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--- meaning_of_life_discussion [2024/02/25 19:30] – ultracomfy
+++ meaning_of_life_discussion [2025/04/09 20:16] (current) – ultracomfy
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+~~Title:Discussion: The Meaning of Life~~
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 <fs xx-large>Discussion: The Meaning of Life</fs>((On this page I will treat "meaning" and "purpose" as synonymous because, once a meaning has been established, a "purpose" usually follows directly from the meaning and needs no more discussion.))
+<fs x-large>TL;DR: Unless a god exists, which we do not know, the question about the meaning of life is [[Absurdity|absurd]].</fs>
 Imagine you're a droplet of water. Picture yourself stranded in some desert of an unnamed planet and it's getting really hot. So hot, indeed, that you begin to vaporize, and you ascend to the [[Skyrim|cloud district]] where you are carried forth and join many other atoms and molecules that once formed water but now find themselves in the gasenous phase of water. Eventually it's getting really packed and you are finding yourself at an impasse. Eventually you will be so heavy and jam packed with other water molucules that you are forced to convert back into liquid water and, too heavy to remain airborne, drop to the ground via gravity.
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 Well, you will find that just the question is flawed in itself. What purpose, why should there be a purpose? Water just flows, the cycle of water is a result of the physical laws governing it.((Many things are dependent on water, but that is just a [[fact of the universe]].)) And I get it, calling the global ecosystem of water a "living" thing may be a stretch, but why does it have to be living? Just because a thing is alive means it must have a purpose? The question "what is the meaning of life?" assumes that there //is// a meaning. Simple rules can let complex mechanisms [[emergence|emerge]], this is true for the cycle of water, this is true for those cool, hexagon-shaped basalt columns(([[https://youtu.be/thOifuHs6eY?t=215|CGP Grey - Hexagons are the Bestagons]])) and this is ultimately true for human life as well((Read [[Emergence]] for more on why I believe this.)). If we agree that all those oxygen molecules don't have an intrinsic meaning and "just exist", then we have no meaning either. We //just are// and even just the idea of groups of atoms (like those making up your body right now) having "meaning" is absurd.
-History has a long and rich tradition of humans thinking of themselves as special, until they realized that they are //not// the center of their own star system, that even their own star system isn't the center of the universe and the realization that each and every - individual - human being has to make... That //we// are not the center of the universe either. It's hard to accept and I am still disappointed as well and probably in denial, but we all have to get there. I, the individual, **me specifically** will live and die in vain just like billions of people did before me, all of which I don't know or care about just as much as the people in 200 years will not know or care about me. We are but one droplet in a river of droplets, slowly carving a path and shaping the course we take - governed by the rules of physics((And maybe some [[Randomness|random chance]], according to [[Quantum Physics|quantum physicists]].)).
+History has a long and rich tradition((A quote from [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcc_KAhwpa0|YouTube: CGP Grey - 2012 Didn't Happen]].)) of humans thinking of themselves as special, until they realized that they are //not// the center of their own star system, that even their own star system isn't the center of the universe and the realization that each and every - individual - human being has to make... That //we// are not the center of the universe either. It's hard to accept and I am still disappointed as well and probably in denial, but we all have to get there. I, the individual, **me specifically** will live and die in vain just like billions of people did before me, all of which I don't know or care about just as much as the people in 200 years will not know or care about me. We are but one droplet in a river of droplets, slowly carving a path and shaping the course we take - governed by the rules of physics((And maybe some [[Randomness|random chance]], according to [[Quantum Physics|quantum physicists]].)).
 ===== What about a purpose, then? =====
-Well, what //**is**// your purpose? "Purpose" and "meaning" are [[Social construct|social constructs]]. Meaning is perhaps a spiritual construct, //purpose// is a result of goal-oriented planning. To survive a human needs to eat, so the "purpose" of cooking is to survive. But then again, this will change based on [[perspective]]. Someone else may do it primarily because it is an event for social interaction. It's a matter of perspective and the idea of a perspective is //human// (ot at least "living") in nature. Who imparts on you a "meaning" or a "purpose", forcefully?, and why should you accept it as yours? And, ultimately, what the fuck are we even talking about? We're atoms, doing atom things!
+Well, what //**is**// your purpose? "Purpose" and "meaning" are [[Social construct|social constructs]]. Meaning is perhaps a spiritual construct, //purpose// is a result of goal-oriented planning. A //purpose// is a thought in someone's head. Someone might say that a chair has the purpose to be sat on, but someone else might use it for fuel in a fire. That's the purpose of that chair, and even if you say that this wasn't the intended purpose of the chair, that's still just the thought of someone's brain, not a physical truth.
-====== Some other People's Perspectives ======
-I have established //my// perspective on this topic - hopefully I did so well. What should be clear is that I find this question to be kind of moot. From my perspective, everything another person will claim about being their "meaning" or "purpose" is "made up" and, well, I don't have many problems with it. [[Belief in belief]] means that believing in something can help a person as a coping mechanism and, as long as it is used that way, who am I to complain? Obviously it gets difficult if those believing in belief are trying to sell their stuff as truth or fact, but we will come to that later.
 ===== Religion, God and Co. Ltd. =====
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 ===== Reproduction and DNA =====
+//See the main article on this topic: [[Singularity]]//\\
+//See the main article on this topic: [[Darwinism]]//\\
+{{page>Templates:Humor}}
 Life and evolution is one huge battle of races. Lifeforms emerge, fight for domination and expand or exterminate based on fitness, and that's the cycle of life. So, what's your meaning? Obviously, //your// target is to expand your kind, your //personal// DNA as much as you can! You see, life is a fight! You, personally, are competing with every other strain of DNA, so you must find the best, most fertile, most //fruitful// partner that you can get, because if you don't then you go extinct, and that's disgraceful. Without your genes passed on, you are worthless. [[Spook|You LOSE]](([[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5QGkOGZubQ|Good day, Sir!]])), against everyone else who successfully passes on their DNA.
