Purpose and Meaning....

stevepainter · Posted: Tue May 13, 2003 2:06 pm Post subject: Purpose and Meaning....

Lately I seem to be on the receiving end of questions regarding the meaning and purpose of life. I recall an online e-mail exchange once where someone told me what the purpose of life was from a Christian standpoint - I didn't agree.

What I'm curious about is this:

1) Do you feel there is (or should be) a purpose or meaning to life?

2) What is the purpose or meaning of life in your opinion?

Note that Question 1 does not require belief in a supernatural entity in order for your answer to be "yes". Also, question 2 may just be your own personal answer; it's not necessary for your answer to be THE answer for everyone.

I do have some feelings on the subject - I'm not completely unbiased. Because of that I'm going to abstain from answering for a bit. I'd like to see the opinions of other freethinkers. If you think that's not fair start your own damn thread! ;)

Thanks in advance to everyone who shares their thoughts.

Steve

veganerd · Posted: Tue May 13, 2003 3:48 pm Post subject: Re: Purpose and Meaning....

Quote:
1) Do you feel there is (or should be) a purpose or meaning to life

i think that these are two separate issues that most people confuse. for example. lets take the word love. its purpose is to communicate a certain feeling. the word is not the feeling and has a separate meaning.

also if you must find an answer to the meaning of life then i feel that you would have to come up with the answer of the meaning of everything. it would only make sense to do so. why would life have a meaning but grass doesnt? so then what is the meaning of grass? what is the meaning of trees? whats the meaning of my car? it doesnt make much sense to ask those particular questions and i feel that it the same.
holds true for life.

purpose is an easier question to answer but not for very much. the purpose of life in my opinion is to create more life. but what is the purpose of grass (its alive)? to stop soil erosion? this is what some say. but i would have to argue no. in order for this to be true then the soil would have had to go through periods of natural selection and gene mutation to reach a point where grass became necessary for soils survival. much the same as hair on mammals. but what then was it competing against? does the soil evolve? does it have genes to be altered?

i would argue that everything living exists solely for itself. for its own "selfish" purposes. even symbiotic relationships in my opinion were developed for "selfish" reasons so that each organism will survive.

wmmurrah · Posted: Tue May 13, 2003 9:41 pm Post subject: purpose of life

I believe there is no inherent purpose in life. We must create our own purpose. I believe this is one of our greatest existential responsibilities. And it aint easy. I am convinced that is why so many adopt other's purposes.

To the extent that we have purpose our lives become meaningful.

Jeremy1952 · Posted: Wed May 14, 2003 6:34 am Post subject: Re: purpose of life

I agree with both of the two prior posts. "Should" is irrellevant. Life's inherent purpose is to live, no more, no less; beyond that, life has meaning exactly to the extent that we create meaning.

This does not mean, however, that "meaning" is unreal or ephemeral. Just as we create real art and real technology, we create real meaning.

As far as the theistic delusion, I think they have it exactly backwards. The greatest special joy of being human is of learning and of finding out. If there really were some sky daddy that already had the answers, what would be the joy of discovery? I find the god hypothesis demeaning and disheartening. In my life, I choose to help others when I can, because I want to live in a world where people help others wehn they can. I choose to study life because I want to know who I really am and where I really came from. To do these things for the pleasure of some, dunno, alien "thing" would seem pointless to me.

Jeremy1952 · Posted: Wed May 14, 2003 6:35 am Post subject: Re: Purpose and Meaning....

P.S.: Interesting thread, thank you for starting it

infidel2 · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2003 5:14 am Post subject: Re: Purpose and Meaning....

G'day, Ive just joined and thought Id put in my bit on this interesting topic. To me, lifes meaning and purpose is in 'being our own god' so to speak; not having to be dependent on some 'guy in the sky' to tell us how to believe, think, act and behave. For me, purpose is discovering and developing who I am in my own independent right, while being respective of the same rights of others to be who they are. If what I then can benefit others with, then its worth it. I find meaning in liberty and independence from both religion (mind control)and social pressure and share with others, my uniqueness.

