I scanned the PhD section for this question but didn't see it fielded anywhere. Since most philosophers are concerned about our place in the universe, Greek ancients included, I thought I'd pose it here.

Do you think life is a random occurrence, we came to the top of the food chain by some fluke accident and there is no such thing as a purpose?

Do you think we are two-legged lab rats and there's something out there that's observing how we play it out?

Do you think because of our intellectual limitations, we are incapable of knowing our purpose in life?

I know its hard not to drag in beliefs in a question like this (which shows how little things have changed since Descartes days) but do try and be as belief-neutral and logical as you can. Looking forward to your views.

Not sure how to answer that coz all beliefs are personal, methinks.

Rather than be judgemental and defend a position emotionally, let's give people a chance to do it rationally. It would be tragic if we cannot break past that barrier wouldn't it.

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Added on May 31, 2010, 5:10 pmHmm did u get that from South Park's Mr Hankey?


This post has been edited by Beastboy: May 31 2010, 05:10 PM

I was wondering when this you're-thinking-too-much answer will pop up & I guess I didn't have to wait too long. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could just throw out our brains and live life like bacteria?

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