Why? Why Exist?

I know this isn't in R/S, but I am putting it here because I don't want religion or spirituality put in. I would like to ask all Theists to please refrain from posting here; This is an Atheist only topic. If a Theist does post, please do not mention God or such, as that will cause what I perceive to be a very stimulating discussion to degenerate into one of the most irritating and pointless (to my mind) "debates", of which the bulk of the R/S forum is filled with. I don't think I need to elaborate on that ...

This is the topic: Why should we continue to exist? What it our purpose? If we don't have one, why not crawl into a corner and die?

From that: Why should we have rules and laws?

Not all Atheists believe we have no purpose. However, assuming they did. Assuming we have no purpose, why not? Whether theres a reason to our existence or not, we still exist. We still have life with emotions and desires for that life. Might as well make the best of it and have some fun right?

That said, we have rules and laws so we can build society, so that we can make the best of this life.

I see no visible purpose. To me it's a man made thing. We make a hammer with a purpose to build houses, etc. Without a human purpose disappears. If I look at the universe now, it does look like it has a purpose to sustain life. But if I take away us there is no purpose. it's all very strange. I can only prove to myself that "I am". That's it. That's not enough to work with. Since I am and I see certain things and live in a certain place, I'll have to make my own purpose. That's to be happy. I think that I wouldn't mind dieing without "pain", although I'm afraid to make that statement. I have no right to speak of such things when I haven't experienced them yet. So yeah, we are build to keep the chain of life going, doing certain things makes us happy, then it's time to die. Mostly I think we all have that thing in common, a universal desire to keep it going. :woohoo:

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Originally Posted by Keeper

Why should we continue to exist?

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...why not?

If you can't answer that, then you can't expect everyone to be able to tell you why...

I actually agree with the message Monty Python left us with on their last movie, The Meaning of Life, when they revealed the meaning of life at the end of the film:

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It's nothing special, really... Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.

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Let me add another question to the list:

If we didn't have a higher purpose... would it matter? Would it topple your world? I live my life as if that were the case. Luckily, my moral beliefs are such that I don't hurt other people as a result. I ride this ride sitting in the front row, and try not to close my eyes. Then, there's no regret. After all, it may be the last ride.

Bonsay is right, purpose is a very human concept. Animals need no purpose, nor does vegetation, or rocks for that matter. One thing that seems universal however, is that we are programmed to live. Creatures evolve so that they may be best adapted to propagating their species. Every single living organism has an instinct to preserve its own life and to reproduce.

So I guess you could say that the purpose of our existence is simply to exist, rather than nothing at all. We humans, however, blessed with our conscient minds, have the ability to attribute our own purposes to life. So in another way, the meaning of life is what you make of it. There are no wrong answers since purpose is created within the mind of every individual conscient human. I wonder if all that makes any sense :P...

I love being. I love being a being that can perceive this universe and see colour and feel love and all of the other incredible things that come with being concious in this incredible world. I don't feel the need for a purpose as such. I'm quite happy just to be... I don't understand why you feel compelled to have some kind of mission? And I don't see how belief in God ties into this?

Why exist? Because it is so much more stimulating than not existing.

Plus we are kept alive by a human emotion or feeling. Which is "Fear". Without it we wouldn't fear death or many deadly actions that stop us from doing crazy shit. Animals have this instict programmed very well into them. We humans have learned to understand and tame it. But I think everyone here is afraid to suddenly stop existing. And thats why we keep living, thats maby why your still alive and haven't commited suicide yet. (I'm tot encouraging it either). But life is what we have, I wouldn't want to end it, and definitly not now.

Er, that may be true in some cases, however there are people who genuinely do not fear death. Just because you're not afraid of death doesn't mean you want to die right that second. I'm not afraid of spiders but I don't go looking for them to hold. A good amount of people, though its a small percentage of the grand total, hold the ideal of "I want to live" rather than "I don't want to die," and in that people live their lives the way they want, as full as they want until they do bite the bullet, at which point they're thinking "Hey, time to go"

why? why not? The only sense life makes is the sense you give it. The only meaning life has is the meaning you give it. The only suffering in life is undergoing what you consider suffering. All beauty in this world is only what you consider beauty yourself.

