Just sayin'. There has not been one permanent thing done by a human on this Earth, to Earth. Our lives revolve around the fact that we want to be happy and make a lot of money, but what is true happieness, and if we find it, it is pointless to another human who is still searching for their happieness and vica-versa.
Not trying to be a downer here, but I just want to know what you think about the futility of being a mortal with no real purpose other than to find a personal Utopia.
He wasn't. He just thinks it is cool to say things. Just like I do, just like everyone does. Since nothing matters, we have to do something to fill the void.
Then I shall rest easy, knowing that no matter how bad I fail at life, I will succeed in dying.
Man, you've been on a role the last few weeks =)
Since nothing matters, we have to do something to fill the void.
See, I can agree that as a whole life is pointless but everything matters in someway. You don't need a point to life for events to matter, for life to be beautiful.
See, I can agree that as a whole life is pointless but everything matters in someway. You don't need a point to life for events to matter, for life to be beautiful.
I agree... also. Life in general appears to be without reason but that does not necessarily mean that there is no point in existing. The semantics of the english language fail us once again.
You know before I stumbled onto the concept of death being described in this way I was having trouble imagining non existence. So I do understand how people would naturally gravitate to a concept of existing after we die. I don't think the concept of non existence is one we naturally conceive.
I agree. In a life where everything we perceive is shaped by our concept of existence it is an absolutely foreign idea to consider non-existence, just as it is so foreign to try to comprehend infinity. Our minds are so limited in these capacities that it does seem like a natural occurrence that we would develop some idea of an afterlife simply because we can't fathom pure nothingness. Not to mention it is a huge blow to the ego to think that we spend all of our time living and creating that when we die it amounts to jack squat.
This is a collaboration between MageGrayWolf and MrWalker in the 'Were do we go after we DIE?' thread. I think it relates.
Not sure if I totally agree with that when we die it amounts to jack squat. Our current collective knowledge is very dependent on what others who have died have done during there time living. Our technology is very dependent on what others who have died created. These things did not amount to nothing. Also our time living and creating is very important to those who are close to us.
Not sure if I totally agree with that when we die it amounts to jack squat. Our current collective knowledge is very dependent on what others who have died have done during there time living. Our technology is very dependent on what others who have died created. These things did not amount to nothing. Also our time living and creating is very important to those who are close to us.
as I pointed out even in that context our lives and what we create don't necessarily amount to nothing. There is much that future generations and societies can learn from ours from our and what we have created just as we have learned from our past.
as I pointed out even in that context our lives and what we create don't necessarily amount to nothing. There is much that future generations and societies can learn from ours from our and what we have created just as we have learned from our past.
Yes but if society dies then there is none to learn from our past. That makes our experiences and history pointless.
Not sure if I totally agree with that when we die it amounts to jack squat. Our current collective knowledge is very dependent on what others who have died have done during there time living. Our technology is very dependent on what others who have died created. These things did not amount to nothing. Also our time living and creating is very important to those who are close to us.
True, but look at the numbers who have died and had no relative impact, compared those who have begun advances upon which we have built on. The overwhelming majority of us will have no real lasting impact outside of our immediate circles of influence. While this isn't exactly 'jack squat' as I put it, it is in light of the few who have made lasting contributions to our society. Even then, though, our society will most likely eventually eliminate these things, and even if not, they will eventually be lost as our planet becomes no longer inhabited by humans. In the grand scope of the cosmos we really do amount to jack squat.
it is in light of the few who have made lasting contributions to our society.
I don't think I agree. We really can't say what impact the "little people" have had collectively on society.
Even then, though, our society will most likely eventually eliminate these things
I don't see how even if just staying for history value.
and even if not, they will eventually be lost as our planet becomes no longer inhabited by humans. In the grand scope of the cosmos we really do amount to jack squat.
We do have the potential to outlive our planet. Right now this may be true, but I think it may be to soon to tell what measurable impact we may have on the cosmos.
I don't think I agree. We really can't say what impact the "little people" have had collectively on society.
On average 108 people die each minute. By the time I finish writing this nearly 400 people will have died. Seriously, how many of those people have any impact on me or you? Perhaps, in some "butterfly effect" sort of way they might, but are they remembered by us? Nope, we don't even know their names. They may make some impact, but on the grander scale I really don't think that they are going to have some lasting, memorable impression that grants some form of greater meaning to their lives.
I don't see how even if just staying for history value.
Perhaps in some cases, but by and large the overwhelming majority of us are forgotten. Again, we have some impact on our contemporaries and family, but does 100 or 1,000 people really make that much of an impact on a planet inhabited by nearly 7 billion? I would contend that it really doesn't. This doesn't mean that our lives are not valuable to us and those close to us, but in the grand scheme of the cosmos we really are inconsequential.
We do have the potential to outlive our planet. Right now this may be true, but I think it may be to soon to tell what measurable impact we may have on the cosmos.
True, but even then everything will eventually come to an end. How many of us, if our species is still alive then, will remember you and I at the death of the universe? I would say probably none. Not a single person by then will ever know we even existed. To me, that is a humbling and sober concept and I try to use this to elucidate that our over-inflated opinion of ourselves, as a species, is naught but self-delusion.
I think what I'm trying to get at can be summed up in the quote "there are no small parts, just small actors"-Milan Kundera (I think?) is kind of what I'm trying to get at. Remembering or not remembering a person name or deeds I don't see as really mattering. For instance let's take Ghostbusters. I could give you the names of each of the four actors who played the Ghostbusters but I wouldn't be able to tell you the entire special effects cast and they were just as important.
To me, that is a humbling and sober concept and I try to use this to elucidate that our over-inflated opinion of ourselves, as a species, is naught but self-delusion.
Do not all of these unknown peoples live reminding you of how little of an impact we make sobering you to our own self delusions not an impact in itself?
Do not all of these unknown peoples live reminding you of how little of an impact we make sobering you to our own self delusions not an impact in itself?
Yep, but again, in the grand scheme of existence I will probably make little, if any, impact and so those who impacted me will be lost with my lack of impression upon society.
Really our impact on the world depends solely upon others and their willingness to remember and, in a way, immortalize us. Again, there is no objective purpose to our lives, nothing that really at all matters to the vastness of the cosmos, yet we do have some interconnected dependence on those who came before, as well as those who are yet to be. I suppose I do play this down a bit as I have a tendency to look at it on a cosmic level.
You know it's funny for someone known as being such a pessimist I do seem to have a rather optimistic view on life.
I don't know about on life, but you do seem to put more stock into our value as a species than I, or many of my other compatriots. (fellow atheists, free thinkers, debaters, and other quasi-intellectual acquaintances)
I suppose I do play this down a bit as I have a tendency to look at it on a cosmic level.
Perhaps the truth is somewhere in between.
I don't know about on life, but you do seem to put more stock into our value as a species than I, or many of my other compatriots. (fellow atheists, free thinkers, debaters, and other quasi-intellectual acquaintances)
I do find it hard to believe we are likely not going to make any impact in this universe considering what we have already accomplished in such a relatively short amount of time (both good and bad).
