When I’m unhappy, I feel like I’m doing life wrong. I’d rather be happy. But is happiness the point of life, or is there more to it? If I pursue happiness, mine first then for those around me, is that selfish? But if there’s a bigger purpose, then what about people with Alzheimer’s or dementia who can’t recall recent experiences or make plans?
I’m a big fan of positive nihilism. Everything has occurred by random chance and there are no inherent truths or any purpose to anything. Nothing we do actually matters in the grand scheme of the universe. So, since nothing matters, I am free to exhert my free will and give value to what I choose.
I want to live a life where my perspective is, on the whole, a positive, happy one, and I want to create as many opportunities for others to do the same as possible. I do not want to tolerate those that use their freedom to steal the freedom of others or who seek pleasure at the pain and cost of others. I want to utilize my freedom to seek pleasure and joy and bring pleasure and joy to others without causing pain and suffer.
Nothing matters, so choose the life you want. There is no right or wrong way to live.
Wow you have just summed up my outlook on life perfectly, thank you
This seems eminently reasonable. But why do you choose joy over suffering? Clearly you value one over the other and expect others to feel the same. If we all agree, doesn’t that make it right (for us)? And why do we plant trees that we’ll never get to sit under?
I don’t expect others to feel the same. I have chosen to give value to one over the other simply because I would prefer a world where we collaborate towards collective happiness, joy, and pleasure. I suspect many others believe that working towards the prosperity of the collective will hamper their ability to find personal prosperity, and I simply think they are wrong. I think such a case boils down to chasing momentary pleasure over long-lasting pleasure, because that is my experience with such people.
In a way I believe in tangible karma; those who work to bring pleasure to those around them are occasionally taken advantage of, but more often are given pleasure in turn. Likewise, I’ve never met a self-centered asshole who isn’t consistantly overcome with unhappiness, while almost universally blaming that unhappiness on external factors.
I plant trees I will never get to sit under because I appreciate those before me who did the same. Again, that is no more than what I have chosen to give value to.
But this is a bit of a digression. The reality is these are the wisdoms of my experiences, and I wager there’s no universal truths in them. Nothing matters, so I look to these experiences and see that a co-operative, collaborative life looks more pleasurable. So I strive towards one, encourage others to do the same, and refuse to tolerate those that would actively work to steal happiness from others. Yes, I am aware that the inverse is equally true - why is it wrong to steal happiness from others if nothing matters - but this perspective is simply not the one I have chosen to place value on. Arbitrary? Sure. It still represents the best way I’ve found to enjoy life.
I don’t think there’s a purpose, really; to put purpose or duty to a sense of joy is to try to quantify it, to package it - and since everyone is different, and perceives things differently, then that means joy takes just as many different forms and can’t be packaged so neatly.
I think life in every sense is more chaotic than that, and that randomization of cells or events or emotions can’t and shouldn’t be whittled down into some universal experience or explanation. Making something your “purpose” immediately brings with it a certain expectation - it almost makes it sound as if you’re trying to be happy out of duty, which seems…weird.
I don’t think you’re failing at life if you’re unhappy. Everyone has low or weak points, and that inevitably changes in some form of another. That’s one of the universals, a product of events and living situations and hormonal/genetic makeup. Sometimes people can have all their needs cater to and still your brain will fuck you over.
So I’d ask yourself why you’re looking for a purpose in the first place. It makes sense if there’s some goal you want to attain; and if that goal is happiness, it’d be best to think about some actions you could do to obtain it. If you’re not looking for that goal and just asking why people seem to pursue happiness, then the best answer I can give you is: why not? Suffering feels bad and I don’t wanna feel bad.
This sounds a lot like absurdism, especially the “nothing matters so I can do whatever I want”.
There’s one massive quality that makes positive Nihilism different from Absurdism. Absurdism states that trying to create meaning in a chaotic universe puts you at odds with it. Therefore, doing so creates unhappiness. Optimistic Nihilism, as the common thought I was trying to convey but incorrectly labelled is called, believes that without inherent meaning in our chaotic universe, we are free to create whatever meaning we desire.
Both believe the universe is inherently chaotic and meaingless. Only one believes that you can successfully create meaning.
Hmm, I’ve never heard the part where going against the universe creates unhappiness. Maybe I should read a bit more in depth. Thanks for the explanation.
