Existence Is Pointless

Despite the fact that we possess a cerebral cortex, we are not much different from animals in the sense that we simply exist to reproduce. Our sole function is to survive in order to reproduce and survive to nurture our offspring until they reproduce, thus completing the link in an endless chain. The programming and hardwiring of our machine, our body, is geared towards survival. Our body is essentially a self-sustaining machine. Our organs repair themselves when damaged and are constantly functioning to ensure that we do. Our hunger makes sure to motivate us to feed, in order to sustain our bodies.

The only thing our cerebral cortex has provided for us is the creation of a more complex arena for these battles, more sophisticated weapons to fight with, more rules of engagement, and most importantly, the ability to create an illusion of purpose. Though we often try to create a higher purpose for ourselves, we only do so to make our existence seem more meaningful. At the end of the day, it’s simply about surviving.

Why do we live in groups? Because it improves our chances of survival. Why do we feel a bond with our family, the ones who clothe, feed, and shelter us? Because they help ensure our survival. Why do we wage wars? To gain power. Why do we want to gain power? To survive. And naturally, our biological urges will push us to reproduce. Looking past the complicated web of social appearances and internal complications, confusion, and abstractions, our existence is pointless beyond reproducing.

What do you believe?

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lee, extremely intriguing how all your examples eventually end up as being a means for survival. never entered my mind before. but what about the whole "essence" business? yeah reproduction is what we're here for, awesome. but what does essence do? HELP us survive? ^.-

the cerebral cortex has created a more complicated pattern for surviving. we have to follow these rules and that, we have to go along with society, act sociable, conform to standards, worship hollywood...

why did we evolve into creating these complex webs for ourselves?

what's the meaning of painfully studying, killing our health by working for money, spending the money on health care, and then ultimately dying? on days when our, should i say, "vibration" is negative, we tend believe that this is the pattern we are fated to follow. we think that all this pain is meaningless. what the hell right?
but then we're here, and yes it seems quite ego-mind like to you know, put down our existence like that.
it happens all the time. i got a bad score for english today, so i'm like what's the point of human suffering, what are we sacrificing for?
today i was like - why does it say "rest in peace" on our tombstones? when people started burying each other way back centuries and centuries ago, did they already know that existence was going to be an episode of pain?

but then as i was saying, and what my temporary conclusion is - we're here right? and there's no point committing suicide, so I say we might as well enjoy it. even if existence is pointless, let's be happy. even if our existences barely cover a century in a history of four billion years. yes no one would ever know. but do it for yourself, enjoy life for yourself. yes no one would care. but in the end, it doesn't matter because happiness doesn't have to have a point.

oh and,
there has to be a reason why we differ more from animals than animals differ from each other.
maybe that'll help us find an answer. we'll ask a biologist.

Hello

I agree with your interesting point of view, Then what is the meaning for having a Cerebral cortex if like you say all we do is try to survive. When we have reached the top of the food chain, what do we do then? From you interesting passage, it makes people feel that life after reproduction is rather meaningless. So what do you mean? Do you want us to revert back and start the reproduction cycle at tender ages like fifteen?

Though you have said so much what do you feel, from what you say, it makes many peoples life meaningless, by classifying that a pursue for happiness is a dream or Illusion.

As i see, I think you really hate modern day society and rather live in the time where reproduction is the only path of survival. Are you Showing that you long to fulfill your sexual desires and move on?

Anyway Nice topic

I guess

Bye

hm..so you dont believe in all the "live life to its fullest (if you even believe there is a fullest to be attained)" or dreams (Janie's horizon) stuff? i guess maybe those are just fillers? things to make the rest of life go along as we wait for death or between reproduction periods?

hm..we started off as hunter-gathers, following our food. but then came in agriculture, where we were allowed to stay in one place and settle down. this gave us more time to do other things. and as time passed, we developed things like cities, empires, etc. (fast forwarding super fast) so that up til now, we dont see that line of surviving with all those basics as clearly (if you follow me). in a way, our focus shifted or just simply blurred.

ok, not too sure what i'm trying to get at, so i'll stop here.

