Yes, I get that there is no “meaning” in life except for what we assign to it. However, there is the question of the biological meaning, or meaning in the Earthen world. By that I mean, it seems all species on Earth breed, evolve, breed some more, and then eventually gets demolished by a stronger life form and cease to exist. The rate of extinction for mammals is about 1M years.
I get survival of the fittest- the best and strongest survive. The best and strongest kill the weaker species and even the weaker ones of their own species. Which explains why many humans are such shitty evil ppl. We have been selected by natural selection to be selfish assholes.
Anyhow, the point is, each species is culled of their weak, and the strongest of each species survive, until one day that species dies out and another replaces it.
And so it continues, on and on, for billions of years.
Like…what is the point of it all? Each species just lives to “breed and multiply.”
But for what purpose? I am not talking about human religions or human reasons assigned for why we humans live. I’m talking about the purpose of it ALL, for ALL the organisms. Like it all seems so pointless, like Sysiphus damned to keep rolling a boulder uphill, day after day, but for billions of years.
4 comments
Why does there need to be a greater purpose? Beings/minds have intentions & purposes. Systems as a whole could only have purposes if they were intentionally created by a mind.
We can speculate about the purposes of a theoretical creator who designed a struggle for survival. But I always say that’s like an ant trying to theorize about the motives behind an ant farm. There’s no reason to believe a creator’s reasons, if they existed, would be remotely comprehensible to us.
I find this idea better: I created all this, because I wanted it. I desired it. Great philosophers like Kant reached the conclusion that we create our world (literally). Eastern religions also say that we create the world thru our desire. Quantum physics says that observer alters the reality. I personally like this idea because I don’t want to live my life blaming others, society or nature. To think that I created my conditions gives a sense of relief, however bad the conditions may be.
Watch 2001 A Space Odyssey. Watch it twice, watch it half a dozen times until it sinks in. Stanley Kubrick was the most pessimistic, nihilistic person to ever pick up a camera. 2001 A Space Odyssey tells it like it is: life on earth is governed by the brutes, the apes who learn to beat their enemies over the head with a bone… jumping ahead to 21st century human brutes with their orbital missiles ready to annihilate their enemies… and ultimately to the most cryptic “point” to all of this: the continuing refinery of violence (to the point where the killing is done emotionlessly and surgically (“Dave, my mind is going… I can feel it… I’m afraid…” as his killer continues). The beauty is depending on your mindset it’s either a horrifying message or an optimistic one. Or as Kubrick likely meant it, it’s neither. It’s just the way it is. But there is definitely a point.
My take is that life exists to make the universe less boring. Thinking about it, all kinds of amazing things happen in the world, but lacking observation, who’d know? So life exists to observe, appreciate, and put use to.
or the other one I like, life exists to keep meat fresh