-All those other humans around you, your [[Friend|friends]] and foes? They're all RIVALS, whenever something good happens to them it is BAD to YOU because it reduces your chances of MATING. Life is a [[zero sum]] game! You can't have friends. Unless you help each other improve your odds of mating, of course. [[Rape]]? Perfectly fine, you're just trying to pass on your genes. Hold still already, [[woman]], and serve your function!((Geez I usually like pointed arguments, but this one is tough even for me.))
+All those other humans around you, your [[Friend|friends]] and foes? They're all RIVALS, whenever something good happens to them it is BAD to YOU because it reduces your chances of MATING. Life is a [[zero sum]] game! You can't have friends. Unless you help each other improve your odds of mating, of course. If it's about reproduction and DNA then [[rape]] would be A-OK. Obviously, rape is NOT ok. This right here used to have a funny joke but people didn't like the joke, so fuck you! :>
+Even proponents of the "life is a competition (of genes)" idea will most likely not believe that rape is OK (even though they really should if they believe in life being about reproduction). Ultimately - Yes, you //can// look at life through the lens of survival of the fittest, and you will find that many things will suddenly make a lot of sense, but 1) many other things will not and 2) this doesn't mean life //is// survival of the fittest. For contrast, you can look at life through the lens of class struggle. The fight of the burgeoisie to suppress us, the worker proletariats. Or through the lens of empathy. Or through the lens of races, black versus white. Many things will make sense when you look at life from that perfective, but many things will not, and it //definitely// doesn't mean that any of this //is// the meaning of life.
+The point is, looking at life through the lense of, say, survival of the fittest, has no prescriptive power. It has //descriptive// power, as I said it's a very useful perspective from which to look at life. It has some predictive power as well, for sure, it's certainly a useful model for analyzation and making predictions about the future; however, it is missing //prescriptive// power - none of any of this is proof enough to go from "in our observation, survival of the fittest served as a useful model for describing animal and even some human behavior" to "survival of the fittest is the absolute meaning of life".
-So, much like the religion argument, this whole drama just takes things that are out there, vaguely point in that direction and then go two steps too far and assume that those mere //pointers// actually held secrets to a more fundamental truth which ends up not being a //fact// but merely imagination. Nature //can// be described as a competition of lifeforms, but that doesn't mean that this is anyone's meaning. Like, just because you can look at things from a very specific [[perspective]] and see similarities between nature and a competition does not mean it actually IS, or that it should be prescribed to everyone, especially to those who DO NOT consent to it. Like, you //do not// have a nature given right to sex, or to reproduction, or to a girl or woman or whatever it is you prefer, at all. Because to have a [[moral right|right]] on a thing you need to establish a [[claim]], and your claim is not a need claim, therefore you do not get to overrule someone else's autonomy. [[Misogyny|Some people]] seem to think that they have a nature derived right to use or treat women like objects, like women are just a thing that really only exists //for// them, that women are //owned// by men because nature decided to make most men physically stronger than men, which means men are the alpha in the social hierarchy, and from there they derive their imagined authority to treat a woman, another fully independent, fully individual human being, as something that is held to worse standards than men, with less freedom and agency, less respect and limited individuality.
+===== This Mess =====
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+So, when we ask the question of "What is the meaning of life", then that question has a very specific, philosophical meaning. This is //not// about what //you// think is good or what makes //you// feel good and content with yourself. When we ask for a meaning of life, then the answer to that is absolute. It's the meaning of //life//, not the meaning for an individual piece of life, nor its opinion on that. When life has a meaning, that meaning must be derived from something above life and applies to //all of life//. The things mentioned in this list are, say, personal objectives or objectives individuals may feel compelled to achieve alone or as humanity as a whole, but they are not a //meaning// that is applied authoratively across all life. For that to happen, there must be an authority above life that can declare such a meaning (and even that gets difficult to defend). As it stands, things don't do much more beyond existing. Followers of the religions think that there is a funny man in the sky solving all their philosophical problems for them, but the factual basis gives no reason to believe in any of it. Until it does, the best assumption is "atoms are a thing, and life emerges dynamically from there" followed by "and that's about it, this is why we exist and what life is" concluding in "what the hell is a 'meaning' supposed to be?". It's a spook. You can say "waves of water are meant to become calm again" and it sounds smart because most waves usually do that, but that's not a meaning, it's a prediction of what is going to happen based on empirical evidence and the laws governing the movement of fluids. When a wave swamps an entire village and kills hundreds of people, that wave wasn't "meant" to ruin human lifes. There are billions of waves on earth right now, they aren't all "meant" to rise up and fall down again, they just do. We, as humans, are not any more special as waves of water. We rise up, we do our thing along with the other molecules of water, sometimes drowning villages, sometimes bringing water into drought-ridden places where water was desperately needed, and then we fall down again. An individual molecule of water never does a thing on its own, much like individual humans never do succeed or do things on their own, and then we evaporate into factual nonexistence as the wave dissolves. An individual water molecule could say "our meaning is to create a wave as high as possible" and it would just be the statement of an individual water molecule. Even if every water molecule on earth agreed to form a wave as high as possible, this would not change the factual reality that waves just happen. The same goes for the universe - billions of stars just for us? Impossible! No, actually, until we know better we have to assume that it's all just physical realities. The stars are out there, alright, but this doesn't "mean" anything.