The only objective purpose in life is to spread your genes. You share that same purpose with every other living thing.
Other than that, it’s up to you. My purpose in life is to keep my girlfriend happy and destroy as many jobs as I can. My career in industrial automation is the key to both.
The only objective purpose in life is to spread your genes.
Not even that. It’s not like you’ve failed at life if you don’t have kids. You just haven’t spread your genetic information. Saying that its your purpose to spread them implies it’s the genes purpose to be spread. Genes simply are, they don’t have a purpose just like you don’t; evolution has just given organisms behaviors and mechanisms that make it very likely that they will be regardless of that lack of purpose.
That’s a valid way of looking at it, too.
Realistically, the concept of “purpose” doesn’t exist in the universe outside of our imagination any more than justice, beauty, or morality. Things just are what they are and follow the laws of physics.
If we’re making it all up as we go along, there aren’t any wrong answers. I claim the purpose of living things is to reproduce, but it’s true that living things reproduce because that’s what living things do (otherwise we’d have run out of them by now). Kind of a chicken/egg thing there.
Just my luck, the only objective purpose in life doesn’t work as a gay guy. I’m going to try the destroying jobs thing instead.
You can still pass on your memes!
It’s fun! And it pays well. Get your engineering or comp sci degree and give me a call.
Life IS the purpose. If you’re alive, you’re already fulfilling your purpose whether you are aware of it or not.
We yearn for answers to why we’re here, there’s a reason religion has been such a huge part of there human consciousness for so long, our brains are hard wired to find reasons for everything.
Since there is no known objective answer to this question, I’ll answer it subjectively, recognizing that my life experiences have tainted my views.
Life has no purpose. People who do immense “evil” will not be punished. People who do immense “good” will not be rewarded.
Your existence is a beautiful, flighty phenomenon. You are a heap of octillions of atoms that somehow gained self awareness. Your happiness is merely a chemical exchange in your skull meat, it’s fine to strive for happiness but it’s fleeting.
I personally strive for serenity, accepting reality for what it is and making peace with it. Nothing matters, we’re all going to lose the gift of consciousness through inevitable death, and that’s okay.
I’m meat with electricity in it, and somehow I know this. I’m using my finger meats to send your meat a message it can absorb and which will cause your meat to react in a certain way.
What. The. Fuck.
Sentient meat. Here’s the short story for anyone who hasn’t read it yet
Hello, meat. How’s it going?
Amazing. Thank you
There’s no purpose. Do whatever you will do. There was never another option.
Hey, it could be worse. There’s no failing per se and this is neutral (rather than hostile) towards whatever personal goal you make up.
Okay. Life has no purpose. And free will is an illusion. Are we just living out a simulation?
Maybe, does it matter? As a property of the universe it has neither predictive power nor falsifiability.
If it is, I think it’s fair to say it’s not a human-centric simulation. I suppose it could be life-centric or intelligence-centric (Fermi paradox explanation?), but it could just as easily be an investigation into conformal field theories, and the creators don’t even realise there’s an equivalent gravitational weak field system present yet.
I think it’s also worth asking how you define “simulation”. It’s possible to have a system who’s state can be read two different ways but in which it’s not clear which of the two is more “real”. The holographic theory I touched on there is a great example.
It probably matters to people who are looking for an external source of meaning, and doesn’t matter to people who are creating an internal source of meaning. In that way, it’s maybe a useful clue to what type of meaning is more valid.
In the scenario you gave, how would you judge whether a life was well lived? How would you go about living a good life? What would you do or become to be an effective human being?
You mean in the no-free-will purposeless-universe scenario? I think there’s no right or wrong answer, really. Every human being (and animal, and plant, and rock) are simply what they are. You have to add somewhat arbitrary personal criteria to get a meaningful answer.
Personally, I think being kind and strong is very important. That’s not very original, but I guess the interesting thing I have to say about it is that 99% of the population earnestly tries to do that, and the reason people suck is basically down to a version of Hanlon’s razor. To be an effective human being, don’t lie to yourself.
We all lie to ourselves. But I admire people who try to lie to themselves less, who try to be honest with themselves and face reality.
If only life were that interesting. Sadly, we’re just insignificant specs of stardust living meaningless, pointless lives for a finite amount of years and then disappear from existence.
