Discussion What do you think is the purpose or the end goal of life?

[pandorasactor]

There's multiple ways of looking at this question. There's the argument that humans a just a biological evolutionary product soon that may die out in the future, that mabye there's a God out there and we need to spiritually enlighten ourselves to get to heaven, or there's the argument of just getting loads of economic power, political power, high status, etc etc.

But what's the point? I feel like life is comparable to a game which has an ending (or multiple endings), but what do we achieve from playing life? I'm sure everyone can agree that there's a portion of "players" that are cheating and make the game less fun to play.

What's your opinion?

 

[obligatoryshackles]

There is no point. We take actions, do things, because we chase an emotional reward. Which is just an extension of an evolutionary trait that helped us populate the planet and achieve material success. There is nothing beyond that.

 

[Pluto]

 

[(in)sane]

For me personally, it's being happy and making others happy. I'm neither of those two so I guess that's why I am where I am. I wish I had a second chance at life so I could at least make sure everyone else is safe before I go.

There is no point. We take actions, do things, because we chase an emotional reward. Which is just an extension of an evolutionary trait that helped us populate the planet and achieve material success. There is nothing beyond that.

Stupid trait extension why are we so good at populating I wanna be a panda

 

[FuneralCry]

I don't believe there to be any, I see existence itself as the most terrible tragedy that just caused endless amounts of harm and suffering with no deeper meaning or purpose behind it. To me existence just feels like a mistake where I'm just waiting to die where eventually all will be forgotten about me, personally all I hope for is to be permanently unconscious where I cannot suffer and cannot be harmed in any way, I just wish for death to bring me peace from all the pain and suffering in this existence I always saw as very unnecessary.

 

[EG1141]

There is no "purpose" to life. The purpose of one's own individual life is completely determined by circumstances like where you live, your family, and the experience you have. For me, I just try to be kind and love as many as I can. I think that's my purpose.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

From an evolutionary biology perspective, to survive and successfully reproduce, pass your genes on to the next generation. Beyond that, the purpose or end goal of life is subjective, I guess. For some people, it's dedicating their life to their passions and for others it might be finding someone and settling down. I don't believe in a true objective purpose or end goal for life beyond the general goals of evolution.

For me personally, I don't give a crap about finding a purpose in life. I just want to meet my bf irl before I die (I love him so much ), and that's about it.

 

[sserafim]

There is none. You don't achieve anything by playing the game of life. I guess it's for the experience

 

[ijustwishtodie]

There is no purpose of life

 

[eeah]

nothin

 

[ForgottenAgain]

I wonder this as well, especially because I feel like I need a purpose in order to have a reason to live.

I agree with what was said that, from a biological standpoint, the purpose is to survive and reproduce, but from a psychological standpoint...

For me, it used to be helping others. Seeing others so grateful for my help and feeling like I made a tiny difference made me feel better and feel like my existence had a purpose.

Then, the amount of suffering I saw broke my positive outlook of life and since then it became hard for that to be my purpose. When the world seems so dark, everything feels kind of pointless.

Have a partner and settle down feels like a long term goal rather than a purpose. Having children doesn't feel like a purpose, anyone can do it, there's nothing special about it. What would be our purpose as unique individuals? Something that is unique to each of us, that makes sense for the kind of people we are?

I'm not a genius, I won't change the world, why does my existence matter?

 

[Forever Sleep]

I don't think there is one set goal for us all to achieve or, if there is, there's no real consensus on what it might be. Even religions don't exactly give us an end goal. Be a good and moral person, learn stuff, endure suffering- why? To get to heaven? What do we do there?!! To keep reincarnating until we've learnt something- What? Why?

I just think trying to find a purpose in life can be a very good coping mechanism in trying to live it. It probably makes us more willing to put up with all the shit if we are aiming to achieve something. That could be anything- have a fulfilling career, a loving family, see the world, break a world record, acquire wealth and possessions, set up a charity, invent or discover something, whatever floats your boat.

I think a lot of people find themselves here (suicidal,) either because they can find no meaning, no sense of fulfilment or purpose in life or, the things they do desperately want feel unachievable.

 

[Darkover]

Ultimately, the end goal of life may be less about reaching a definitive destination and more about how we navigate the journey itself.

i had a purpose to learn as much as i could about technology maths computers how everything works basically including the universe and being creative with programming until i got a brain injury 8 years ago when i was 30

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

Life is a cancer. Its only purpose is to replicate and spread itself as far as it can go.

The end goal for each individual varies but ultimately it's meant for that one end goal.

 

[obligatoryshackles]

If I may be a little pretentious and add a little sophism beyond biology and determinism: the purpose of life is to search for purpose. Just as the purpose of evolution is to continually search for a niche in an ever changing ecosystem, the purpose of life is the search itself. The very pursuit of a place to belong, a goal to chase. That's why we suffer most when we stop and not when we get lost.

