Why Are We Here?

[isha]

On earth, I mean.
Alive.
Why?
Why do you think you are alive? What is the purpose of your life? The meaning of it all?

I used to unassailably think that there was an eternal part of a human being that migrated between lives becoming successively wiser and that eternal part would eventually be liberated from the bondage of experience and be enlightened. Being moral and aware and disciplined was part of that belief.

But I am much more ephemeral now about all beliefs - most age old explanations for why we are here seem capricious, tainted by human ego, even cruel. I don't know why I am here.

Then there is pursuit of beauty, truth, the good, just for its own sake - a kind of Platonic ideal. Fair enough. I dig it. But there is so much suffering and hardship that makes this kind of pursuit beyond the possibilities of so many.

Simply for love, relationship? Maybe. Great purpose. But love is also complex, often conditional, flawed. And for some not even available.

Creativity. Yep. A wild ride being embodied in an awesome place. For sure. Creating stuff is probably the main place after family that I find meaning.
But those things are also not available when immersed in pain, disease, grief, anger etc. And they are also passing blips. Time consumes it all.

It ain't easy.

I'm generally happy. But I get weird thoughts. Like I am driving past someone's very nice house, lovely gardens beginning to be landscaped, fancy glasshouse, and I see the beauty, but then I think why bother with all this material stuff, we are here for such a short time, an almost meaningless event in terms of great time and space, and all this striving to put our mark on the place seems unnecessary, excessive, irrelevant.

I dunno. Why are you here?

[Bishop_Brennan]

42

[isha]

I know. I know. But still.

[Mirabeau]

Don't know, stopped caring.
Just wanna have good time.

[isha]

Yeah hedonism as meaning is a fairly common and ancient meaning of life. It just gets harder to sustain as the body ages and at a certain age we could have several decades of zero craic and no meaning ahead of us then

[quodec]

Friend of mine took her life last week. I’ve been pondering your very question Isha, for several days now. I feel a little piece of me has departed too.

[isha]

Friend of mine took her life last week. I’ve been pondering your very question Isha, for several days now. I feel a little piece of me has departed too.

I'm so sorry. It's dreadful. And does perhaps more than any kind of death cause these questions. A close friend of mine took her life a few years ago and there are certain towns I cannot pass through without feeling her everywhere and thinking those existential questions.

Mind yourself. Remember the people who need you.

[Mirabeau]

Ara

[Jack The Stripper]

To fund the fleadh

[isha]

To fund or find?

[CelticRambler]

You're assuming we are here. Maybe we're not ...

But if we are, then according to a recent Kurzgesagt video, it's because one bunch of amino acids had different charges to another, and whoosh-voilà, next thing you know you're a complex, breathing, thinking human. Or perhaps just complex and breathing - plenty of non-thinking humans around.

[Norman Breaks]

Yeah hedonism as meaning is a fairly common and ancient meaning of life. It just gets harder to sustain as the body ages and at a certain age we could have several decades of zero craic and no meaning ahead of us then

Not with that attitude!
Nah, but in seriousness, we all grow physically and mentally, so of course your idea of what craic is grows and evolves too. You might find joy in Lego at age 8, getting your hole and drinking cider at 18, landing a decent job at 28, buying your 'forever' gaff at 38, greeting the grandkid into the world at 48, travelling to Mykonos at 58, retiring and starting a veggie garden at 68, publishing a book of poems at 78, raving in Ibiza at 88 and so on.

All depends on your idea of craic in the moment.

[DeletedUser]

On earth, I mean.
Alive.
Why?
Why do you think you are alive? What is the purpose of your life? The meaning of it all?

I used to unassailably think that there was an eternal part of a human being that migrated between lives becoming successively wiser and that eternal part would eventually be liberated from the bondage of experience and be enlightened. Being moral and aware and disciplined was part of that belief.

But I am much more ephemeral now about all beliefs - most age old explanations for why we are here seem capricious, tainted by human ego, even cruel. I don't know why I am here.

Then there is pursuit of beauty, truth, the good, just for its own sake - a kind of Platonic ideal. Fair enough. I dig it. But there is so much suffering and hardship that makes this kind of pursuit beyond the possibilities of so many.

Simply for love, relationship? Maybe. Great purpose. But love is also complex, often conditional, flawed. And for some not even available.

Creativity. Yep. A wild ride being embodied in an awesome place. For sure. Creating stuff is probably the main place after family that I find meaning.
But those things are also not available when immersed in pain, disease, grief, anger etc. And they are also passing blips. Time consumes it all.

It ain't easy.

I'm generally happy. But I get weird thoughts. Like I am driving past someone's very nice house, lovely gardens beginning to be landscaped, fancy glasshouse, and I see the beauty, but then I think why bother with all this material stuff, we are here for such a short time, an almost meaningless event in terms of great time and space, and all this striving to put our mark on the place seems unnecessary, excessive, irrelevant.

I dunno. Why are you here?

I’ve often thought we are just players in a long term plan, whether it be God, the universe, an alien race having the craic ? Who knows.