I personally think the purpose of life is to reproduce. Everything we are is just because it made us better at surviving and multiplying. We are merely animals.
I dont think we need to have kids just because that’s what we exist for. We’re intelligent enough to go against our basic instincts if we wish. In that optic, we all need to find our own purpose!
To say the purpose of life is to reproduce is like saying the purpose of a raindrop is to keep falling down. We should not confuse purpose with cause! Natural selection for self-replication is how we ended up here, but, as you said, we have free will to choose where we go next.
A very philosophical question, so I’m going to ramble a bit:
I think there cannot be an objective purpose to anything, because any purpose can only go so far. E g. if the purpose of life is to be happy, then what is the purpose of being happy? And what is the purpose of that purpose, and so on? It never ends, there will never be a final answer giving everything before it objective purpose, because that is not how purpose works.
Purpose is a human concept, designed to structure our lives and to help us come up with sub-tasks for bigger goals. And it only really works if we fill in the final goal by saying “because I want that, for whatever reason”. For many someone else fills in that goal and we just follow it, maybe feeling a little empty inside.
So I think the real question is, how do you find that final answer, and the only thing I can think of is: Whatever feels right to you. And right doesn’t have to be happy, right means true to yourself imo. If you had a nice day then it might mean happy, but if you had a shitty day then it might mean seeking comfort or some distraction.
The one thing that can make this very difficult is having expectations about what you should be or feel, and those expectations not matching up with your subjective reality. We all have them, from our upbringing, our peers and experiences, and they can often be very subtle and subconscious. But they are only useful if they help you find your true self imo, otherwise they can be very misleading and painful.
I really like what you said here. Being happy is fine and it’s enough a lot of the time. There can be other ways to find meaning in life, and those will always be subjective and personal. Many people will try to tell you how you should love your life, but it will only be meaningful if it aligns with your own sense of self.
Personally, I’m allergic to the word “should”. My reaction is: “don’t impose your subjective reality on me.” But someone I respect and admire said that there would be more to life than happiness and that’s part of where my question came from. I think there can be more to life than happiness, but I’m not falling short if I’m finding happiness for myself and my family and my friends; that can be enough, because I decided it’s enough.
Thank you for your answer.
Purpose is merely a human construct. Please don’t take this post too seriously. 🫠
Human constructs are of monumental importance in many cases. Some of us are dedicated to fighting the construct of authoritarianism, for example, while others are dedicated to being authoritarian. Both provide meaning and purpose and can drive and direct the lives of whole nations to some extent.
Don’t underestimate the power of human constructs. They’re incredibly important to us.
They’re incredibly important to us.
Well obviously. We are humans afterall. 😅
I’ve always felt that life’s purpose should be pursuit of knowledge and self expression in roughly equal proportions. So 50% science, 50% art. That’s just what feels right in my brain, I guess.
I think most brains are just going to have their own idea of what life’s purpose should be and most of them will be more or less fine. A majority will have said purposes stifled by the limitations of society and biology, though
I like this answer. I still wonder if there’s more. Is knowledge better if it serves a purpose, like improving your art? Should art serve a purpose? Is beautiful enough, or should it be useful?
Is knowledge better if it serves a purpose, like improving your art?
In my opinion knowledge that serves a purpose (improved art, medical science, applied engineering, take your pick) is better than “trivial” knowledge, but even trivia has purpose (it can entertain and inspire) and sometimes converts from trivia to “useful” knowledge when combined with new science and tech. A good example is pure math, here’s a stackechange thread about mathematics areas that were found to have applications well after their discovery, by mostly mathematicians doing math for the sake of math.
Should art serve a purpose? Is beautiful enough, or should it be useful?
If you mean its physical form has a function other than to be perceived by humans for entertainment and inspiration, then sure, why not? But maybe not always. :) Also of note, not all art is necessarily beautiful. I would say a fair bit of “useful” or otherwise multipurpose art is quite ugly. Shock films, muckraking journalism, and hostile architecture come to mind as examples.
The purpose of life (imo) is to discover humanity in yourself and what “the best human” means to you. People get their ideas on “the best human” from many inspired examples. The Buddha, Mohammed the Prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, Julius Caesar, or Jimmy Buffet. Some people need no such idols and can form their own understanding of what it means to be human, but all of these scale.
