Allow Me To Be Perfectly Frank...

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

{reduced to simple propositions}:

i think humans, as tool makers and pattern finders, have an innate tendency to find "meaning" and "purpose."

a tool has a use. it is used to make things or manipulate them somehow. the things made or manipulated, in turn, serve some function. we see a pattern in this, and ask, "if tools serve a purpose, and we use tools, are we to serve some purpose?"

following that perceived pattern backwards, we can only imagine the sequence that precedes us, and create ideas like god, etc.

the question could be rephrased: am i a tool? who uses this tool? what is this tool used for?

not that that line of questioning is any more useful.


as for the real meaning of life:

gratuitous images of penises.

/monthy python

Interesting analogy... so if we create a tool then the tool has a purpose. I guess the next question is "are we a tool?" AND NO I DON"T MEAN IT LIKE THAT!


Maybe, we are a tool though. Recently somewhere on this board we discussed being a 'tool' of DNA/life etc. So maybe in that sense there is a purpose, to continue to spread DNA?

[LMNO]

I thought it was "People aren't wearing enough hats."

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I thought it was "People aren't wearing enough hats."

[Golden Applesauce]

{reduced to simple propositions}:

i think humans, as tool makers and pattern finders, have an innate tendency to find "meaning" and "purpose."

a tool has a use. it is used to make things or manipulate them somehow. the things made or manipulated, in turn, serve some function. we see a pattern in this, and ask, "if tools serve a purpose, and we use tools, are we to serve some purpose?"

following that perceived pattern backwards, we can only imagine the sequence that precedes us, and create ideas like god, etc.

the question could be rephrased: am i a tool? who uses this tool? what is this tool used for?

not that that line of questioning is any more useful.


as for the real meaning of life:

gratuitous images of penises.

/monthy python

This.

Tools are created for a purpose.  Tools have meaning in their lives.  Tools know what they are supposed to do.
A hammer bangs things, a pencil writes things, a trumpet squawks things.

It was once believed that humans were unique in their use of tools.  Now we know that there are many other animals who can do that.  Monkeys, apes, birds... they're gaining on us.  If you don't want to be obsolete by 2012, you'd better start accelerating, and do it now.

What's that, you say?  You'd like to have purpose and meaning?  You want to be a tool?

Really?

Damn.

Fuck this species, I'm betting on the corvids.

[Lymantria Dispar]

A hammer bangs things, a pencil writes things, a trumpet squawks things.

A tool requires a user - a human uses a hammer to bang things; a human uses a pencil to write things; a human uses a trumpet to squawk things.

If a human is a tool, who/what is the user?

[Eater of Clowns]

If a human is a tool, who/what is the user?

Other humans.

[BADGE OF HONOR]

I understand the desire to know the purpose of life, because I have been depressed enough to wonder whether refraining from suicide was a good idea. 


That said, there are a lot better answers than "God wants us to be useful".

[Lymantria Dispar]

But does there have to be a purpose to life?

For that matter, why does anything need to have a purpose?



By the way... who is Frank and why does he want to be allowed perfection?

[Eve]

But does there have to be a purpose to life?

For that matter, why does anything need to have a purpose?

There doesn't, and it doesn't. However, some people need that as motivation to keep on doing what they're doing.

By the way... who is Frank and why does he want to be allowed perfection?

[Lymantria Dispar]

But does there have to be a purpose to life?

For that matter, why does anything need to have a purpose?

There doesn't, and it doesn't. However, some people need that as motivation to keep on doing what they're doing.

Ahh, now we're getting somewhere...

[BADGE OF HONOR]

There's a whole class of mental and emotional fuckery revolving around the question "Why do I even bother to get up in the morning?"

I do think that is one of the fundamentals of religion, the others being fear of death and how to behave in public.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I do not understand the motivation behind most spiritual inquiry.

Countless theologians, philosophers, and lay thinkers have been and continue to be obsessed with what is often considered the ultimate question: "Why are we here?"
Alternate forms of the question include, "What is our purpose?", "Why are things the way they are?", and "Why is there something rather than nothing?"