THis is indeed very interesting.

Is there a purpose to people other than survival? I believe that there is. Say, why do people give up their life to ensure other people's living? If we were all living solely for the purpose to reproduce why is it that we are putting on rules to marriages and so forth? Why do we need friends iof the same sex in the modern day society if we were safe and our only purpose was to survive?

ALl of these questions made me believe that there are more than survival purposes on the world. Even though it is a very bug part of the purpose of our life in my opinion, but there must be other purposes to our existence.

However, i don think that the purpose is important to define because afterall, the living experience could be our purpose, to live to experience is a purpose. To be able to know and to feel is also our purpose. Maybe it is not so important to make out what our purpose it, but to just experience life and live it to the fullest.

We are animals, and yes we are born into this world to have sex, and reproduce. All these elementary/highschool/university things are just to allow us to have a better chance of survival. What makes us different is that, females, love for a close relationship nowadays. While males, to be direct share a more close resemblance with animals, we get into a relationship to have sex, thats around 70 somne percent...from a magazine stat. I think.
Freewrite above.

I agree with what you say, we are pretty meaningless in a sense, because although there is the higher force, S. Being, what's the point in getting the know them if we were just meant to reproduce? A better understanding of essnce of the S Being might prove to be beneficial to the whole world, which will definitely make the world a better place for every organism. But how many men/women have transcended to that level? In a nutshell we're like barbarians in suits, working, fighting, arguing, debating all to survive, and for most barbarians, reproduce.

HAH everything about this, the title, the topic, the thoughts, are so you

Kind of random, but having the hamsters for our bio experiments have kind of made made me see the animalistic drive for survivial you've precisely mentioned. These animals are just like us, with a little less cerebrum, and a shorter life span. But maybe that little "extra" cerebrum is all the difference...like we can go against our survival instincts if we had to (people fast, torture themselves etc.) while animals (as far as I have seen, and I have seen quite some with the hamsters -.-) do not consiously consider dying for a purpose or something like that.

Or maybe we're just a species of overachievers.

Gray wrote: Do you want us to revert back and start the reproduction cycle at tender ages like fifteen?
Are you Showing that you long to fulfill your sexual desires and move on?

oh lawd, YES. EXACTLY.

Anyways, to answer lee's topic, yeah, I agree, not really much point in living. We're born, we eat, we drink, we defecate, we urinate, we sleep, we mate, we die. Life in a nutshell.

Although, while there we isn't any point in our existence, we can make it worth our while here. Try to enjoy some stuff, even if it all amounts to naught. Like c'mon, only one shot at life, if it turns out that there IS an afterlife, gonna be pretty crappy to be sittin there listening to bill gates talking about the sex you didn't have.

Joshua wrote:
Is there a purpose to people other than survival? I believe that there is. Say, why do people give up their life to ensure other people's living? If we were all living solely for the purpose to reproduce why is it that we are putting on rules to marriages and so forth? Why do we need friends iof the same sex in the modern day society if we were safe and our only purpose was to survive?

dude josh, you're in bio -_- ALTRUISM, sound familiar?

Nice topic, Lee!

Well, I don't think what Josh mentioned is truly altruism. If that were altruism, we'd jump in front of every child threatened to get run over by a car.

But parents often have stronger connections with their children, and that emotion often makes them do the impossible, such as block a bullet of lift a two ton car off of a crushed kid. If all we needed were to survive, we'd be like the robots in i-Robot. We'd measure which had a better chance of survival, and leave it at that - be it live or die.

I think maybe we are living on this world to reproduce, but like Joyce said, What the heck? Since we're here, we might as well enjoy it, and entertain ourselves into believing that we do have a purpose. If life were truly meaningless, why do we have to reproduce in the first place? Maybe it's just to go on and on and on in life until this unknown moment in the future, or maybe it's never going to end, but at least you won't say that all I did in life was eat and do your daily activities and copulate, right?