Your humanity plays into the identity of your family, plays into the identity of your city/town, plays into the identity of your region, plays into the identity of your nation, and at the top is the true meaning of life: the culmination of every dream and desire, the moral fabric of our species, and the embodiment of the only such entity in existence to our knowledge. The purpose of life is to find that, reconcile with it, and use the wisdom you gain in doing so to help shape our species into a happy, healthy, and mature civilization, or die trying.
I think it kind of depends on how you define ‘happy’. I do believe that if life has any point, it is to be happy. It’s definitely harder than it sounds, and the path is usually long and differs from person to person.
I have spent a long time doing things I thought would make me happy. Often they did, in the short term, but not in the long term. Sometimes what makes me happy changes!
You can also intentionally change what makes you happy. Try new things, develop new habits. Maybe it’s exercise, maybe it’s feeding hungry people or political organizing. Maybe it’s a hobby group.
It’s your life, do what you want with it.
I’d like my purpose to be to have many experiences and to embrace.
This is quite the existential question! Of course, there’s really no “right” or “wrong” answer, and there are so many different ideas on what the meaning of life is.
My opinion? There isn’t one. The fact we exist at all is a wildly random event, and the fact we are conscious of it even more so. Life is meaningless, so we create our own meaning. For me, the meaning of life is to strive for happiness (not BE happy, we can’t be happy 100% of the time), bring happiness to those around me, and leave the world better than I came into it. I don’t give a shit about legacy, since I won’t be around to enjoy it. The only legacy I care about is that I made life better for the people I love.
Treat others with kindness, be mindful of the world you live in, and do more of what makes you happy.
I don’t disagree, but I’d like to explore a little further. If you were the last person on earth, I’d everyone else died of old age and you are the last, would you still want to leave the earth better than you found it? Would you take comfort in or be indifferent to the happiness you brought to the people you love? Are your ideas about good and better based on the experiences of other people, or do they exist objectively?
I’d everyone else died of old age and you are the last, would you still want to leave the earth better than you found it?Yes. Humans are not the only thing existing on this planet, and I find it rather arrogant to treat it this way. If I’m alone staring down the heat death of our universe? Well it doesn’t quite matter anymore.
Would you take comfort in or be indifferent to the happiness you broughtAbsolutely. This is probably more nurture vs nature though. I’m very much an atheist but was raised in a strong Christian household. I’ve shunned the religious aspect, but “Love your neighbor as yourself” is pretty much ingrained in my DNA at this point. I find happiness in bringing it to others.
As for ideas of good and better, of course they are my own opinions and based on experiences of others. There is no objective “good” and “better”, because there is no objectively true meaning to life. For me personally, doing what makes me happy would include eating good food, drinking good whiskey and listening to punk rock. Those are not objectively good, but they are good to me. I will share them with likeminded people, and I will find other ways to better my neighbors’ lives.
The meaning of life is a blank page. Good luck filling it out!
The purpose of life is what you make it.
Society in my area says the purpose of life is to get a job, get married, and have some kids. All of these are optional but each one increases your perceived value to the government and to individual people. Some people work their entire lives conforming to societies expectations for them and still live what they would describe as unfulfilling lives.
Instead, or in addition to, I would suggest you focus on creating your own purpose. I would describe a purpose as a overarching objective for your life. I’ll list some purposes that you could adopt.
- Provide companionship for those who you deem deserving.
- Care for others by providing a stable living environment.
- Guide people to make informed choices.
- Help others to use their resources wisely.
- Inspire peers to think about their purpose in life.
- Join and help an organized group that has an overarching purpose you want to contribute towards.
- Entertain other people and yourself.
- Make something you can share with others.
- Organize others to help achieve a shared purpose.
- Form your own opinions on how life should be lived and apply them.
These are a small sampling of purposes people adopt and you need not limit yourself to one. However be mindful that your attention is limited and each purpose can take a considerable amount of time. With that in mind try to pick goals and activities that help you achieve your purpose(s).
In pursuing your purpose, you will find moments of happiness. Embrace them. You will also find moments of frustration and anger. Understand why you feel this way and learn to embrace them as well. Understand when your emotions are clouding your judgement and learn to resist it when necessary.
Happy travels.