Keeper, you are just asking the very basic question "why is there anything at all?". Believing in a god doesn't change that very basic question.

And it IS indeed a very interesting one. It is the question that amazes me the most again and again. Why is there Anything at all? We can't ever give a logical answer to that. We can't see past the logic of the universe we live in. Laws of logic and physics might be fundamentally different in what comes before existence as we know it.

Existence is a closed system. Even God would be part of a closed system, by the way. We can't reach outside that system. The answer doesn't really matter, however, it would just be 'nice' to know.

I have the will to exist because it is in my blood. I am programmed by nature to want to live and for other humans (innocent ones) to live. All animals have that in their nature. Humans are the only animals that can even conceptualize the idea of God, but all animals want to keep living.

I'd even want to continue living if I wasn't evolutionary designed to. Living rocks. Humans are not hardwired to want to live. People kill themselves and others. The human being is an animal, but it's first and foremost a human. Humans can kill themselves. Humans can live happily without sex. Humans get a kick out of drawing and arranging sounds. Everyone has to find their purpose in life. Asking "Why not?" when the question is "Why?" is missing the whole point of the question. Wanting to live only because there is nothing that speaks against it must be a very shallow form of existence. The human mode of existence is different from the animal mode in that it is oriented towards making sense out of the experience. Seeking meaning and reason in that what happens is our primary concern. That's why we get bored with masturbation and drugs alone. Also, seeing the production of children as the purpose of life is really just taking all the purpose out of life since you are giving the burden of a purpose to the next generation who will then do the same and so on.

Obviously, neither the universe nor any of the natural sciences can tell us anything about our purpose. The truth is, unconsciously we all feel a certain purpose that keeps us going. To lose our purpose is to lose our willingness to live. We have to make this purpose conscious to reach a fulfilling state of existence.

If you believe that life has no purpose, that is fine, but please don't be such a hypocrite and go on living. Go kill yourself right now or you turn out to be a wuss.

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Originally Posted by Korittke

If you believe that life has no purpose, that is fine, but please don't be such a hypocrite and go on living. Go kill yourself right now or you turn out to be a wuss.

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I don't think life has a purpose, but I still like it and am programmed to hold onto it. Do dogs think life has a purpose? No. Do fish think life has a purpose? No. But we all want to live. Even people who commit suicide want to live. They just have an even stronger compulsion to die because of extreme circumstances, just like a crack addict wants to be sober but has a compulsive illness. We are all primarily programmed to want to live, and the vast majority of us let that primary urge prevail.

Even a fly will move out of the way if you swat at it. What does a fly think its purpose is?

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

I don't think life has a purpose, but I still like it and am programmed to hold onto it.

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You are not. You're not a computer. You can easily prove this to yourself by committing suicide.

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Do dogs think life has a purpose? No. Do fish think life has a purpose? No. But we all want to live.

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Who says dogs and fish want to live? They have to. Humans choose to live, animals have no options in the first place. No animal can think on the level of a human being, so the analogy is worthless. It's almost like anarchistic primitivists telling me that cats and monkeys have no need for money, science or agriculture and thus it would be perfectly reasonable for humanity to go back to the stone age. Who came up with the notion that animals are perfect role models for humans? I'd slap that person.

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Even people who commit suicide want to live.

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How does that work...? Obviously it depends on the definition of 'will'. If you truly want to live, you'd have to be pretty fucking stupid if you kill yourself. I use 'will' in the meaning of action-operant wish. If you want to live but as a matter of fact, you kill yourself, your will to live is wishful thinking and nothing more. It's like someone telling me "I want to be a writer", but they're not actually doing anything. They don't really want to be a writer, they just wish that one day they'll wake up with a completed manuscript on their desk.

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They just have an even stronger compulsion to die because of extreme circumstances

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Which means that, in effect, they do not want to live. Maybe they would want to live if their life wasn't shit. But their life is shit and thus they choose to end it.

