Do You Still Ask Why We're Here?

[_Meadowchik]

This is currently how I answer the question:

One way to look at life is that a chicken exists to convey eggs. Basically, that's what life is, a conveyance of more life. Life self-organizes because it is. And we as human beings are an incredibly complex example of conveying those forty germ stem cells. The "reason" we are here is not exemplary of a higher cosmological order, however.

And we do not have to assign the reason to ourselves as our personal meaning for living, we get to create our own meaning, if we wish to.

Beyond that, whatever the future holds will be connected to what is happening now, including the choices we make now. The reason for future life, then, will be affected by life now.

Yet future lives won't be obligated to adopt our meanings, or use the reasons they exist as their meaning in life. But we can try to gift the future with mindfulness, or at the very least try to minimize thoughtlessness.

Do you answer the question? If so, how? If not, are you confortable with the absence of an answer? I have an answer, but it is more of an observation that can be changed given better information. I don't need all the answers anymore.

[_Fence Sitter]

Science attempts to answer how we are here while religion and science fiction try to provide reasons as to why we are here. I think the former is doing a pretty good job, while the latter do not. I include Sci Fi in with the why because I believe there is as good or better chance that explanations as to why we are here might be answered by alien visitation(s) rather than divine intervention, but in either case I think those chances are infinitesimally small.

I believe that questions as to why we are here are only asked by those who believe or want to believe in more than naturalistic explanations. I think questions about why are interesting speculative discussions, none of which seem to have a basis in what we actually observe in the universe.

I am much more comfortable with believing that there is no answer to the "why" than I am in the answers offered so far by mankind. If there is some intelligent force out there responsible for it all, we have many more reason to be much more afraid of such a capricious being than we do to worship it. Additionally, if there is no such being or force, than what responsibility is to be had in this life for my actions is mine and mine alone. I have no one to blame or credit for what choices I make.

I don't know about others but I found it quite liberating when I no longer tried to figure out what a non-existent God wanted be to do, I no longer tried to justify to myself why I was following the ever changing and inconsequential directions of a group of old men claiming to know what God wanted others to do. A group of men whose lives and cultural and moral views strongly resemble Archie Bunker.

[_I have a question]

We’re not here for a long time, we’re here for a good time!

My ‘why’ is family and friends, what else do you actually need to know about ‘life’?

[_Res Ipsa]

Personally, the question itself has no meaning for me. I find “how should I live” to be a more meaningful question.

[_Meadowchik]

I don't know about others but I found it quite liberating when I no longer tried to figure out what a non-existent God wanted be to do, I no longer tried to justify to myself why I was following the ever changing and inconsequential directions of a group of old men claiming to know what God wanted others to do. A group of men whose lives and cultural and moral views strongly resemble Archie Bunker.

As did I. I am probably an overthinker so breaking away from loyalty to those authorities was a huge change for me. So much unnecessary defenses. It feels so much better now, and I feel more hopeful about life and possibilities. I even feel smarter, like part of my cognition has been unleashed and is working for me more because it's no longer working to defend precepts of men I never met.

[_Meadowchik]

We’re not here for a long time, we’re here for a good time!

My ‘why’ is family and friends, what else do you actually need to know about ‘life’?

I do think that an independent belief system is important, that a well-founded morality can make family relationships and friendships happen, and also make them richer and better, and can promote overall better life experiences. But in my opinion a good morality doesn't have to be very complicated and it doesn't have to depend on a deity and it certainly doesn't have to depend on an arbitrarily-chosen group of men in SLC.

[_Meadowchik]

Personally, the question itself has no meaning for me. I find “how should I live” to be a more meaningful question.

Yes, I lean toward this...I think that by living we may figure out the answers if there are any.

[_DrW]

With the detection of more than 3,500 exoplanets (many with orbital analysis and some spectrographic analysis of the atmosphere), it is becoming clearer every day that the Earth is indeed a unique planet.

A recent re-evaluation of the Drake Equation that takes into account the exoplanet data and what we know about the radiation environment in large volumes of the Milky Way Galaxy, has placed the chances of us being alone as intelligent beings in the galaxy as high as 85%. That's staggering when one considers that this galaxy is likely host to some 100 billion planets.

We should probably quit the petty fighting here on Earth and learn to really appreciate whatever it is we have.
___________________

(A great start would be to get rid of a President who acts like a spoiled 4 year old and the cowardly cohort who lets him get away with it.)

[_huckelberry]

Dr W. I can remember as a youngster I enjoyed reading the Martian Chronicles. I could hope to float down a canal on mars and eat a martian fish. I was fascinated by the hope. It was a real emotional blow to learn in the subsequent years as details become clear that our sister planets are very uninviting places to live.

I think your comment about how we can best see our situation is right on target.

[_Fence Sitter]

Dr W. I can remember as a youngster I enjoyed reading the Martian Chronicles. I could hope to float down a canal on mars and eat a martian fish. I was fascinated by the hope. It was a real emotional blow to learn in the subsequent years as details become clear that our sister planets are very uninviting places to live.

I think your comment about how we can best see our situation is right on target.

Well if Dr. W is right and we are the only one in our galaxy, and assuming even a 1% chance that at least a single inhabited world exists in each of the rest of the galaxies, then that would make us one out of another billion inhabited worlds in the universe.