The Meaning of Life

What if the only thing man was here to do was to live, then die. It isn't hard to believe. Would it be more meaningful if someone were to say aliens placed us here as fodder, or a god placed us here for his amusement? Either way would you change the way you lived tomorrow. Live, love, laugh, and learn. Great thinking post.

as a philosopher al was an ok mathematician

MANY - if not all - religions regard anyone who does not believe the same way as "meaningless" Jehovah Witness and the Catholic Church come to mind in the modern world.

Albert's comments, coming from within a life of celebrity and acclamation, can hardly be taken as "wisdom". It may simply be that the human propensity for "forward planning" requires some goal to exercise itself on, which is no more significant than the exercise wheel of a hamster. Indeed the artificial physical fitness "goals" popular in sedentary society may more indicative of a general point than we might have suspected.

too silly to discus.

I actually did discover the meaning of life, but I forgot to write it down.

Why are we here? What's life all about?
Is God really real, or is there some doubt?
Well, tonight, we're going to sort it all out,
For, tonight, it's 'The Meaning of Life'.

What's the point of all this hoax?
Is it the chicken and the egg time? Are we just yolks?
Or, perhaps, we're just one of God's little jokes.
Well, ça c'est 'The Meaning of Life'.

Is life just a game where we make up the rules
While we're searching for something to say,
Or are we just simply spiralling coils
Of self-replicating DNA

What is life? What is our fate?
Is there a Heaven and Hell? Do we reincarnate?
Is mankind evolving, or is it too late?
Well, tonight, here's 'The Meaning of Life'.

For millions, this 'life' is a sad vale of tears,
Sitting 'round with really nothing to say
While the scientists say we're just simply spiralling coils
Of self-replicating DNA

So, just why-- why are we here,
And just what-- what-- what-- what do we fear?
Well, ce soir, for a change, it will all be made clear,
For this is 'The Meaning of Life'.

C'est le sens de la vie.
This is 'The Meaning of Life'.

or if you prefer



Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

I knew I could rely on you, dj. Excellent.

dys, if you're not going to participate in the discussion, please sit quitely in your seat and don't disturb the rest of the class. Remember, though, there will be a quiz later.

The rest of you, some good observations. Let me throw one more Einstein quote at you. Here he cites Artur Schopenhauer. See what you make of it.

"Schopenhauer's saying, that 'a man can do as he will, but not will as he will,' has been an inspiration to me since my youth up, and a continual consolation and unfailing well-spring of patience in the face of the hardships of life, my own and others."

Difficult to keep in the brain's files -- I think I must have mis-filed it, probably under "U" for useless. If we actually knew the meaning of life, it would probably be so incomprehensible and stressful, we'd have a heart attack. So people adopt religion to fake it.

Thanks, wiz. I knew we could count on you.

So what is the meaning of life for a turtle, or a dog, or a fly?

Aside from being more highly evoloved, why are humans any different?

Yes.

Who said they are? Read Einstein's first sentence again: "What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether?"

It seems to me that he is not looking for a standard, anthropo-centered, God-based definition. In his second sentence he mentions "religion." He says nothing of a god or gods, however. His language is that of a metaphysician, not a religious zealot or theologian.

Heck, I'm not about to argue with Albert!
Just stating my own view. (Agreeing with maporsche)

I'll leave discussion of this:



.. to those of you who go in for this highfalutin stuff!


Please carry on now ...

Organic life is here as earth fertilizer.

Very true. But isn't there a bit more than that to it? What about the food chain? All organisms feed on one another.

Organic life (including man) I propose, is part of the great recycling process that assists in maintaining the equilibrium of the planet (and ultimatly the universe).

Sounds like Gurdjieff's cosmology...organic life is "an energy transducer" ?