If you disagree with this definition, tell me yours. What's the meaning of a hardwired willingness to live if it includes the option of suicide? To me that sounds like "I installed only Windows on this computer, but sometimes it'll boot up Linux just for the heck of it."

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Even a fly will move out of the way if you swat at it. What does a fly think its purpose is?

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Why do you think it's a good idea to compare a fly to a human? Misanthropy? Next thing will probably be a comparison between humans and viruses and then rocks. Flies don't think, humans do.

Most species don't come remotely close to the freedom of choice of a human being. Some species will easily die of psychosomatic illnesses if you deprave them of their senses though. More complex animals don't even care to live if they're put in a situation they cannot cope with or that doesn't make any sense to them. The same can happen to a human, but he can speed up this process as a result of his intelligence. All it takes is a gun.

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Originally Posted by Korittke

You are not. You're not a computer. You can easily prove this to yourself by committing suicide.

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What makes you think I can easily commit suicide? I would not be able to bring myself to doing it without an overriding opposing will. I don't have such an opposing will, so there is no way I would be able to find it in my nature to kill myself.

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Originally Posted by Korittke

Who says dogs and fish want to live? They have to. Humans choose to live, animals have no options in the first place. No animal can think on the level of a human being, so the analogy is worthless. It's almost like anarchistic primitivists telling me that cats and monkeys have no need for money, science or agriculture and thus it would be perfectly reasonable for humanity to go back to the stone age. Who came up with the notion that animals are perfect role models for humans? I'd slap that person.

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Dogs and fish don't have to live. By your reasoning, a dog could easily jump off a cliff or start a fight with a much bigger dog and a fish could easily jump onto land and stay there. It goes against their nature, just like it goes against our nature, unless there is an overriding opposing desire, which is rare. I don't think animals are perfect role models for humans. I think animals are much like humans, that humans evolved from animals, and that humans are animals.

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Originally Posted by Korittke

How does that work...? Obviously it depends on the definition of 'will'. If you truly want to live, you'd have to be pretty fucking stupid if you kill yourself. I use 'will' in the meaning of action-operant wish. If you want to live but as a matter of fact, you kill yourself, your will to live is wishful thinking and nothing more. It's like someone telling me "I want to be a writer", but they're not actually doing anything. They don't really want to be a writer, they just wish that one day they'll wake up with a completed manuscript on their desk.Which means that, in effect, they do not want to live. Maybe they would want to live if their life wasn't shit. But their life is shit and thus they choose to end it.

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I am talking about opposing wills. An alcoholic might cry every day and go to AA meetings twice a day in a struggle to stop drinking, but he would not be doing it if he were not also craving alcohol. You are assuming that opposing wills cannot exist. They can, and they do.

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Originally Posted by Korittke

If you disagree with this definition, tell me yours. What's the meaning of a hardwired willingness to live if it includes the option of suicide? To me that sounds like "I installed only Windows on this computer, but sometimes it'll boot up Linux just for the heck of it."

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Have you ever resisted a temptation? If so, then you have experienced opposing wills. You might want to stay on a diet, but you still really, really crave that doughnut in your pantry. If you eat the doughnut, it doesn't mean you didn't want to stay on the diet. It is a matter of one will overriding another one. Have you ever been in that situation?

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Originally Posted by Korittke

Why do you think it's a good idea to compare a fly to a human? Misanthropy? Next thing will probably be a comparison between humans and viruses and then rocks. Flies don't think, humans do.

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Flies avoid death even though they don't see a purpose in living. Humans have the same tendency.

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Originally Posted by Korittke

Most species don't come remotely close to the freedom of choice of a human being. Some species will easily die of psychosomatic illnesses if you deprave them of their senses though. More complex animals don't even care to live if they're put in a situation they cannot cope with or that doesn't make any sense to them. The same can happen to a human, but he can speed up this process as a result of his intelligence. All it takes is a gun.

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It takes more than a gun. It take a will to die that is stronger than the will to live. If such opposition of wills does not exist, then why are there suicide hotlines?

