What is life? What is our goal?

[kidaskingquestion]

To me,

First is survival. 

Secondly do something good for your inner soul and for others

Third is to contribute in human race running.

And finaly die.

What others think about it?

[Intoscience]

When you strip it back there seems to be only one purpose/function - to procreate - (survival of the species).

Everything else is an appeal to emotion.  

Edited November 14, 2022 by Intoscience

[cladking]

I'm in general agreement but would say it differently.

 

Life is consciousness and the first demand of consciousness is survival and the second reproduction.  

Second is to have fun to both feed your soul but also to maintain your desire to survive.

Third, and most importantly, is to try to leave the world a better place than you found it.  In every way you want to leave it better.  

Fourth, fight death with every living breath.  You can age gracefully as you seek the fountain of youth.  If you find it just hope you're still young enough to enjoy it.  

[kidaskingquestion]

Totally agree with you and you described beautifully. 

[CharonY]

Why would there a need for a goal for existence in the first place? 

[iNow]

[Phi for All]

On 11/14/2022 at 1:13 AM, kidaskingquestion said:

To me,

First is survival. 

Putting this first makes the rest fairly meaningless. If survival is Job #1, it could come at the cost of your second and third choices. If it comes down to a choice between you getting food or the rest of us getting food, you'll feed your belly before your "inner soul", and doing something good for others takes a back seat to your survival. As for contributing to human race running, you'll have to clarify what you're talking about. Does your survival contribute to the human race running?

[kidaskingquestion]

@CharonYHow you can motivate yourself if you don't have any goal, will not your life become boring?

@Phi for AllIf you survive in a island it will not make you happy. First you need to survive then you must want to live happy. If you have a partner you can live happier. And contributing in human race i.e producing child you can happily die thinking that my dna is surviving in the world. Again its only my point of view. Anyone can disagree with me. Every people has different point of view and they see life differently. 

Edited November 16, 2022 by kidaskingquestion
Typing mistake

[Intoscience]

If we work backwards to the beginnings of life, simple cells, and the fundamentals, the only functions/purposes (if you want to call it this) life had was to survive & self replicate (sustainability & division). Why this happened in the first place is still a mystery. Nothing really has changed, other than as life became more complex it started to implement its own self purpose. 

Edited November 16, 2022 by Intoscience

[kidaskingquestion]

I think this is in our dna. When we were child what we only want milk when we feel hungry, we wanted to people play with us. This all are basic need, emotion that are written on dna. Later we learn what our family teach us.

And cell wise sperm fast goal was to reach egg and penetrate the outer shell. Then chromosome from father and mother creat new life, they have instruction wrriten in dna what to do next. Divide yourself many time and creat all the organ and born as human child.

[Intoscience]

Your thread is titled "what is life, what is our goal"

There are many ways to interpret and answer/respond to these.

What is life - well fundamentally that's still up for debate, there are plenty of ideas, arguments to define what life is.

What is our goal - Our goal as a species? our personal goal? life's goal?... Again, many arguments and ideas around all these still up for debate.

Fundamentally life's "goal" function - sustainability and replication, why who knows? It was either designed that way (programmed) or it just happened randomly. There may not even be a goal or a why it could just be perceived that way due to the very essence of humans desire for purpose.    

Edited November 16, 2022 by Intoscience

[kidaskingquestion]

Agree with you. I just wanted to know how different people see life differently. What are their point of view. I want to gather knowledge from different people.

[joigus]

Our goal is to have goals. Our purpose, to have purpose.

May I also point out that there is such a thing as too much reproduction...

🤷‍♂️

[Intoscience]

58 minutes ago, kidaskingquestion said:

Agree with you. I just wanted to know how different people see life differently. What are their point of view. I want to gather knowledge from different people.

Ok, so really you are looking for personal views. That's fine, some, most on a science forum like this are likely to respond with objective mainstream views based upon scientific study and understanding. Some will also approach the subject from a philosophical view. 

But the fundamentals around the questions are still undefined with any verification, we can only propose what we theorise based on experiment and observation.  