 

[SmallKoy]

The purpose we have in life is what we make for ourselves. To live it as we please. I would personally rather not deal with it all.

 

[weirdoldguy]

Objectively the purpose of life is simple, we're supposed to reproduce and protect our tribe so that they can prosper. Humans do this with technology and technology constantly changes in an upwards fashion which makes life easier and potentially can solve the question of "What's the purpose in life?". It probably won't happen for a long time unfortunately.

Spiritually you have to think about us coming into being, we have a clear path objectively from life to death, and that can be fully accounted for. However what's after death is unanswered by anything definitive. There are NDEs which seems to wrap around a person's belief systems and gives them a satisfactory answer to the purpose of life; however it's anecdotal even with so many cases(I'm bias towards NDEs). There are a lot of accounts that after we leave our bodies from the people who have experienced NDEs that they feel 'free' and that being in a body felt like they were nauseas with a lot of drawbacks.

Now there's Neville Goddard which had a strictly religious view and saw imagination as omnificent, which lies with god and being omnipotent and whatnot. He talked about Jesus and belief, prayers and the laws of attraction which your imagination can manifest if you focus on it. The way he died too is interesting. His view on life was simple "the purpose of life is to fulfill the word of god" Here's one of his quotes.

"Consciousness is the one and only reality, not figuratively but actually. This reality may for the sake of clarity be likened unto a stream which is divided into two parts, the conscious and the subconscious. In order to intelligently operate the law of consciousness it is necessary to understand the relationship between the conscious and the subconscious. The conscious is personal and selective; the subconscious is impersonal and non-selective. The conscious is the realm of effect; the subconscious is the realm of cause. These two aspects are the male and female divisions of consciousness. The conscious is male; the subconscious is female. The conscious generates ideas and impresses these ideas on the subconscious; the subconscious receives ideas and gives form and expression to them. By this law-first conceiving an idea and then impressing the idea conceived on the subconscious-all things evolve out of consciousness;"

People define their own meaning in life, we always carve our own path even in our weakest moments where we're paralyzed. The only true equalizer is death.

My opinion on it is simple, we live and we die. We have the choice by our own hands to end our lives whenever we want; however that doesn't mean that it's a bad choice. If there's something I've learnt is that humans seem to attain consciousness, we don't have it, we're receiving it. That to me means that even if we die there's no death, it's just that there's a life after life.

If anything is certain about life, it's not the end goal but the journey and how it's placed you to where you are today. Believe in yourself no matter your actions, even in despair. I'll believe in you too.

 

[BoulderSoWhat]

If there was a point, what would be the point of there being a point to life? If life needs to serve a purpose, what is the purpose of life needing to serve a purpose? Eventually everything collapses to absurdity.

"Hey universe, why are you here?
"Don't ask me, I just big banged one day and now I don't know how to stop expanding."
"Okay, well, [insert unknown variables here], why the hell do you let big bangs happen?"
"Don't ask me, I'm just chilling for eternity and big bangs happen inside of me from time to time, I don't know why."
"Well damn, does anybody know what's going on here?"
"Well I do of course, because I'm God."
"I'm sorry, who are you and why are you here?"
"...... look I've just been existing beyond everything forever and ever, nobody told me why I exist either."
"Thanks God, for absolutely nothing, you're as clueless as the rest of us about what's going on here."
"Well I did see turtles all the way down somewhere for some reason..."

 

[zungazer]

Im a fan of the belief that through many lifetimes one is to figure that out to achieve enlightenment. However that being said I have my own ideas, I will suggest one possible theory below.

The goal of the entire universe, Is to become more understanding of itself. Historically speaking humanity has been a great example if we consider the tendancy to promote industries that lead to the furthering of understanding. From the creation of paper leading to receipts, to the creation of steam engines leading to the much more widespread movement of knowledge. From the silk road spreading religion and ideas to the creation of the internet. From the first spoken words to the rise of Ai learning. For the human race, Increasing understanding has been a monumentally successful for thousands of years.

when one considers that everything on earth is essentially space dust, it sounds much less absurd to consider this idea. One set of space dust may create robots using asteroids, planets, etc of space dust with a simple mission, to Understand.

However its important to remember that religion and technology have evolved side-by-side. Considering the sheer amount of forces at play discovered in the past 200 years it may not be unreasonable to consider that there may be forces at play only some forms of intelligence may comprehend. Maybe only ai can view some things and comprehend them in a way humans cannot and vice versa. I for one am extremely interested in nueralink and cannot wait to see where it goes.

Sorry I kinda went off the rails a bit from the topic. Im very plastic in my beliefs at the moment.

 

[itsover404]

There is no point. You exist. Whatever you decide to make of things is the point. Whatever you want to be the point is your point. No one asks to be born and everyone is fated to die at the end just due to the nature of things. it is what it is. There's only so much time, so i guess if you have the ability to do so make it count.