think most people realize. But everyone is always so caught up in their own little worlds, that they unconsciously forget about that. The reason why so many people jump on bandwagons and follow trends is because it gives them a feeling of purpose and belonging - which averts their eyes from the futility of existence. And in a way, I think it's for the best. It's only too bad that so many people have adopted identical ideas of "fun," and that so few people have the balls to be different.

Well, there's nothing that really can be changed. In my view there's nothing that can really give live meaning, purpose, something really important to strive for. So it isn't possible to create true 'meaning', because meaning doesn't exist.

Excellent post. Everything is an escape, a distraction. But my contention is that it's best humanity dies out - then we won't need distractions anyway.

I somewhat agree with what you're saying, but I don't think it's a healthy mindset. True, we don't need to exist, but we do; and within the pile of sh!t that is life, there is the occasional gem that pops up if we try hard enough to find it. Don't dwell too much on the fact that we're a waste; it's a fact, but spending too much time pondering on it is a waste in itself - because we know it's true, so why analyze it more than we need to?

Maybe it would be best for humanity to die out. But that completely lacks predictability and is beyond our control, so we shouldn't spend too much time thinking on that logic either. That's why distractions are so great; they help us forget about all that until our time comes. And "distractions" isn't the best term for it because that makes it sound negative; the truth is that without them, we'd literally do nothing for our entire lives, which would make our existence just as pointless as it already is. So might as well find something to do with ourselves while we're here.

Fair post. Logging off now but will reply to it properly on my return.

Should have quoted the Monty Python song.

That movie alone makes life worth living.

Yes, it is true and at the same time obvious. I study Social Science here in Germany (state university, without significant costs). Lectures and seminars at University of Applied Sciences are mostly a very good introduction and motivation. Depending on how deep you want to understand topics, you have to study at leisure, reading books. And there are excellent books that convey knowledge and are partially super cheap (clearly, this is due to the globalized world, internet trade, Amazon, Ebay etc... I benefit from it, students benefit from it. Local booksellers disappear).

By writing seminar papers, student research projects etc... you have to read several books, compare opinions, knowledge levels. This makes studying. The entry into topics by professors and lecturers is often very good at my university. As a guitar teacher, he can show you a lot, but you have to practice for hours and hours, on your own.

The optimism about the future of our overpopulated and exploited planet is just a lack of information. You learn more about that by reading serious books, not by watching Science Fiction movies. Nevertheless, I still see no end of the world in the coming decades. But changes and challenges (that have always existed in the world, and but of another kind, in different degree).

A point of life? Anyone can have one! And without religion. There is much to do. The question is, how much do you strive for a point of life? Some do not have to look far. If you do not belong to them, what do you do to get your point(s) of life?

Relax dude. I was just joking.

In my opinion, life doesn't have a point. I just try to make the best of it.

I know that now. I was just riled at the time due to goings on elsewhere. I also didn't know your age. Your youth makes the sarcasm far more forgiveable, as we were all like that as pre-teens.

Apologies young man.

As for your second paragraph - you should probably stay away from threads like this. You're way too young to be affected by this sort of thing. Enjoy your childhood and don't worry about this nonsense.

Yeah, all of that is very true. I study/studied social sciences also.

Yeah, Cubed takes too much of entertainment and applies it to the real world - it doesn't often work that way. There is indeed too much optimism and people don't realise just how problematic overpopulation and the lack of resources truly are. The world won't cease to exist as soon as the next few decades, but the chances are great that the planet will be fully depleted and overcrowded before we create the technology to travel to other worlds and colonise them.

Yeah, life is what you make of it I guess. I'm glad some people don't think about this sort of thing - I envy that as it's probably the easiest way to live.

Nature tends to have a way of balancing itself out.
I believe this life is a product of intelligent design, not one of coincidence
To have a such pessimistic out look to life is truly frightening, I hope you do not contemplate on this daily. If you only look and live in the future and not the moment than life will pass you buy.

Fair enough, that's a clever way to look at it. If you view life as intended, then it becomes easier to find meaning. It's like Donnie in Secret of the Ooze - he was distressed when he found out the ooze was a mistake, that the turtles weren't planned. He was troubled by the fact that their existence wasn't something which had been desired - that they weren't 'special', as he says.

I've always felt this way, but when I was younger I didn't understand what I was feeling, and I didn't have enough experience or education to truly comprehend what was going on. I'm not sure whether that was better or worse - it was more confusing, but also less frightening as I wasn't so aware. Now, I just live with it, really. People know I don't find much joy in life, and it's not pleasurable but what can I do? I lack the mental fortitude for suicide so I have to struggle with these feelings. To be fair it's not something which gets to me all day, every day. I can find moments of escape, but it's always in the back of my mind, and sometimes at the forefront.

It's just life. Existential crises happen to people. Some people have been complimentary towards me and what they perceive to be my qualities, and they tell me I shouldn't feel this way. But they can't understand that this isn't about me or what qualities I may or may not possess. It's just an emptiness in terms of existence. I'd be the same regardless of my environment/marital status/wealth/career etc. It's something within and nothing external can solve it.

But that's assuming things always progress in the same trajectory forever, which isn't necessarily true in nature. Populations, even human populations, eventually reach a stable point if allowed to grow, with very little increase or decrease in numbers. This is one the predictions that some scientists have reached, based on their knowledge of other organisms. Plus some places are actually featuring a decrease like Japan, it seems that technology and the tendency to instill heavy gender roles for women once married makes marriage and babies unattractive for many younger folks, allowing a population decrease.

The problem is with population in many places (and I'm not talking about Africa in this case) is that government actively rewards people for having babies. Payments, bonuses, tax decreases, and in poor people's case, benefits for them. This encourages people to have babies who otherwise would have held off or kept them to a minimum (especially with birth control.) Take those away, and the number of babies born (and thus humans) will fall.

There's no real point to it. I mean unless you're the next thing that creates the next step of modern technology or otherwise helped shaped the world, you're gonna die a nobody. And even then... who can name the guy that invented the iphone? And without googling it. And who can name the dude that invented google?

And even so, eventually this planet is going down. Once that meteor or whatever hits, we're all gonna become some forgotten memory. For all we have accomplished and all we think we did.... all we're gonna be is some footnote on some alien's history class.

"And there was planet Earth... psssh... that didn't last long. Now moving on...'

Those are all fair points. But with medical advancement (as stated not as strong as technological advancement, but still significant) people are living longer, and there isn't enough in place to deter people from having babies - quite the opposite as you suggest. World population has been rising as the centuries pass - the key is to slow the rate of increase down. I'm not sure that will happen though.

Even if it does, the finite resources are probably the bigger issue.

Exactly. I think about this often. Some people will be remembered for what they've done, but others will be forgotten within generations, because they might have done something important to help others but it will never be publicised so they won't be remembered. I don't particularly want anyone to remember me anyway, but there is a sense of loss there - the notion that no matter what you set out to do, it will all ultimately be for nothing anyway - no legacy. I wonder if our ancestors ever pondered this - probably not to the same scale as naturally it was a less enlightened time, pound for pound.

That's it. Eventually humanity will cease to exist and ALL humans will be forgotten, as well as any 'accomplishments', so what's the point really? We are just a ticking time bomb. I guess some will argue that that time bomb will go off long after our generation is gone, so we might as well not think about it. There's no right or wrong answer.