I believe there is a purpose - I just have no clue what it is.

[isha]

Not with that attitude!
Nah, but in seriousness, we all grow physically and mentally, so of course your idea of what craic is grows and evolves too. You might find joy in Lego at age 8, getting your hole and drinking cider at 18, landing a decent job at 28, buying your 'forever' gaff at 38, greeting the grandkid into the world at 48, travelling to Mykonos at 58, retiring and starting a veggie garden at 68, publishing a book of poems at 78, raving in Ibiza at 88 and so on.

All depends on your idea of craic in the moment.

*Makes notes in planner*

[Setanta]

There's no reason why anyone's here.


But the main purpose of life,is the persuit of happiness/fun.....which is heavily linked to persuit of excellence,in whatever area you choose

[Memento Mori]

We are "here" (i.e. exist) because it is good to exist, and it, our existence, is a gift from God. Our time here on earth in this current guise is but a small part of our overall existence.

[isha]

We are "here" (i.e. exist) because it is good to exist, and it, our existence, is a gift from God. Our time here on earth in this current guise is but a small part of our overall existence.

I used to think that. Or try to think that. Not in the Christian way. More in the transmigration/ reincarnation Vedic way.

I'm just not sure about that anymore. Maybe, but maybe not. I guess you either have faith or doubt. I also guess they are complimentary states.


One philosophy I have found myself returning to regularly, having studied many, is the simple bald no messing statements of the Four Noble Truths. Especially the fact that "suffering exists", and "suffering is a result of craving/desire". To me that seems obvious and rational, moreso than most other stories I have read. Yes, there is happiness, joy, goodness, and personally I make efforts to recognise and potentise those experiences, but all is passing and contingent.

I don't frame my day around such thoughts, I just do what I have to/ want to do. But such thoughts as the Four Noble Truths are a background echo. Not that it helps to produce stoicism - it doesn't. I suffer as helplessly as almost everyone. Often I wish I had natural faith. But no story invented by humans holds my attention. No human-made story, including the atheists stories, for existence, compels me.

[8760976543]

I've always wondered about if there's an afterlife, then what's the point of this life? Why the middleman? Why not just go straight there? Just never made sense to me.

[knownunknown]

I’ve gone through different philosophical stages like others here are describing but when I learned about this it really made me think differently about things.

The holographic principle states that a theory of quantum gravity that can describe black holes should be formulated not in the ordinary three spatial dimensions that all other physical theories use but instead in two dimensions of space, like a flat piece of paper

“The three-dimensional world of ordinary experience––the universe filled with galaxies, stars, planets, houses, boulders, and people––is a hologram, an image of reality coded on a distant two-dimensional surface”

Leonard Susskind


I don’t agree with Susskind that it definitely is a hologram but it’s definitely possible.

[isha]

"....is a hologram, an image of reality coded on a distant two-dimensional surface”

Could be. Anything could be.

Coded. How? By what/whom? Randomly generated as a result of miraculous evolutionary fitness like everything else is supposed to be? Coded suggests a coder.

If you conceive of yourself as part of a hologram (not saying you do, but if you do the thought experiment) then what answers/speculation does that give you with respect to why you are here?
Holographic existence also gives rise to the idea of consciousness, awareness, intelligence not being "real" but rather simulacra of such experiences/states, that arise as part of the code.

There's an old Vedic chant - "from the unreal lead me to the real". What is the real behind the hologram?

[knownunknown]

Could be. Anything could be.

Coded. How? By what/whom? Randomly generated as a result of miraculous evolutionary fitness like everything else is supposed to be? Coded suggests a coder.

If you conceive of yourself as part of a hologram (not saying you do, but if you do the thought experiment) then what answers/speculation does that give you with respect to why you are here?
Holographic existence also gives rise to the idea of consciousness, awareness, intelligence not being "real" but rather simulacra of such experiences/states, that arise as part of the code.

There's an old Vedic chant - "from the unreal lead me to the real". What is the real behind the hologram?

In the case of quantum physics it’s the black holes doing the encoding. The same way a cube can be encoded onto a 2d piece of paper everything in existence can also. A black hole stores information not by its area or mass but on a 2 dimensional plane.

You could make a cube(3 dimensional object) just from the 2 dimensional representation of it.

[isha]

This may be getting past my ability to grasp. The above suggests that black holes both store information and encode.
That gives rise to questions - eg how, what mechanisms, in what forms, where does the information come from?
And how likely is it that black holes store information for and then encode a 2d hologram that produces an experience as complex and unified as the one each of us as individuals and as part of complex systems are experiencing?

It seems like a vast anthropomorphisation (deification, even?) of black holes? Is any of this evidenced?

As I say understanding this thesis just may be too far past the range of my present knowledge and ability.

[Jack The Stripper]

Where is it all heading for is the big question.

[Seanybiker]

Oh christ Im not even gonna get into why I think Im here hahahaha.
feck that.

[marhay70]

Biologically, it's a simple answer to a simple question. Is there another reason to ask?