The Meaning of life

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   A.Villarasaposted 10 years ago

   The meaning of life is that IT should mean....something...somehow... at least to us who are sentient enough to know that a wider reality, exist, outside of our own.
   
   Stripped down to its most  basic  interpretation, life (noun) or as expressed  as a verb (alive) means that  a biologic entity uses energy to fuel its metabolic needs and functions. But there is more to life than mere biology and satisfying biologic needs for persistence and perpetuation of that life.
   
   Having developed the most integrated and interactive  brain amongst the sentient beings on earth, Humans  have put more meaning and purpose to their existence... an exercise that I find neither futile nor devoid of utility.

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      Disappearingheadposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      42.

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         A.Villarasaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         @Disappearinghead:
         
         Sorry I am not into numerology. so you need to tell me what the #42 means in the context of my OP.

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            Zelkiiroposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            42 is the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.
            
            Don't panic! Just grab a towel and your copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and you'll find the hard truth to be mostly harmless.

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               Disappearingheadposted 10 years agoin reply to this

               

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               A.Villarasaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

               @Zelkiiro:
               
               Hard truths are never harmless, and are  never boring  much unlike  your "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe".
               
               Hard trutths are always unsettling, and never  miss their  intended target,,, no matter how much that target tries to avoid being  penetrated by them.

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      wildernessposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      That's nice, that you don't see a futility in declaring that there is a meaning outside of reality for our existence. 
      
      If you could just...somehow...provide actual evidence of that "wider reality outside of our own" I might even agree with you. 
      
      As far as being sentient enough to know (not guess - know) of that wider reality, have you ever watched a cat chase a pretend mouse or other creature?  Even a lowly cat can imagine and play with the concept of things that are not there.  That you can, too, isn't saying much for that "most integrated and interactive brain".

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         A.Villarasaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         @Wilderness:
         
         It is a crying shame that  you do not put  more value and meaning  to your life as a human being. I am not sure how you came to the conclusion that there are no other realities outside of your own personal existence. Your reality (as a single human being) distinctive as it is from other  realities (other human beings) is still part and parcel of a wider reality... the cosmological reality....ethereal reality... spiritual reality. I have neither the temerity nor the perspicacity to provide you "actual evidence of that wider reality" As far as I am concerned the evidence is obvious.. If you are having  difficulty perceiving it then I suggest you  seek  it, in the company of your fellow humans who have intuited and introspected , and therefore concluded that  that  wider reality exist.
         
         Withdrawing into the "wilderness", is just not gonna cut it. The "cat" being I suppose part of your "wilderness" may have the ability to conceptualize   playing with a pretend mouse, but to elevate and or compare  that kind of activity to say, playing geometry accross a chessboard or the golfcourse is also not going to cut it.

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            wildernessposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            Oh, my life has lots of meaning - to me and, I hope, to a select few others as well.  It just has none to the universe as a whole.
            
            I conclude that there is no other reality besides our own because, in spite of millions of people looking for thousands of years, there has been no other reality found.  While not conclusive by any means, that is a very strong indication that it is not there and is certainly a good reason not to arbitrarily decide there is one there just because you, I or anyone else wants it to be there.
            
            My reality is exactly the same as yours - there is only one reality.  My perception of reality will often vary from yours, but that does not make my perception true any more than it does yours.  Nor is there any driving reason to seek some kind of "alternate" reality from those claiming to have found it or claiming to know that it is there even as they are unable to present any evidence. 
            
            "I have neither the temerity nor the perspicacity to provide you "actual evidence of that wider reality" As far as I am concerned the evidence is obvious."
            
            That quote from your post does not tell me there is an alternate reality; it tells me that you choose to believe so without any need of evidence. 
            
            A conclusion that the "wider reality" really does exist certainly does not mean that it does; that that conclusion is made without having evidence only indicates that the one making the conclusion does not care whether it is real or not and will therefore draw whatever conclusion fits with their emotional needs and desires.
            
            No, the cat comparison is one comparing the cat's ability to create imaginary things with the same ability in humans to create equally imaginary things.  Being able to imagine unreal things does not require a large cerebral effort - lots of animals do so.

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               A.Villarasaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

               @Wilderness:
               People believe in a lot of things that are neither inferred nor concluded by their 5 physical senses. And that is what makes their lives infinitely more interesting than the lives dominated by straight lines, i.e  the shortest distance between two points. Beliefs undergirded by intuition and instinct are what gives life its un-linearity;
               and if  concommitantly denominated by experience are never delusional or futile. They are the ones that gives life its angularity and circularity.
               