So are we really just here to reproduce? Whether or not there's an ulterior motive to our existence would really be up to us to decide now, wouldn't it?

Do you really think we are meant to just reproduce and die? I don't think so~

Take a look at insects in the wilderness. They hatch from eggs, start flying, then reproduce at mating season and instantly die.

Take a look at fruits that grow on trees. They grow, they die (get eaten), and have their seeds spread out ( probably through the person's rear end)

But now look at humans...we live, reproduce and KEEP LIVING. Yes, I am aware that most mammals are like this, but I argue that our purpose is not just to reproduce and then die in a pathetic way. Humans may have a longer life span in order to take care of the young, but human beings have the chance to thrive and adapt. Take a look at the fruit tree. It does not really change at all...because it's purpose is simple. Humans on the other hand keep changing both biologically and culturally...but for what purpose? I don't know...but I am pretty sure that the human race's purpose is that stupidly simple...no...there is something much much more advanced than that.

Oh I know! Dominate other speices! ( just kidding)

typo:but I am pretty sure that the human race's purpose is NOT that stupidly simple

my bad xD

@Andy
Lee never said that our purpose was to die, he just said that life was pointless. And how do you know what the purpose of a fruit tree is? Are you the fruit tree? And if you don't even know you're own purpose, how could you possibly know the purpose of another organism? What lee means is that there is no defined purpose for humans, we live to live, we live because we live, we live like we live. No why to it. It just happens.

You know, Lee, that's actually a question that has entered my head quite often before. We read in AP bio that yeah, it's all about survival and passing on the genes... but why do we want to pass on our genes? What purpose does it serve us? It all ultimately breaks down to surviving - living eternally through our genes and through our descendents, right? So is that what you're asking? What's the point of passing on our genetic code? What's the point of living forever?

And what if there is no point - it's just how we were made to operate? Is this desire to seek meaning inour life yet another part of the egomind's functions? Should we in fact try to seek meaning in our life - or should we just live it, and try to make the most of it? Can some things just be, or must everything have a reason?

But then again, I'm for the "everything exists/happens for a reason" stance, though i do find this question intriguing and worth discussing. Sorry this post has mostly been composed of questions - i'll get back to this when my thinking is clearer. =]

Ehehehe, truly the one question that has captivated me, well let's get started shall we?

The cerebral cortex. The part of the brain that gives us the ability to override the instincts, seems to be an advantage against organisms that don't have this part of the brain. It is this part of the brain that made us able to observe and develop technology, from the creation of fire to the creation of the iPod. Go figure. This gives us an advantage against other mammals, but when pitted against our own, really, we're just raising the playing field.

Lee wrote:At the end of the day, it’s simply about surviving.

It really is. It really is. To be honest, really, there is no real point to 'life.' Sure, we can give ourselves the illusion that God created us or something to do this and that. I can go ahead and excessively drink and get tattoos and engage in gang wars. I can also meditate and find inner peace within myself. There is no difference other than the experience we will be able to get from this life. If anything, life is just one of those things that just happens to be. What else are you going to do with it? It's up to you. It's like legos. You build your own purpose if you want a purpose, you don't if you don't.

joannneee wrote:If life were truly meaningless, why do we have to reproduce in the first place?

In the beginning, there's this combination of chemicals. It happens somehow that it can duplicate itself from the beginning of its creation, to a certain time (death). Ta-da, that's it. The only reason organisms seem to take a big part of our lives is because of their constant duplication/reproduction. Really, for all we know, life could've started with a blob that started to reproduce. Heh. To think that there's a reason to its reproduction. It just happened, no more to it.

Josh wrote:Is there a purpose to people other than survival? I believe that there is. Say, why do people give up their life to ensure other people's living? If we were all living solely for the purpose to reproduce why is it that we are putting on rules to marriages and so forth?