Edited by: infidel2 at: 8/15/03 6:15 am

Jeremy1952 · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2003 6:19 am Post subject: Re: Purpose and Meaning....

Well said, infidel. Although I would guess that "independence... from social pressure" is an illusion; as a social animal, concern for relationships with our cohorts is a deep part of us. But of course our genes have no interest in our being aware of the influences they provide.

Science is neither a philosophy nor a belief system. It is a combination of mental operations that has become increasingly the habit of educated peoples, a culture of illuminations hit upon by a fortunate turn of history that yielded the most effective way of learning about the real world ever conceived. E.O.Wilson

infidel2 · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2003 11:28 am Post subject: Re: Purpose and Meaning....

Social creatures that we are is indeed an inherent fact of our makeup, thats certainly true Jeremy. It's also true though that in each of us, there is the ability to override the pressure of the herd, in order to guard and preserve our uniqueness and integrity; all it needs I feel, is the knowledge of and confidence in who one is and what one can become, to be able to do so. I feel that this is starting to work for me and as a result, I have a broader, far less narrowminded view of the world and of life; am able more now to hold my head firm on my shoulders and 'piss in far less pockets' so to speak. After all arent the movers/shakers of history been such persons of inner confidence and therefore society been the better for it in many ways?

rielmajr · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2003 7:22 pm Post subject: Re: Purpose and Meaning....

Great thread!

I agree with most of the previous posts on this question and am philosophically inclined toward Sartre's notion that we create what meaning and purpose we have in life. But empirically, I think that we are usually endowed with an innate sense of meaning, one that most don't try to frame in linguistic terms.

A somewhat different perspective: for many people happiness and a sense of meaning and purpose will not come regardless of how hard they work at creating it. For them their genetic endowment is one of severe mental illness, usually traceable to a neurotransmitter problem. In their case, a sense of meaning is given by a drug -- most commonly these days being one of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors like Prozac, Celeza, Levapro, etc. This suggest very strongly to me that in the fully functioning mind there is an inborn sense of meaning, which for religionists is projected on the great inkblot in the sky.

infidel2 · Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2003 11:14 pm Post subject: Re: Purpose and Meaning....

interesting point reilmajr, so could this here god thing that the fundies sell, be..what.. simply the fortunate endowment of the right balance of chemicals, so the sense of wellbeing and fulfillment/contentment that religionists project onto this guy in sky? If I recall right, feuerbach touched on something similar, ie, man's innermost consciousness projected to an external ideal to which he aspires and achieves fulfillment in the process. So really, we are our own gods. The fundie 'god' really is just a symptom of the general institutionalized 'herd mentality' foisted on the gullible.

PeterDF · Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2003 11:25 am Post subject: Re: Purpose and Meaning....

As scientific knowledge has advanced, purpose and meaning have retreated.

It appears as if the universe operates to a set of mechanistic laws. If the universe is a purely mechanistic one and has come about as the latest manifestation of a chain of causality then there can be no purpose in stars, planets grass or humans (in the world below the humanity horizon).

But there is purpose in human life. It is meaningful to love someone, to help someone in need, to seek to make the world better whether in a small way or a large way. We measure purpose by means of our subjective and emotional senses, and these are real for us and important to us. So there is purpose and meaning for mankind. (In the world above the humanity horizon.)

"Humanity horizon" dualism works for me.

Edited by: PeterDF at: 8/17/03 12:26 pm

rielmajr · Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2003 9:31 pm Post subject: Re: Purpose and Meaning....

Thanks, Peter. I'm just glad I made it before qualifying for Social Security payments. Our granddaughter is a....little bundle of meaning (especially for those selfish genes who were given a new start). I guess the neurotransmitter production has been kicked into high gear.

And, by the way, like Jeremy I would like to read your book.

PeterDF · Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2003 10:56 am Post subject: Re: Purpose and Meaning....

rielmajr

Ok! that's fine. (I just hope everyone won't ask).

Peter


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