               Life should  never be  linear for what makes life interesting is the sudden turn of its angularity or the smooth curve of its circularity. Linear is prosaic, rigid, and simple.... and that is what life in the wilderness is.

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                  wildernessposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                  A paranoid, believing that everyone is out to get them, will lead an interesting life.  It's just not one I would choose, any more that I would choose to "believe" in purple dragons being real.  It might make life interesting, but it's not for me, thanks.
                  
                  I choose to put my efforts into finding out what is real, what is truth, rather than imagining whatever takes my fancy at the moment as being real.  Different strokes for different folks; if treating imaginary creatures or actions as if they are real makes you happy, then go for it.  Apply what names you choose - linear, curve, circularity, prosaic, whatever - if it helps you believe and provides happiness.
                  
                  Just don't, please, declare that the world of imagination is somehow "superior" to that of reality and truth.  It is "superior" ONLY in that it makes some folks happy; others simply find it silly.

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                     A.Villarasaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                     @Wilderness:
                     You are confusing imaginative thinking with phantasmogorical thinking. Imagination or imagining is the ability to form new images and sensations that are not perceived through sight, hearing or other senses. Imagination helps make knowledge applicable in solving problems and is fundamental to integrating expewrience and the learning process (Wikipedia). On the other hand, phantasmogorical is characterized by fantastic, fantasy/dreamlike imagery and incongrous juxtaposition.
                     
                     There is never a hint of incongrous dreamlike juxtaposition when one is imagining. But I suppose when one is in the widerness, imagination has no purpose other than make folks confuse it with phantasmogorical nonsense.

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                        prettydarkhorseposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                        What does that word mean A Vil?

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                           A.Villarasaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                           @prettydarkhorse:
                           What word are you referring to?

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      Minnalousheposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      i don't know what meaning means
      does it mean a right answer?
      does it mean a point of view?
      or does meaning exist somewhere
      outside our congratulatory
      and derogatory
      thoughts constant thought
      perhaps thought is only a plane
      and meaning is a 3 dimensional shape
      passing through the plane
      and thought could only hold a tiny slice of it
      and only in the now

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         A.Villarasaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         @Minnaloushe:
         
         The geometrical play of your prose (or is it poem), is impressively and beautifully stunning.

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      kessposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Life is sustenance/maintenance and perpetuation/replication of Self.
      
      Trying to add to this understanding will cause one to lose sight of Life.

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         Mike Marksposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         good answer... and so then I am a replica of a life/self before me... I wonder what information I intuit is residue of its experience/memory... and how far back on that chain of replicas does it become something other than human?  The swirling cooling earth slung from the sun, and what the sun was slung from, what the galaxy was slung from, the galaxies, the first DNA, the first unit of information... how much purpose might be found in recalling all that? And how can I know what is imagination and what is memory?

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            kessposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            LIFE IS IT,
            There is no before or after,
            No one life here another life there,
            No part here another part there.
            
            As you go through the stages of ignorance of Life,
            you are now a man, who is able to see Life,But not quite.
            
            But when you do, You are no longer merely a man...

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               Mike Marksposted 10 years agoin reply to this

               I'm not waxing poetic... DNA is a format of information that as you say reproduces itself as its prime directive... so that information is passed on (after) and comes from the prior that reproduced itself (before) yes?  So there must be a chain of information from the earliest to the latest contained in the genes...

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                  kessposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                  The cohesiveness thoughts of the different facets of LIFE,
                  will render any conversation to be as poetic...
                  This is so because of the nature of LIFE itself.
                  
                  To ask the question as you did ,
                  you must first redefined LIFE
                  to fit in the context of Information, genes and DNA.
                  Thus you lose sight of the reality of LIFE.
                  
                  It not that you are absolutely wrong,
                  If you were you would have been better off.
                  But not being fully right is just as good as being absolutely wrong.
                  
                  Now, LIFE sustains and reproduces itself through things,
                  Each having their specific nature as LIFE intends.
                  And as a mutually beneficial handshake, things can sustain
                  and reproduce themselves because of LIFE.
                  This they do without ever having the capacity to know or understand exactly what LIFE is.
                  
                  Except Man, who is endowed with such a capacity.

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                     A.Villarasaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                     @Kess:
                     And despite the fact that man has been endowed with the capacity to ask, know, and understand life, its meaning and its purpose, lots of folks are not at all impressed, saying that man  just does not and could not  have any more or less importance than the other sentient earthly entites because their appearance was just a happenstance result of random cosmological events that neither have design, nor direction. A proposition  I suppose that came from  them looking at and contemplating the natural world and finding  no meaning or purpose in its face.
                     
