The Purpose of Life

I like your conclusion, I'm at work and don't have time to think through all you said before.

Did you see the Matrix movies? According to "smith", the purpose of life is to END.

In Christian thought, that is true, the outward man perishes, he was born to die. But there is another Man, ever waxing in strength, "I must decrease he must increase"...

Not very useful when you are trying to pigeonhole people as "goats" or "sheep" though...

But elderly people...something in them is nearly used up, their physical strength...but it's hard to make them cry, at least that's my experience. My mother lives at a retirement home. Whereas the young are so strong physically but also very controlled by their feelings...

Very poetic and interesting, but... Are you proposing that life is an entity? Can you give human attributes to a process?
I am confused by this part:

What does this mean?
Im not bagging on your idea, you may be on to something, I just dont understand what you mean. Increasing total individual power is a very dangerous idea when at such a large scale. Whether it is a society or community of organisms, "life" always seems communal. My increasing my own power further alienates other organisms/people from myself. Think of it in terms of money, the more I have the more I seperate from others. A developing world could only survive by balance. Growing isnt power, growing is a natural condition. Man only survived to this day by enginuity and creativity, which will possibly be our ultimate destruction. If we destroy ourselves, life will continue, just not with us... probably with bacteria.
What is power?

Wow, great ideas, nearly knocked my new religion discovered by reading the Da Vinci Code.
I may actually watch the 3 matrix films now.

Personnaly I dont think there is a meaning to life.
We are just here.The sooner that is accepted the easier it will be to get on with life.

Also, if evolution is real, how can it ultimately lead to the brink of its own extinction.

Great timing, heimdall.

If you read the Da Vinci Code, you hae to read "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" after.

Whats it about specifically?Is it for or against TDVC?

Its not for or against, it was the book that inspired TDVC. The people who wrote it actually did all the research that forms the plot for TDVC. The whole idea started with the french word SANGRAAL. If you split it San Graal it means "holy grail", but split Sang Rall it means "Holy Blood", or the bloodline of Christ. This then builds a backbone into the history of the different theories finding a direct line into Rosicrucianism, the Knights Templar, and even the Masons. But take it at face value, not as the complete truth. It has its moments.

suffering for the glory of God.....because He loves you...

What did you mean by "new religion"?

I'm with Material Girl. I don't believe in a "higher calling" or anything like that. We are where we are, and our lives mean whatever we put into it.
That being said, I think we might have made power our objective, much to my dismay. I think the true test of a civilization is to see if they will give up power to help another, not take it from them while they're down.

Nice topic, Heimdall

I guess I don't exactly think of increasing power as a kind of controlling force but rather as simply gaining "substance"...which is a controlling force of necessity.

It dawned on me a while back, in the physical realm there are two forces, one is "gravitational", any thing with any mass at all exerts a measure of "power", over everything within its sphere of influence...which is dependent on how much substance it has...so the planets, the stars, the black holes...and the substantial human beings also, all work something alike...

But even the most lightweight sort of person has a powerful effect on someone, "mom" if no one else...and circumstances might suddenly cause them to be powerful on many others, like that little girl caught in the well a few years back.

I think substance is always attracting more substance, consuming anything lighter than itself.

The other force, I'm not sure where it comes from, why doesn't everything just collapse back into a giant black hole...answer...there is some kind of energy with a mind of its own that speeds the little "bits" along a path in opposition to all that exerts force on them...

We don't fly out into space but we don't collapse into the center either, at least not yet. I believe the idea is the galaxies are all still moving further from each other...

I want you to know that this is so complex its too simple.

We are cells within cells as the universe is micro and macro . We comprise of a body, atomic structures behave like universes, the images we see in our brain is 2% of of what can be seen.

WE are like cells in a body, religion is the program the cells have, cancer and viruses are the cells that want to do what they want and not obey its simple task given by the creator.

Like i said very complex, but so simple.

pass that this way would ya?

Life has much the same claim as humans to the status of conscious entity. Each is a collection of living cells, viruses, etc., that interact with one another and appear to act purposefully. But the average rate of energy and information flow through the human, and especially through the human brain, is far higher than through Life. A complete discussion of this topic depends, in my opinion, on a bizarre sounding, but novel, simple, and simplifying solution to the mind-body problem, that I hope to post here in the not too distant future.

What I mean by power is a very general ability to control and to modify one's self and one's environment. To become more precise is not so easy. Power to do what? I'm not sure, but I've had two ideas. First, you must survive to have power, so power to survive is critically important. Second is the power to do what you might like to do. This is an understandable idea at the human level, but I'm not sure how to translate it to the level of Life. What might Life like to do?

Regarding personal power, I do not believe that the individual should strive to maximize his personal power unless he is in a Robinson Crusoe type situation. This is exactly the situation in which Life finds itself. There is no "other" entity that Life has to be concerned with. Men rarely have that luxury, but there is no reason they should deny themselves power in pursuit of an equality of power that is opposed to the purpose of Life.

The ideal of equality derives, I think, from wasteful behavior of the powerful, behavior that is contrary to the purpose of Life. It suggests that power should be transferred from the powerful to the lower classes. Rich wastrels are hated, but the rich that are productive and live modestly are generally respected rather than hated. More power should flow to those who will best use it to increase Life's power, without regard to how great inequality becomes. There is a law of diminishing returns. In an ideal society, everybody will "top out" at some point in terms of the relative power they should have. You cannot maximize the power of Life by putting it all in the hands of one man. Power must be distributed to be maximized. How great the power disparity should be will depend on many factors, including variations in natural ability and current technology.

Life's continuation would be jeopardized if humanity destroys itself. It could be millions of years before the next intelligent organism evolves. Only such intelligent organisms can preserve Life in the long run. Only they can spread Life throughout the solar system and later the galaxy. Expanding Life's domain is vitally important in reducing the probability that Life will be destroyed by a cataclysmic events or a series of them.

Here's a faith take on it:

Life is a journey of discovery, it has a final purpose, its to possibly give God interesting companions who will eventually become Gods themselves to give him even better company across the maybe infinite regions of M-spacetime!

But for me friends, family, BBQ's, sex, health, achievement are all great things - so long as you don't do all at once!

All answers to such a question are speculations. It will eventually lead up to "will one want to live forever?" or "should one live forever?"

By new religion I mean I have grown up in a not particularly religeous family.I dont go to church but I was told the story of Jesus and we celelbrate Christmas and give/recieve eggs at Easter etc but I dont live my life by a religion.

Having the basic idea in the story of Jesus I get the impresion that he was very isolated almost untouchable.A great man with great gifts, people surrounding him and worshipping him but nobody could get close.
When I read a certain part of TDVC( I wont reveal which bit)it all made much more sense to me like Id found the bit that was missing and seemed to be more realistic.

I think there is a higher power that we as humans have 'invented'.Its like an all powerful force that keeps us grounded and in our place.
I think alot of religion is about power and control.It seems to stop us from feeling as tho we are 'allowed' to do certain things eg sex is a sin or makes us feel guilty about things eg Jesus died on the cross for our sins.

We don't even know if there is a purpose to life...so any speculation about what the purpose of life is...is twice removed from reality.

There are things we do not know...and may not be able to know.

Just be accepting of that.

To wildly guess...and then announce to the world "This is what I believe...."...

...is not investingating and questioning the unknown.

It is simply wild guessing....and nothing more.