provide shelter for animals.

provide food for some organisms.

i still don't get the picture.

We live to work for others and die again.

Well, if you're gonna ask like that, that's like asking a tree what the purpose of human being is.

This is because we concluded we knew the purpose of the tree only because we're experiencing through the 3rd-person point of view, through observation.

Imagine both of us trees, not knowing what is our purpose in life, and then ended up asking what is the purpose of a homosapien.

can u answer my riddle?

---

Added on May 31, 2010, 6:39 pmread below:
Yup thats right. purpose in life is always given by the existence of another. everything on earth serve a purpose other than itself. in other words...we are all part of a large scheme. an ecosystem on a grand scale if u like. And we all live to serve the ecosystem in our own little ways. The problem with humans however, is we have an ego. Ego is the barrier to many of life's simplest understanding. With ego we start to think we are special. We're not.

So no, we do not have a purpose in life other than to be a contributing part of the system. To live in harmony within the system. To be part of the system.




This post has been edited by teongpeng: May 31 2010, 06:39 PM

If that's the case, why should humans even have EGO in the first place?

i dont know. were we given an ego?

i've a feeling u are slooooWWWwwly drifting out of topic there...

I don't get what he means either

very simple actually......
the purpose of life is to find purpose in life........that can be anything depending on the individual.........no need for 1 ultimate purpose which is default for everyone.........

how about chicken or cow. are they got life purpose?

who had a first purpose? chicken or egg??

dont God have a purpose for all life form?

purpose of a tree is to act as a raw material for humans to produce papers in our daily life usage..haha~~

Life is just a phase you're going through...you'll get over it

Your above statement, per se, is therefore the description of the purpose of your life and the goal you are chasing: to live a life that you are satisfied with.

Note the difficulty in setting such goals as to do things that you enjoy doing. If the world are filled with no more than 100 person, then it is an easier goal. However, in reality, your way of life would in one way or another affects others' desire to pursue their way of life, and vice versa.

More often than none, you might be faced with the decision to temporary forgo your goals (doing what you enjoy doing, for etc) for whatever exogenous reasons there may be.

There is nothing wrong investing some time to ponder the meaning of life.
After all, you only get to think while you are alive.

On the other side of the coin:

There is also nothing wrong avoiding what we dislike and indulge in what we prefer.
After all, ignorance is bliss.


For me, it is simply that we should not do any single purpose indefinitely.

This post has been edited by Vagrant: May 31 2010, 10:29 PM

yea eventually the pain, suffering and atrocities will end in a perpetual sleep ----- the end of one's life

Does universe has a purpose? Does Sun has a purpose, will things that doesn't serve any purpose exists?

We are like an ant in an ant colony, non of us carry a conception of the grand design of the colonial home, but with the division of labour and collective responsibility, a highly organized social structure emerged. In isolated view, an ant with only limited intelligent and ability, but in a holistic view, the colony as a whole display a level of purpose and sophisticated link society.

Asking the purpose of life in isolated view is less meaningful as just like asking what is the purpose of a "single" shoe? It needs to be a pair in order to serve a purpose.

We exhale CO2 which is needed be the tree, we inhale O2 which is produced by the tree as a result of photosynthesis using Sun energy. If Sun one day says that its life is purposeless, do you agree with this?

Oneness is truth, and truth is oneness. Everything comes forth from oneness ---- Zen

does the universe need a purpose to exist.

you mean the sun have an mind of its own to ponder the meaning of life?

So far from everyone's responses, the purpose of life can be summarized as these:

- Meaningless
- To be a slave
- To explore/maximize one's ability
- No purpose
- To serve others

Personally I think all are right because the goals we set will be driven by the different priorities we have in life. We have a strong need for purpose. That's why some of us can walk out of a high paying job and say, "Its not the money." We like to assign meaning to things that don't necessarily have meaning like lucky numbers. Some of us don't want to set a goal. Nothing wrong with that too. The only time that's wrong is when we subscribe to some dogmatic idea about what existence is supposed to be, usually something we're told by some authority rather than something we experienced for ourselves.

On our own I think most of us look for patterns and try to fit unconnected events into those patterns. I hesitate to say that the purpose our existence is random (= no purpose) because I don't know enough to go either way but I do believe how we came to be is random. We rose out of the interplay of a billion prehistoric unrelated events, from raw chemicals to electricity to climate shifts to the meteor that supposedly wiped out the dinos who, if not for that, will probably still be at the top of the food chain.

I think the purpose of life is what we set it to be. If we decide got purpose, got lah. if no, no lah.



This post has been edited by Beastboy: Jun 1 2010, 10:26 AM

Actually, everything we do was on purpose.
Example, (I know many complain about this) You are a slave to your boss now, it's what you choose to become, as there's a purpose to do so.

It's almost the same as (cause) and (effect) you mentioned in the "Karma" thread.

The goal is to save humanity. The destiny await you....