What if you were to find out with absolute certainty that there is no life after death and that everything we...
...do is ultimately futile and utterly insignificant? How would that knowledge affect you?
26-30, M
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5thApprentice
I disagree. Numerous people's actions throughout history have impacted society on a large scale - for the better and for the worse - that isn't insignificant at all. It'd be easy to curl up in a corner and cry that life is meaningless but if it is the case then why not make a meaning or a purpose where their is none?
OrWhatever · 26-30, M
I despise existentialism, that's why!... :) But, in all seriousness, it's undeniable that people's actions throughout history have impacted society, but if human life eventually becomes extinct and there is no life after death, then there won't be anyone around to care or appreciate or denounce what people in the past have done, and everything we will have done will have ultimately been done in vain.
5thApprentice
Well, what happens if humanity doesn't go extinct? Would we not want our future descendents to inherit a gift rather than a curse? If everyone felt life was ultimately meaningless, what kind of world would we leave behind for our children, and their children, etc? Even if it does go extinct at least we did the best with what we had at the time.
OrWhatever · 26-30, M
Well (saying "well" is a thing for me at the moment, apparently), I think humanity's extinction is inevitable: even without, say, some major catastrophe causing us to go extinct, due to evolution, humanity will change over time into something quite different than what it is today and it will go extinct in that manner (by the way, I probably have no idea what the hell I'm talking about)... To be clear, I don't believe life is meaningless but I also don't believe life isn't meaningless; it seems impossible to determine with certainty whether life is meaningless or not, so what makes the most sense to me is to simultaneously have hope (that's not to say that I actually have this hope, though) that maybe life isn't meaningless while also not holding a belief that it's meaningful; so what, to me, seems to be the most practical thing to do would be to try to figure out how society can thrive the most, in the case that life is, in fact, meaningful. I'm not sure how much of that made sense, but...
5thApprentice
That made sense to me man. Its a good stance to have on the whole subject and is rather sensible.