[dimreepr]

2 hours ago, kidaskingquestion said:

I think this is in our dna. When we were child what we only want milk when we feel hungry, we wanted to people play with us. This all are basic need, emotion that are written on dna. Later we learn what our family teach us.

And cell wise sperm fast goal was to reach egg and penetrate the outer shell. Then chromosome from father and mother creat new life, they have instruction wrriten in dna what to do next. Divide yourself many time and creat all the organ and born as human child.

Our DNA is unique, but within the confines of being a human, which makes us all both the same and different; our DNA teaches us, as a baby, to suck on the teat proffered, what it contains is irrelevant, experience teaches us what will sustain us, ie. water over milk.

My point being, it's not our DNA that makes us unique it's our life experience that makes us different; that basically answer's both the topic questions.

For instance, my goal in life is to, litterally, aquire enough for tomorrow today (which includes a long walk and/or an hour or two working) and spend the rest of the day loafing... 😉 

Edited November 16, 2022 by dimreepr

[Saber]

My  personal  belief :

We  were spiritual entities  in a another  realm that  has  no time.......................therefor  we  couldnt  change  our selves....because  changing  anything  needs  time.............

And  they have  provided us with the availability to  come into this  physical  realm  and  has  time  .........so  we  could  change.........

 

But  they  had  warned us.......that  that   change  could also  be negative   beware.....................

 

And  after  we have  finished  our  missions here in this  physical realm  the  details &  exact memories  are wiped out   like  when  you  reset  a pc  the  ram......is wiped ......

 

but the   things  you  have  learnt  here as lessons................as  general is recorded in the ROM and  you  have them  as defaults  as basics  in the next  realms    worlds............

The lessons  are repeated untill learned and  each  time you  dont  learn  its  repeated  in a  more  forceful  way     after  learnt....... then you can move on to the  next  level lesson......

many people  run out of time  before finishing  their mission  and   rarely very rarely there  are some who finish  the mission  before running out of time.....

[𝓔𝓵𝓮𝓷𝓲𝓮𝓵]

To find your higher purpose, and to walk your destined path.

[Phi for All]

5 hours ago, 𝓔𝓵𝓮𝓷𝓲𝓮𝓵 said:

To find your higher purpose, and to walk your destined path.

"Destined" as in "pre-ordained"? Or is whatever path you choose your "destined path"? Is "higher purpose" a religious thing, or is it tied to your destined path? 

Or is it more like Helping People is a higher purpose, and a destined path is deciding to Get a Job in Healthcare?

[MigL]

Life is a struggle against entropy.
At its most basic, life strives for 'order' versus the 'disorder' of non-life.
IOW, the purpose of life is to not die.

[Genady]

I guess somebody needs to say this:

Life does not have a purpose.

[𝓔𝓵𝓮𝓷𝓲𝓮𝓵]

On 1/23/2023 at 8:38 PM, Phi for All said:

"Destined" as in "pre-ordained"? Or is whatever path you choose your "destined path"? Is "higher purpose" a religious thing, or is it tied to your destined path? 

Or is it more like Helping People is a higher purpose, and a destined path is deciding to Get a Job in Healthcare?

It can be both, really. Different people believe in different things; there is supposed to be much freedom in terms of how people wish to maintain their worldviews and opinions.

[EmDriver]

Create life that is better then ourselves

Survival

To create Connections

Find balance between pleasure and happiness

[Genady]

6 minutes ago, EmDriver said:

Create life that is better then ourselves

How do we know what is better? Better for whom or for what?

[EmDriver]

18 minutes ago, Genady said:

How do we know what is better? Better for whom or for what?

We can only know what we observe, and how do we know what we observe is true? What we perceive may only be true to the observer. What is better becomes known when  a Connection is made with another observer.

[StringJunky]

20 minutes ago, EmDriver said:

We can only know what we observe, and how do we know what we observe is true? What we perceive may only be true to the observer. What is better becomes known when  a Connection is made with another observer.

Also known as 'intersubjective consensus'.