The thing with humans is that they have the ability to die for a cause. Besides, that doesn't mean that there's a purpose in life. Just because you can die for other people doesn't mean there IS a purpose in life. Do you think that the mujahid's (person engaged in Jihad) purpose in life is to strap themselves with bombs and blow up?

The rules we put on marriages seem to be arbitrary, and not...well, I dunno, they don't seem to be an effect of anything other than the feeling of possession. Spirituality is to religion as love is to marriage. It is organized, it is for people higher top to tell who's together and who's not. It'd be extremely hard to judge everyone's 'love' on a case to case basis. So really, no real point in marriage, and it still doesn't answer the question of reproduction, as you put out.

Josh wrote:Why do we need friends of the same sex in the modern day society if we were safe and our only purpose was to survive?

SO you think that friends of the opposite sex is required in order to be safe and to survive? Besides, birds band together to avoid predators, and I'm sure there's bound to be birds of a same gender in there. And really, when you think about it, while humans are social creatures, they do so to save themselves from predators, back in the ages of Homo Habilus (or whatever you AP Bio people call them).

Hoo, long post.

From everything I've read so far (and correct me if I'm wrong) I gather that the majority of you believe that biologically speaking, our solepurpose is to reproduce. Many have stated (indirectly) that survival seems to be more of a means to an end, rather than end in itself. What is being emphasized in life is the process, not the end. But ultimately, my belief still remains the same, that life is intrinsically meaningless. As some people have said to me on other forums, meaning is arbitrary. As humans, we can ascribe meaning to meaningless things. And in many ways, that is the beauty of it. Life, though inherently meaningless, is something we can find meaning in.

Still, this meaning is still defined on an individual basis. My "purpose of life" might be vastly different from yours. So where does our idea of meaning come from? The Being or the Egomind?

There is one important question I was asked and I want to ask you guys it as well.

nomadx wrote:Does the pointlessness of existence crush or liberate you.. that is the question.

I know my answer to that question.

Our idea of "the purpose of life" is from the egomind. Our belief of purpose is a concept, a way of motivating ourselves to continue on. The egomind bases its most primary basic motivation on survival, and to do that the ego must make us carry on and not lose faith...in a sense we are donkeys chasing a carrot on a stick.
The Being on the otherhand, is not very likely the one that asks for purpose because the being does not question. It just is. The Being is oneness...a fulfilling globe of peace inside you.

nomadx wrote:
Does the pointlessness of existence crush or liberate you.. that is the question.

Definitely a "crush" for me
When I think about my purpose in this world, I feel lost and astray. Is there fate? Destiny? or what we make of ourselves? sighs...this relates to the Butterfly effect...

Hello

I don't think the meaningless of life does either.

look at my life, for example, I don't care about life since i know it is meaningless, but i am neither liberated from its duties nor am I wanting to commit suicide.

Didn't we ask this question in sixth grade?



See Ya

nomadx wrote:Does the pointlessness of existence crush or liberate you.. that is the question.

It liberates me.

Why? Well, I don't know, maybe it's a personal thing. I've been told that we have a purpose in life. For at least a year or two I've been thinking and searching through what this meaning is. The pointlessness of existence came to me and, well, can't really say I'm sad because of it. It is the pointlessness of existence combined with the world surrounding us that makes me say "okay, why not do something that is fulfilling to me?" So, as humans, we assign meaning to meaningless things, and thus, to life. We are in control of our own meaning of life.

Now, sure, we are not exempted from all the responsibilities that the society and the environment has put on us (we still have to work for food one way or the other to survive). However, at least now we know that we are free to do what we want to do. Really, I'm glad that there's no direction imposed upon us for life. I view life as an open ended RPG, what you do with it is what you will end up with. There really is no point here.

That is my point of view. [/freewrite]

The idea of meaning comes from the ego-mind.
It is so full of itself. It is egocentric. It is narcissist.
This is why it tends to try to find meaning for its existence. It thinks that it is here to serve some grand purpose.

But isn't this belief [that the ego creates] good for humans?
If there wasn't this belief, a person would probably sit sluggishly at home watching news of death and destruction and do nothing. Cuz his existence is meaningless right?

