Purpose or significance

Where does your pebble walk to? It walks, its journey is to nowhere.

Each journey begins, and also ends.

Then the ending is the bottom of the pool.

Does not the pebble, entering the water, begin fresh journeys?

It seems unceasing.

Such is the journey through life. It begins. It ends. Yet, fresh journeys go forth. Father begets son. Who becomes in turn father, who begets son.

Then the roots I have are me. And I am they.

Seek first to know your own journeys beginning and end. Seek then the other journeys of which you are a close part. But in this seeking, know patience. Wear that travelers cloak, which shelters and permits you to endure.

 

I struggle a lot with making the most of myself and making the most of being. They aren't the same thing necessarily. Maximizing my output in whatever my endeavor vs. maximizing my enjoyment of this unique and wonderful opportunity to just be.

How much mass is in the universe? How much energy? How much of that energy and mass is collected into a these discrete consciousnesses of being? I suppose there is an argument for everything collectively being aware and that is something like god. Seems farfetched and unfathomable to me but then again it is supposed to. I don't know.

What I do know, is I am alive now and I don't think I'm getting this opportunity again. This dumbluck lottery win whereby despite all the stars and rocks and dark matter out there & unaware, I can (sorta) articulate myself, wonder at the universe, run and jump and play and along the way maybe cash a few more lottery tickets for others to continue the win streak.

I like fuckin'.

 

Purpose and significance are both very human concepts. Ergo, we make our own purpose. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is unless the universe itself has a consciousness (which I believe it does, but not like any religion). In that case, our significance is either much greater than we think, or much less.

If only the universe had an account on VFDC, it could answer this question fully.

 

Post of the forever. Make the most of this life and cherish this extraordinary gift, because I don't think we'll get another shot. Hate, negativity, and pessimism takes too much out of me, personally; let's just all love one another (like in SoCal).

 

Then it would tell us the answer to everything.

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About 5 billion years to go before the sun runs out of hydrogen. Humanity may survive it, provided we aren't on earth when it happens.

 

or this solar system

 

According to latest opinions and calculations, sun wont go supernova or even normal nova(not enough mass for it), but will in its death throes either balloon to a red giant that will engulf the earth, or at least pump out 10 times the radiation making earth a bad place to be.

Overall, moving to Jupiter's or Saturn's moons might be feasible in that case.

 

Existence is the purpose. Existence is the significance. The Earth and the life it sustains is a function or derivative of the
Universe. The Universe exists. The Universe is all there is and all there will be. Life is an attribute or characteristic of the
Universe. That is, one of the properties of the Universe is that it expresses itself in many ways. One of the ways the Universe expresses itself in, is through the process that we call life.

I use the term process here because the Universe and all that is within it can be understood as a process. This process has
direction. In science we call this direction time's arrow. This process has effect. Because it has effect however small or however large, it has significance.

Existence has form, structure, and direction. We call this form, structure and direction the laws of physics.

Currently string theory is our closest foray into answering the question what is the purpose of the Universe(s). String theory
seeks to marry quantum mechanis and newtonian physics.

The Universe is experimenting, trying to understand itself, trying to see what the possibilities are. Life is one of those experiments. Life is one of the possible manifestations of the
Universe itself.

IMHO, I think there is purpose, and that purpose is to explore and to appreciate the possibilites, and the possibilities are endless, and therefore the significance is nothing short of infinite exploration and adventure.

So in answer to your question. The Earth and Life it sustains does have purpose and significance. And that purpose and signficance is best understood as an attribute of the Universe, and the process of understanding, appreciating, enjoying, exploring, and discovering the Universe is all there is, and is all there need be.

Science its tools, techniques, its language (Mathematics), and
its form (Logic) is the best place to begin the most extraordinary adventure that you could ever be part of: Namely, the exploration of the Universe of which we (life) is simply one of its attributes.

An examination of man or life on Earth in general is an examination of part of the characteristics of the Universe, because all that is in the Universe (and we are in the Universe)
is a direct by product of the Universe. So to the extent that
we are alive, the Universe has living parts, so It is alive as well. As we discover purpose and significance the Universe discovers purpose and significance through us. We are made of star stuff, we really are.

 

Life is a dream dreamt by unknown beings..

 

Exactly! I should also mention that...


I LOVE ALL MY VF HOMIES!!

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Warning, Spoiler: <input type="button" class="form-button" value="Show" onclick="if (this.parentNode.parentNode.getElementsByTagName('div').getElementsByTagName('div')[0].style.display != '') { this.parentNode.parentNode.getElementsByTagName('div').getElementsByTagName('div')[0].style.display = '';this.innerText = ''; this.value = 'Hide'; } else { this.parentNode.parentNode.getElementsByTagName('div').getElementsByTagName('div')[0].style.display = 'none'; this.innerText = ''; this.value = 'Show'; }" /></div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div style="display: none;">NO HOMO!</div></div></div>

 

but LA, i'd go HOMO FOR YOU! /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif

 

I like fuckin' too, but sometimes beating your shit can be better! /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif

by the way... great post!

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448134/

 

That move had sooooooooooooooooooooo much promise till about 3/4 of the way through. Then it just took a turn I really didnt care for at all.

 

That book/movie Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy said the only purpose or meaning is love. So I'll roll with that.

<3 you all ^^;

 

I think it does have a purpose, but it's way over our heads.

 

Everything in life has a reason for existence regardless of how small and insignificant the reason may be. Nature show this every day and if something isn't needed it goes away eventually thanks to evolution or natural causes. A good example of this is when a person breaks their arm for a while it is highly recommended that they exercise it some or it will get smaller and weaker. Nothing in nature is wasted either even the waste all creatures create feeds the next generation of life, it is as perfect a system as we can ever see and it happens every day. This same basic principal applies to the cosmos as well. It only reinforces the basic fact of just how miraculous nature is even in the worst of times.

 

Science is still an evolving art and it might just explain everything some day just not right now. It may be our best way to explain things right now but as far as I am concerned it is our best way to explain gods many wonders that exist all around us everyday. I am religious but I still feel science has great potential if we just open it up some and allow for the unexplainable more often but in due time it will get to this point as it evolves with the human race.

If there is a "God" or something that explains its power we can't do it now, we just don't have enough knowledge to make a good guess yet. Its faint presence is all we can hope to detect right now and even that can't be explained through any human logic. If we find the answer to this riddle only time will tell we have the potential to do it if we open ourselves up to the possibility of it.

 

This.