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One thing that started to bother me recently is the meaningless of life in general. Think about humans from a wide perspective - it all boils down to survival o

One thing that started to bother me recently is the meaningless of life in general. Think about humans from a wide perspective - it all boils down to survival of the species and what difference does it make if we reproduce in a cave or a modern house? Sure there are more of us now, but does it really matter? We are driven by a simple algorithm - find a partner, reproduce, keep the babies alive and die. Repeat. No real reason, just an instinct shared by every living organism, everything else is just a facade. It's not like the existence of the universe depends on our survival, we could we wiped tomorrow and nothing would really change. Oh, and having kids must bring joy, that's how evolution programmed us, otherwise at some point people would just consciously stop having babies and we would dissapear :-)

zemptime 7y ago
This assumption makes sense given the limited modern scientific view of the world, but it falls down pretty hard when you consider how incomplete our understanding of the universe still is. The piece of knowledge which is still missing, and which you should direct your search if you feel the way you outlined in your post is, what's consciousness? What're the mechanisms by which it functions? We might be biological machines with a single, hardcoded directive in one sense, but it's very inside the realm of possibility we possess the potential to escape that.
perlgeek 7y ago
Oh, the age old question for meaning in life. There are basically three possible answers to that: 1) The scientific one you alluded to. Our purpose is to make our genes survive (though that in turn serves no greater purpose, that's just the mechanics of evolution) 2) religious / spiritual reasons, if you believe in those 3) the realization that a rational meaning (or lack thereof) doesn't matter much if you feel a sense of purpose Having kids moved me pretty firmly in camp 3), though I realize the irony that that's a direct consequence of how 1) works :-)
- city41 7y ago
  Finding meaning through kids means the kids then need to find meaning. It's kind of like a pyramid scheme.
  - randomsearch 7y ago
    “All wretch and no vomit - it never gets there” Alan Watts Indeed.
  - patentatt 7y ago
    You misread the comment. People who have kids, who aren’t narcissists or psychopaths, have found their sense of purpose and fulfillment in life.
    - city41 7y ago
      But the cycle continues as the kids then need to find their purpose, which is what I was getting at.
  - perlgeek 7y ago
    But it can be an inverse pyramid scheme: just one kid for two parents, leading to an exponential decline. Better than your average pyramid scheme :-)
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
tim333 7y ago
Maybe doesn't mean anything but it's kind of cool anyway.

zemptime 7y ago

This assumption makes sense given the limited modern scientific view of the world, but it falls down pretty hard when you consider how incomplete our understanding of the universe still is. The piece of knowledge which is still missing, and which you should direct your search if you feel the way you outlined in your post is, what's consciousness? What're the mechanisms by which it functions? We might be biological machines with a single, hardcoded directive in one sense, but it's very inside the realm of possibility we possess the potential to escape that.

perlgeek 7y ago

Oh, the age old question for meaning in life. There are basically three possible answers to that: 1) The scientific one you alluded to. Our purpose is to make our genes survive (though that in turn serves no greater purpose, that's just the mechanics of evolution) 2) religious / spiritual reasons, if you believe in those 3) the realization that a rational meaning (or lack thereof) doesn't matter much if you feel a sense of purpose Having kids moved me pretty firmly in camp 3), though I realize the irony that that's a direct consequence of how 1) works :-)

city41 7y ago
Finding meaning through kids means the kids then need to find meaning. It's kind of like a pyramid scheme.
- randomsearch 7y ago
  “All wretch and no vomit - it never gets there” Alan Watts Indeed.
- patentatt 7y ago
  You misread the comment. People who have kids, who aren’t narcissists or psychopaths, have found their sense of purpose and fulfillment in life.
  - city41 7y ago
    But the cycle continues as the kids then need to find their purpose, which is what I was getting at.
- perlgeek 7y ago
  But it can be an inverse pyramid scheme: just one kid for two parents, leading to an exponential decline. Better than your average pyramid scheme :-)

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

tim333 7y ago

Maybe doesn't mean anything but it's kind of cool anyway.