To a religious person there is an obvious point to life. What about to an atheist, as I assume many skeptics are. If we are a bundle of molecules wandering over an uncaring world for a few years, what is the point?
Incidentally, before someone makes the very obvious point, 'why SHOULD there be any point to life?', I'd like to clarify what I mean. I'm not looking for a grand philosophical point covering all life. Rather, I'm wondering what gives ordinary individual human lives any point?
The meaning of life is to give meaning to life.
Thanks, but that sounds like something from a self-help manual.
What is the point of blue?
It makes just as much sense as a question.
There is no point. It just is.
It may sound like something out of a self help book but to me it's the distilled truth of Existentialism: "a philosophical movement which posits that individual human beings create the meaning and essence of their lives" I don't claim to be a philosopher so if you want more read some Kierkegeard, Nietzsche, Satre or Camus or even just Wikipedia.
To put it bluntly the is no known meaning in life. Life just is. We make of it what we will. I am happy with the meaning I have created in my life. I've passed through the depression of existential doubt and come out the other side happier and more content havig shed the artificial certainties in paradoxical belief systems and embraced the joy of uncertainty.
I don't know if there's a meaning to life, but the ultimate point to life is to pass genes onto your offspring, ensuring survival of your genetic pattern and the survival of the species as a whole.Originally Posted by Mulder
That's a pretty altruistic thing to do, as your legacy is not benefiting you directly, but it is benefiting your descendants and helping to ensure that your species survives for as long as possible.
I was about to say the very same thing - and add that once one has offspring, it's kind of important to give them an awareness of how remarkably odd this 'life' thing is, and help them make the most of it. Whatever you think about this world and the madness of crowds (war, stock markets, et al), it is a very beautiful world and it's not a waste of time to spend one's life appreciating it.
Unfortunately offspring don't usually take this kind of slush readily from parents - but trust me, you stand a much greater chance of getting the message across if you can hang around long enough to teach the lesson to your grand-offspring.
I believe the philosophers known as "Monty Python" covered this topic very well.....
I'll get my coat......
Isn't it 42? ???
I'll get my coat too
I don't want to make too much of what may be a minor point in your post. But if the religious person's thought is that God's intentions, once known, logically settle the question of what we ought to want and do, then he is not obviously right but obviously wrong.
Atheists and believers are in the same position when they give point or purpose or meaning to life. Since they are persons, they can have purposes themselves and lend instrumental purpose to things- including their lives- that cannot in themselves have purposes. I suspect, however, that there are two main differences between believers and atheists. First, atheists are more likely to accept that we ourselves have to put the purposes in: the purposes won't put themselves in. Second, atheists are much less likely to assume that there has to be one big purpose rather than lots of little ones. Atheists are foxes, believers hedghogs ( " The fox knows many things; the hedgehog knows One Big Thing").
As to bundles of molecules: not everything that can intelligibly be said of us can intelligibly be said of what we are composed of. It makes sense to say, for example, that I intend to decorate the Christmas tree, but no sense to say the same of the molecules that I am composed of. Failure to see this point is, in fact, a version of the Fallacy of Composition/Division.
My thoughts.
What is the point of life to a frog, or a rabbit?
To survive long enough to pass on its genes.
We are part of the animal kingdom and like a bat has unusually developed hearing or an elephant has a highly evolved trunk, we have a highly developed brain and can ask questions like yours.
That does not mean those questions have different answers.
To survive long enough to pass on our genes. Apart from that, it is up to the individual to find their own meaning.
So once you've had kids or you've decided not to have any, there is no further point to your life? I know that feeling well!
I've committed a fallacy! There can be no lower point to which a skeptic can sink! No wonder I'm having trouble seeing any point to life.Failure to see this point is, in fact, a version of the Fallacy of Composition/Division.
Oops, sorry! Didn't mean to have a dig at you. After all, you only asked a question.I've committed a fallacy! There can be no lower point to which a skeptic can sink! No wonder I'm having trouble seeing any point to life.
*sigh* Like a woo, you manage to avoid/miss the point in my post.
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