Yeah, I've never understood people who talk about "meaning" and "purpose" as if they're objective, tangible entities. There's no meaning gland in our bodies, and no purpose plants to be harvested.
Purpose is not function. The purpose of a tree is not to intake CO2 and release oxygen. The tree gains purpose when we plant it intentionally for its fruit. Which is of course a totally arbitrary imposition. So unless you believe that we were planted by a creator, meaning and purpose become wholly arbitrary internal constructs. You don't mean anything to the rest of the universe.
That seems to strike a lot of people as a gloomy and frightening idea, but I think it's rather liberating. It's the tenet of the existentialists - the universe is like a pitch dark room, which leaves us free to light our own match. We create meaning for ourselves. We are our own gods.
Given the idea (most likely even fact) that the universe as we see it is so vast and so beyond our comprehension, what makes us think anything we do at all, EVER, has any meaning or purpose in it?
Humans beings are also most certainly not Gods in any way either. Even this planet we occupy doesnt interpret reality at all in a way we can even measure, (if at all) so it certainly doesnt care what happens to us, same for the universe except on a much much MUCH larger scale.
To the tree's own end its purpose is to intake carbon dioxide because if it didnt it wouldnt survive, but it's external purpose is the same as ours.
To die is inevitable, therefore we must not worry about that which we cannot change. Our time is the time we are alive, our meaning exists in that same frame.
Is it normal to think the meaning of life is a pratical joke?
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Yeah, I've never understood people who talk about "meaning" and "purpose" as if they're objective, tangible entities. There's no meaning gland in our bodies, and no purpose plants to be harvested.
Purpose is not function. The purpose of a tree is not to intake CO2 and release oxygen. The tree gains purpose when we plant it intentionally for its fruit. Which is of course a totally arbitrary imposition. So unless you believe that we were planted by a creator, meaning and purpose become wholly arbitrary internal constructs. You don't mean anything to the rest of the universe.
That seems to strike a lot of people as a gloomy and frightening idea, but I think it's rather liberating. It's the tenet of the existentialists - the universe is like a pitch dark room, which leaves us free to light our own match. We create meaning for ourselves. We are our own gods.
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Anonymous Post Author
11 years ago
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Given the idea (most likely even fact) that the universe as we see it is so vast and so beyond our comprehension, what makes us think anything we do at all, EVER, has any meaning or purpose in it?
Humans beings are also most certainly not Gods in any way either. Even this planet we occupy doesnt interpret reality at all in a way we can even measure, (if at all) so it certainly doesnt care what happens to us, same for the universe except on a much much MUCH larger scale.
To the tree's own end its purpose is to intake carbon dioxide because if it didnt it wouldnt survive, but it's external purpose is the same as ours.
To one day die.
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shade_ilmaendu
11 years ago
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To die is inevitable, therefore we must not worry about that which we cannot change. Our time is the time we are alive, our meaning exists in that same frame.