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

I am talking about opposing wills. An alcoholic might cry every day and go to AA meetings twice a day in a struggle to stop drinking, but he would not be doing it if he were not also craving alcohol. You are assuming that opposing wills cannot exist. They can, and they do.
Have you ever resisted a temptation? If so, then you have experienced opposing wills. You might want to stay on a diet, but you still really, really crave that doughnut in your pantry. If you eat the doughnut, it doesn't mean you didn't want to stay on the diet. It is a matter of one will overriding another one. Have you ever been in that situation?

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As I said above, I use the term 'will' in another meaaning: Will = The one wish out of many that is translated into action. There can be only one will, but many wishes. Having a strong will is a skill much like any other, it has to be learned and it depends on practice. If you don't practice honestly willing things to happen, you'll end up with a lot of opposing wishes and literally no will at all. That's what have you have in a fatty who pretends to want to lose weight, but still finds himself eating trash. He never actually committed to losing weight. He has a wish to lose weight, but he also has a wish to eat trash. Pretending to want to lose weight without real commitment is a perfect defense mechanism. This person didn't have a will in the first place, so it's hard to say that there is any such thing as an opposing will to a will that can barely be said to exist. To me such a thing as an opposing will does not exist, only opposing wishes. Instead of picking a wish and translating it into a will by real commitment and action, it's a lot easier to not commit to anything and play the victim by acting like each wish (eating donuts, jogging, watching TV etc.) has equal weight in the decision making process and there's nothing one can do about it.

You might argue that I'm only playing around with words and giving them weird definitions to suit my argumentation. If that is true, so be it. If 'will' is defined in such a way that there can be several opposing wills in a singular person, one would still have to pick a word for the single psychological instance that is responsible for picking the one will that gets translated into action at a specific time and place. This faculty is a lot more complicated than the simple construction of "wills" as it is connected with conscience, values, motivation, belief systems and so forth.

If this "will-choosing-power" is weak, you find yourself sticking to one will at certain times and to another one at yet other times. As you sit at home you might be utterly convinced to never eat trash again but when you're out with friends later that day you might be totally certain that this specific hamburger in front of you will be OK to eat because it's only that specific single one. All of this only shows lack of commitment, willpower and planning. Actually picking a "will" out of the many, translating it into action and sticking to it over an extended period of time can need quite a lot of psychological self-analysis and redirection of goals. I don't want to get too far into this though...

The same concept works for addictive substances, although in most cases you need external help to bring your will to reality as there are biochemical implications controlling your behavior outside of the usual frame. So in severe cases, the most your willpower can do is find a way to let the external world control your body so that it will not be controlled by a psychological faculty that is outside of conscious control (substance addiction). It can be virtually impossible to overcome the addiction alone, even in persons with the strongest willpower.

Depression would be yet another example. The most and best a highly depressive person without proper knowledge could do would be seeking professional help.

So you could give that faculty the name "will-choosing-and-to-action-translating-faculty", but I figure it sounds better to name it will and to name the objects of the will wishes. :)

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Flies avoid death even though they don't see a purpose in living. Humans have the same tendency.

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I do agree here in the sense that up to a certain age the human need for a purpose is non-existent, just like in flies. But from a certain point on the human being decides in each moment how valuable he considers his own life, and this evaluation is for a great part based on the meaning he or she finds in his life situation. And based on this evaluation certain situations might be approached in a pro-life and anti-life manner. The cliché 40-year-old manager might be too tired and indecisive to actually point a gun at his head but shall he get into the situation of severe illness, some accident or anything of that sort, internally he will be more than glad that fate gives him a chance to rid him of his meaningless life. In extremely negative situations, those who see no meaning in their suffering will tend to seek ways to end their suffering as soon as possible. Those who see meaning will endure the most intense pain and hopelessness, be it only because they have the intense wish to write a book sometime in their life.

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Originally Posted by Korittke

If you believe that life has no purpose, that is fine, but please don't be such a hypocrite and go on living. Go kill yourself right now or you turn out to be a wuss.

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Are you saying you are unwilling to MAKE your life have purpose if it's not handed to you somehow?

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Originally Posted by Replicon

Are you saying you are unwilling to MAKE your life have purpose if it's not handed to you somehow?