Ok take this: A person believes that he or she is here for a reason. In an extreme POV, s/he might think that s/he is here to to save the world from global warming. All through life, s/he gravitates towards this goal. He is motivated by this belief. He is following his dream path. Perhaps in the end, s/he really does save the world. Is it because of the initial 'egocentric' thought - the egomind thinking that it is here for a purpose - that helped this person stop global warming?

----------------------------------------------------
As for the quote,
I am pulled by two different sides of my ego-mind.

One side tells me that I am crushed, because I always believed that I was here for a reason. You know, lead a group of people and change the course of history, something like that I always thought that maybe my little existence has a point. Why was I born at this time or at this place? It made me feel motivated and inspired. Yes I am of importance in this world. I have something to work towards.

Another reason why I feel disappointed is because of the great figures in history. It's hard to believe that none of them served a purpose. What about Lincoln, Gandhi, Aristotle, and Churchill? Did they go through everything to change the world, for...nothing? Is it just a big pointless game we're playing here?

However, my other side tells me that I am liberated. I don't need to be responsible. Because as the quote goes, with power comes responsibility. I can just drift around all my life because at the end of the day, everything has no meaning. I can enjoy my life, do meaningless things with no guilt.

Doesn't really matter to me, both ways, cuz if there was a point to life, I never knew it, and if there isn't, well same thing, either way, I was never living for a purpose. So I guess I feel the same way knowing the pointlessness of our existence as I did not knowing. Confirming the futility of our existence doesn't do much to fulfill my dreams nor crush them. The dreams are still there, I can go fulfill at my own leisure, doesn't matter if they're what I'm here for, I'd work for them anyway.

joanne isn't altruism jumping in front of cars for ppl that are related to u?? and that's because by doing that the chances of having the family genes passed on is greater than if u left that person to die. ultimately it raises the chance that ur genes would be passed on.

andy - r u sure that the plants aren't going thru just as much change as mammals are? coz they have genetic variation from each other, too. that's why i find trees amazing; each leaf is just somewhat different from every other one. the power of genetics. so then maybe they do vary a lot, but that variation SEEMS to be insignificant/easily missed by us humans. I mean, when ur not used to ppl of a certain nationality, sometimes you'd think all of them look very much alike, right? i know it was hard for me to tell the difference betw diff. Indian individuals at first - your brain is still familiarizing with the nationality and not yet noticing the specifics. Perhaps that is the case w/plants? perhaps when we observe more, we start noticing all the rest of the little details.

---

about the meaning. rightnow i'm kinda getting the feeling that the egomind is what questions, and the essence is what is content. but the egomind (according to darwin) evolved for a reason, and maybe our possession of a prefrontal cortex allows us to improve and change at a relatively rapid pace. i remember mentioning this in another discussion. correct me if i'm wrong guys!

but as long as we have our time on earth, we might as well make the most of it, like most of you have suggested. we should be content, be happy, enjoy life...etc etc. so what's the harm in using a little egomind to make developments in life, have a little fun with this useful little tool we have, and maybe just create a better future for the succeeding generations? that'll help their chances of passing on the genetic info, and a bit of us will "live on" through them right?

so then what's the purpose of an ipod? how does it serve us? do ppl go nuts w/o it? what if it's someone that had never known of its existence? you can't miss what you've never had right?

---

the liberate/crussh question...
taken in 2 ways
1) crushed. it diminishes my self-worth in a way - if life is all meaningless then what am i doing here? what's the point in striving to gain knowledge? what's the point in studying for tests, ultimately?
2) liberated. I'm freed from the responsibilities. but then doesn't that make me seem like someone who just can't take the pressure??

ultimately i think i'm more of the latter. I like the idea that i'm liberated from this "responsibility" that was put unto me, the responsibility that was set in motion way before i entered existence. like i'm freed from the burden that hte past generations put on me. Doesn't mean i'm lazy (i dno, maybe i am, maybe i'm not. i'm not exactly sure myself). this way, the devleopments and growths that i experience would be for myself, and not for the past's expectations. wouldn't that make me "self-reliant" in a way in that whatever i do, it'd be because i WANT to and not because i'm OBLIGATED to?

