Purpose or significance

Simple question:
Does Earth and the life it sustains exist without purpose or significance?

Please, no religious posts. This is not a religious question and I don't want to talk about religion here I just want you, as an individual, to please express if you believe whether there is purpose or significance to our existence and if so what is it? Let's try to keep this scientific and/or logical /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/thumbs_up.gif

Regardless of how far-fetched or funny you think that your opinion or theory may be please share it.
Oh and let's try to have fun please /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif The stereo-type that conversations such as these have to be all serious and/or angry is ridiculous. Most of us here are grown and I hope can we can all act maturely towards others whose opinions may rival our own /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif

 

Well, and this is probably a common answer, the Life Earth sustains (being humans) exist with the purpose to... multiply, basically.

To keep the life cycle going and to sustain human life for as long as possible, until the end of the world ect ect.

This is next to impossible to answer without using a religious reference of some sort, but that's what I reckon.

Because, well, you know, human life is precious and what-not, and,(as far as we know) the human race is the most intelligent and populous of any life form (I do believe there are other life forms in the universe btw)

So, to simply answer your question lol, I reckon our purpose on this planet, is to keep the cycle of life going, ultimately.

I mean you think about it, you have children, then your children have children, and so on and so forth and it's a never ending cycle.
And, if that cycle ever ended, human-kind, would die out eventually, right?
I think that's life's purpose, but hey, that's just me

 

The earth is a farm.

Aliens eat us.

There aren't many of them, btw.

 

There is strong evidence that all of "this" (us, our environment, etc.) seems to have arisen naturally - through natural laws over vasts amounts of time. Through chance / randomness, and an almost unfathomable amount of time (billions of years), we arrive at where we are today, and everything (including us) will continue to change.

As such, I feel that there is no "ultimate" significance or meaning.

We have to make our own purpose and meaning, in accordance with naturally/biologically - derived ethical concepts such as the Golden Rule, for example. Personally, I find it's more liberating and satisfying.

Holla if you hear me! A-Heh! A-Heh!

 

A-Heh! A-Heh! My brother.

 

That is the ultimate significance and meaning.

 

I guess by "ultimate", i was alluding to God / afterlife / heaven, etc, but I'm afraid to go down that route here...

 

I was born to beat knuckle

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Crunch

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death

 

a higher meaning that we can quantify and prove? no.

but, here's my theory on the eventual fate of mankind; basically, we will learn to control all forces in the universe to prevent things like heat death. we'll supersede our physical forms and network our brains together in some kind of mainframe that controls said forces.

humankind will surpass it's own mortality as well as the universe's. everything will exist in equilibrium for all of eternity- in other words, we will have created heaven.

 

True Quash, I can only imagine what the technology will be by the time a Big Crunch or Hot death occurs, That same technology can destroy the earth in a blink of an eye though so.......

 

Heh - if we survive that long. Remember, 99% of all species that have ever existed have gone extinct. Humans will likely destroy themselves (if our current behavior is any indication), and we wouldn't have even made a mark on this planet - in terms of how long we've been around as a species.

So much for us being a "pinnacle" of evolution, huh! /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif

Ok, i'll stop being such a party-pooper.

 

I believe that the idea that anything has a "purpose" or "significance" is the ultimate illusion. Things simply exist. Trying to superimpose anything on top of that is only a way for people to justify what they want to believe.

Personally, I would be very surprised if anything humans have done holds the slightest bit of significance within the totality of existence. Within that scope, the total sum of all human accomplishment is probably roughly equal to how we would perceive moving a speck of dust a few inches to the left.

But you know what, who cares? I think life can be a lot more fun if you don't have to take things so seriously.

 

Thats true but there are also no known species as smart as humans. War will never cease imo but I don't think the human race will ever entirely disappear unless its from a natural disaster such as the sun going supernova. /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif
We've got a few billion years before that happens and i'm sure by that time we'll have figured out the secrets for eternal life by using computers and will no longer be living on earth. Might seem a bit far fetched for some but a few billion years is a long time.

 

Yea, but we won't escape the big crunch. Nothing will, for that matter. Unless we figure out a way to escape the confines of the universe that it. Even then, there will probably be some other doomsday countdown going on wherever we escape to. In the end, there will be a time and place where no humans, or anything humans have done will survive.

 

The good news is we'll all be dead waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay sooner than we will ever need to worry about it. /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif
Lets just hope we're alive long enough for sega to get off their asses and release VF5R.

 

A billion years?! Lol - I'm happy you're so optimistic about our chances of survival. /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif

Pandemics, nukes (!), natural catastrophes (some that are accelerated by global warming) seem to indicate that our chances aren't *that* good, but I hope I'm wrong.

Intelligence in our species is obviously a double-edged sword. It may accelerate our demise, which would be tragic considering what we can accomplish.

 

"Intelligence in our species is obviously a double-edged sword"

Couldn't have said it any better

 

As many jerkoffs as there are in the world, there are also plenty of brilliant people doing alot of good for humanity and this planet. It's also a good thing that being a jerkoff isnt rewarded as much as one using their mind for brilliance.

I agree completely. Makes me sad that I waste as much time as I do playing a video game and not putting my mind to better use. I try to make use out of the time I have on this planet and thats the main reason I only play one game and not more. Over the 10 years I didn't play games at all, I managed to accomplish alot and although I feel they were for simply self (selfish) improvement, (learning japanese, learning cgi, capoeira, etc), I can't help but feel I got alot further than I did while I played games alot.

 

I'm really excited that i was the first to troll this comment. Ants have us beat by a long shot. Just think of how much ants out number people on any average block in the US. Then think of rain forests and such. And surely in all the blue ocean, that covers most our planet, there are more fish than us.

But hell. Street fighter players out number vf'ers, so more populous doesnt equal better.

Disclaimer: Your cockroach joke will not be funny. So u should pass on it.