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No, actually the opposite. I'm just saying that a nihilist is a walking contradiction. I encourage everyone to search for meaning in their lives though.

I should rephrase/correct that to: If you believe that live cannot have/never has a purpose...

From the perspective of chemistry and physics life isn't that different from non-life and pretty meaningless in itself. From the perspective of psychology, life is very important and meaningful. From the perspective of biology, life is much more interesting than from other sciences. From our own perspective, we chose to give life meaning or we chose to consider our lives meaningless. While the latter might be closer to scientific truth, it is impractical from a psychological standpoint and plain wrong from a humanistic one.

Korittke, I think this is a matter of how each person is interpretting the original question of why we exist. If you look at it from the stand point of the universe, there is no reason. Think about it. Why do we do anything? Why is there anything? What is the point of everything? Why are we here? Why are there rocks, and plants and animals? Why was there ever any of that? Why are we here? Why is there a milky way galaxy? Why is there any galaxy? Why are there solar systems? Universes? What is the point of any of it?

Well here's a simple answer. There is no point. To any of it. But why on earth should that mean anything bad? In my opinion, from the big picture, there's no real point to anything. But it's still incredible and everyone should appreciate it. It's all about the context in which you look at it. Looking at the big picture kind of scares me, because in all reality, there is no reason for any of this. Yet as Universal Mind mentioned we are programmed and hardwired to live.

So if you ask me, it doesn't matter what the reason is. Go about and make the best of your life. In the context of just earth and humanity, or even your own life, I believe we exist to seek out enjoying life as much as we can, and to reproduce and to benifit others. By that I mean if there were only 6 people on the planet, life would really suck. We need other humans to make things work, that being why we have societies, which with modern minds as fucked up as they are, cannot run without laws.

If we had started off without laws and societies, we would have been fine, because we'd be acting based mostly on natural instinct instead of social etiquette and protocol. Granted, we'd be far less technologically advanced though.

One's purpose is self-assigned. If you give yourself no purpose, you have none.

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Originally Posted by Rainman

Korittke, I think this is a matter of how each person is interpretting the original question of why we exist. If you look at it from the stand point of the universe, there is no reason. Think about it. Why do we do anything? Why is there anything? What is the point of everything? Why are we here? Why are there rocks, and plants and animals? Why was there ever any of that? Why are we here? Why is there a milky way galaxy? Why is there any galaxy? Why are there solar systems? Universes? What is the point of any of it?

Well here's a simple answer. There is no point. To any of it. But why on earth should that mean anything bad? In my opinion, from the big picture, there's no real point to anything. But it's still incredible and everyone should appreciate it. It's all about the context in which you look at it. Looking at the big picture kind of scares me, because in all reality, there is no reason for any of this. Yet as Universal Mind mentioned we are programmed and hardwired to live.

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That's exactly my point, except for the last sentence :)

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Originally Posted by Korittke

Obviously, neither the universe nor any of the natural sciences can tell us anything about our purpose.

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Originally Posted by Korittke

No, actually the opposite. I'm just saying that a nihilist is a walking contradiction. I encourage everyone to search for meaning in their lives though.

I should rephrase/correct that to: If you believe that live cannot have/never has a purpose...

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Ah, thanks for the clarification. That makes a lot more sense.

And I guess you could also say that sometimes, finding said purpose can be the purpose in and of itself. It's like flirting: People who are good at it enjoy the process, and don't worry about the outcome.

I think we are insignificant fungus type growth on a spec of dust floating around in infinite space, that life has no meaning, that we have no purpose, and that we will eventually end up extinct and have been so insignificant that it will be as if we were never even here. We have no purpose. However, I want to live because I am an organism and that is my nature.

The question of existence is complicated by a desire to serve something "higher" than humanity. For an atheist, or even an agnostic, it is a difficult thing to grapple with until one accepts that our human goals(which we often attribute to mere evolution) are in and of themselves worth pursuing.

To put it another way, at what point does a person stop grasping at a purpose high enough to satisfy his sense of self-worth? What purpose is great enough to satisfy?