                     Looking at nature could give us a glimpse of  its totality, but  I have always thought that the meaning of our existence vis-a-vis nature would always come from our inherent ability to look beyond and deeper.

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                        kessposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                        Though being a man, endows you with the capacity to know/ understand LIFE,
                        It is a also at that stage, he face his greatest of all enemies, in Death.
                        
                        So we see Both LIFE and Death, takes the form of a man.
                        
                        Thus just as some men will see LIFE,
                        others are Blinded and are incapable of seeing the reality of LIFE.
                        
                        Nevertheless, both work to the same purpose,
                        and the works of the blinded is relevant
                        both to the blind and to those who see.
                        
                        In the end there is nothing to despise.

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            A.Villarasaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            @Mike Marks:
            
            Memory is experiential knowledge in its core narrative, whereas imagination mainly involves visualization or formation of images and ideas that have neither been seen nor experienced. So it is not entirely difficult ,from the perspective of experience,   to separate or tease the two apart.
            
            But  when several life experiences are mixed and juxtapositioned,  the calculation and calibration could indeed be challenging, but  still not entirely impossible.

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               Mike Marksposted 10 years agoin reply to this

               so if you have a vivid movie in your mind... of being a part of the sun, or of having a curtain pulled back to introduce you to an earth upon which you would be entering, should you be sure that movie, because it is a bit outrageous, is simply imagination and nothing you or your genetic ancestor ever actually experienced?  If you find memories or imaginings of being in Heaven or Hell should you classify them as memories or imaginings?  Perhaps nothing can be imagined... perhaps we can only see stuff that exists in a field of happenings.  You referred once to thought experiments, and both Edison and Einstein mused that they invented nothing that rather they only saw into a dimension where the invention already existed... if we traced our genetic chain back to the first DNA would we find all the experiences of every replica entangled in a field and all those experiences memories we mistake for imaginings?  Of course we can not absolutely know the difference between imagination or memory, we can't absolutely know that even our own April 2013 yesterday occured, but we can suppose and use our suppositions in ways they keep us grounded and effective... the visions, the stories, are there in our heads, use them, don't classify them, work them, enjoy them. don't worry where they come from... be creative and be One with the Creator

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                  A.Villarasaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                  @Mike Marks:
                  The reality or unreality of re-incarnation (and of anything else that has spiritual underpinning)  will be debated ad infinitum. For the millions of people who subscribe to Hinduism( and similar belief systems) , re-incarnation is an article of faith.
                  
                  Personally,  as I become more aware of and attuned to  its spiritual conception and interpretation, re-incarnation has become an idea that  I could also also believe in. Thus what you are saying in your post about  "experiences of every replica entangled in a field and all those experiences/memories we mistake for imaginings"...could be explained in some measure, some more so than others, on the basis or re-incarnation.

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                     Mike Marksposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                     genetic memory is a bit different than re-incarnation... more like the way an atom arrangement carried on from grandma gives me a nose shaped like grandma's, an atom arrangement carried on from grandma's brain (or dna) shapes one of grandma's memories in my brain... a physical point of view rather than spiritual

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                        A.Villarasaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                        @Mike:
                        
                        It is true that DNA (chromosomal) imprints could be transmitted "molecularly" from generation to generation, but I am not entirely  convinced  that DNA could be imprinted  or shaped with memory emanating from  "grandma's" cerebral memory bank that  then  gets transferred ( via the same DNA) to her progeny's cerebral memory bank.
                        
                        Neuro-scientist can shed light to this question, and again I am not entirely sure that  previous or current research into brain physiology has ever dealt with the issue of memory transfer (via DNA)  from the brain of one generation to the next.
                        
                        If you can refer me to a publication or source that specifically deals with what you term as "genetic memory", I would be very appreciative.

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      A Troubled Manposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, but unfortunately, religions have degraded and debased any meaning or purpose one might find in life to being programmed automatons in eternal servitude and slavery to a psychotic, selfish, invisible super friend.

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         A.Villarasaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         @ATM:
         Ranting is NEVER a good way to answer and or find the meaning of life.

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   paradigmsearchposted 10 years ago

   A wider reality than me? Yep, I think so. The day after I die, the world (and the rest of the universe) are still going to be here...

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      A.Villarasaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      @paradigmsearch:
      When your own physical reality ends... the rest of  the other physical reality continues. So true, but existence is not as simple as that, and happily for us too  who believe that Death is not the consumate sleep, but the ultimate  awakening.

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         paradigmsearchposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         I've actually written something exploring that philosophy. Alas, not allowed to tell you where on the internet it is though...

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   mahmud11557posted 10 years ago

   This topic is very good,looking for the meaning of life is still my personal give thanks in all things!

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