Josh wrote:Is there a purpose to people other than survival? I believe that there is. Say, why do people give up their life to ensure other people's living? If we were all living solely for the purpose to reproduce why is it that we are putting on rules to marriages and so forth? Why do we need friends iof the same sex in the modern day society if we were safe and our only purpose was to survive?

We are still struggling for absolute survival, so I wouldn't consider ourselves "safe," despite our relatively long life span and low mortality rate. And we don't "need" same sex companionship. The human population won't die if there was absolutely no homosexual interaction.

Gray wrote:So what do you mean? Do you want us to revert back and start the reproduction cycle at tender ages like fifteen?

Nature intended for us to reproduce early on. Society supposedly shuns underage sex, and is the only reason there's an age of consent.

Here's how the concept of "the point of life is to reproduce" and "the point of life is to live it to the fullest" connect:
The ultimate goal in life is reproduction, because as long as reproduction doesn't take place, we go extinct, and cease to exist.

In a somewhat math-equation style explanation
>>
Why do we exist in the first place? To exist. We exist to exist. Taking this statement, we can view the same idea as "we exist for the sake of our existence." In other words, we exist for ourselves.

As you exist for yourself, your existence is validated by you and only you.

As modern day existentialists believe, there is no meaning in life, except for that which you create for yourself.

If you live day after day for others, you exist for others, thereby defeating your root purpose, which is to exist for yourself. If you exist for others, you don't exist.

The above realization has neither crushed nor liberated me. It's done something that I don't know how to describe (and it's not even as great a change as it sounds).

The opinion that life's purpose is meaningless has neither crushin nor liberating effects on me. How so? Because i believe that the sole "meaning" of life is the experience in between birth and death.

At times though, through out ones life, each individual has responsibility therefore, purpose to serve, and contribute to the society for the greater good (or for the good of survival). ANd this is experience. TO live a life to the fullest extent is to have gain as much experience as possible.

SInce the important aspect of life is the experience in life, the sole purpose of life has no effect. We are here, because we are. At least that's what i believe.

Vincent_Lee wrote:Despite the fact that we possess a cerebral cortex, we are not much different from animals in the sense that we simply exist to reproduce. Our sole function is to survive in order to reproduce and survive to nurture our offspring until they reproduce, thus completing the link in an endless chain. The programming and hardwiring of our machine, our body, is geared towards survival. Our body is essentially a self-sustaining machine. Our organs repair themselves when damaged and are constantly functioning to ensure that we do. Our hunger makes sure to motivate us to feed, in order to sustain our bodies.

The only thing our cerebral cortex has provided for us is the creation of a more complex arena for these battles, more sophisticated weapons to fight with, more rules of engagement, and most importantly, the ability to create an illusion of purpose. Though we often try to create a higher purpose for ourselves, we only do so to make our existence seem more meaningful. At the end of the day, it’s simply about surviving.


Why do we live in groups? Because it improves our chances of survival. Why do we feel a bond with our family, the ones who clothe, feed, and shelter us? Because they help ensure our survival. Why do we wage wars? To gain power. Why do we want to gain power? To survive. And naturally, our biological urges will push us to reproduce. Looking past the complicated web of social appearances and internal complications, confusion, and abstractions, our existence is pointless beyond reproducing.

What do you believe?

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Hi Vincent

You've provided a good description for life in the World described by Plato as life in Plato's cave. Shakespeare provided a classic description of the same:

http://www.artofeurope.com/shakespeare/sha9.htm

We believe we are making progress but psychologically and biolologically all we do is continue turning in cycles. The basic question is if "this is all there is?" Is there nothing other, no purpose we are oblivious to, then living the cycles of the world in Plato's cave?