I admit that I spend a great deal of time reading about and trying to understand the nature of religion and belief (which are not the same thing, and I would highly recommend The Religious Case Against Belief by James P. Carse to anyone who wants to know what the hell I mean by that), but the nature of that question eludes me. In my mind, the ultimate question is not "Why are we here?", instead it's "What the hell kind of a question is that?"

What do people mean when they ask this question? From my perspective, it has no relevance or bearing on anything; it is inanity at it's highest. Yet many people will spend their lives looking for the "answer" to this meaningless question, and many will spend their lives touting that they have found it. However, the answers that people come up with are so many and varied that it becomes readily apparent that the original question is flawed.

Seriously, did no one but me get the joke about "The Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything" in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? They built the most advanced supercomputer ever to give them the answer to this question, and the supposed "true" answer was 42. Then they had to build another, bigger supercomputer to give them the actual question, so that the answer would make sense. Get it? It's funny because the people looking for the answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything didn't know what the hell they were actually asking for! Just like in real life!

People often talk about "purpose" and "meaning." They talk about needing a purpose, or that life would be meaningless without God or whatever spiritual entity they are concerned with. I don't get it. If there ever was a "fall from grace," it was the loss of our ability to have the nerve to face life with some sense of personal dignity and authority over ourselves. Why do people need to have a purpose assigned to them, and how can one be so asinine as to think that a dream, an epiphany, or simply a moment of mania is a message from a Greater Power™ telling them what to do with their lives? That kind of thinking is for people who took The Alchemist seriously.

If you can't assign a purpose to yourself, or just LIVE and be happy doing whatever the fuck you feel like at any given time, then you are dragging your knuckles. Walk upright and be a human being, damn it all. Have enough self-respect and courage to face life and say "Whatever I do in life, I do under my own will and by my own authority."

Please. You people are so terribly confounding and annoying when you blather on about "purpose" and "meaning" and "Why," and then look down on people like me who, quite frankly, don't see why those things are of such concern to you. Maybe you'd start being more satisfied with yourself if you started asking different questions, rather than beating your head against the imaginary brick wall that is "Why are we here?"

Good thing we're so much smarter and better than those people, and it's a good thing we all have far better ways of spending our time.  Hmmm...perhaps we should force everyone to stop believing in weird stuff like Gods and demons, and believe as we believe, which is obviously superior.

Because we know there is only one way to look at the world.  All others are invalid.

Ho ho!  I have heard this joke before.  But where?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

But does there have to be a purpose to life?

For that matter, why does anything need to have a purpose?

TOO TRUE!  LET'S ALL BECOME SOPHISTS AND JACK OFF INTO OUR NAVELS!

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

But does there have to be a purpose to life?

For that matter, why does anything need to have a purpose?

TOO TRUE!  LET'S ALL BECOME SOPHISTS AND JACK OFF INTO OUR NAVELS!

[Cainad (dec.)]

<snip>

Good thing we're so much smarter and better than those people, and it's a good thing we all have far better ways of spending our time.  Hmmm...perhaps we should force everyone to stop believing in weird stuff like Gods and demons, and believe as we believe, which is obviously superior.

Because we know there is only one way to look at the world.  All others are invalid.

Ho ho!  I have heard this joke before.  But where?

I never advocated actively shutting up or thought policing the people that I'm criticizing. They are certainly free to think and believe whatever the fuck they think makes sense, but then so am I free to not take what they come up with seriously. Unless I'm supposed to shut my trap and not say anything that might be seen as critical of someone else's perspective. After all, ya gotta respect everyone's path, right? Even Scientologists.

Note that I'm not telling everyone to go nihilist by saying, "Life has no purpose or meaning so STFU." That's just a pretentious way of falling for the same con.

I mean, if people are going to ask the question "Why am I alive?", they're going to either make up their own answer or use someone else's. They could at least be honest and admit that's what they're doing.