There is no meaning to life

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There is no meaning to life whatsoever.

There is no right or wrong.

There is no good or bad.

There is no predefined purpose.

All that exists is you and the universe surrounding you.

The only meaning that life has for you is what you give it.

But life itself has no meaning.

Thanks for stating the obvious.

Obvious, yes...but frequently denied.

Right/wrong good/bad existing or not is a different issue to life having no purpose, however.

Yes, concepts of right/wrong and good/bad are human creations, certainly in regard to morality. Humans regard it to be immoral / wrong to kill other human beings, yet we kill and eat all manner of other animals. If a technologically superior alien race came to Earth and started killing and eating humans would we regard that as immoral? Such aliens would simply be treating humans as we treat other animals. So in that context, what meaning does morality and concepts of right and wrong have?

Life can be meaningful if an investment is made towards it. Doesn't that render your first sentence false? If your rebuttal is that I'm speaking of an individual perception of life's meaning, then that must hold true for you also.

You may choose your own purpose, or have it chosen for you.

Assuming that objects are defined by their purpose, how do we define ourselves?

Or do we let others define ourselves for us?

Yes, there is no meaning to life, no right or wrong, and we have no automatic right to anything at all. We humans decided what was right or wrong.

Empirical science - especially evolutionary science - does not define moral concepts except in terms of survivability. If two animals are in a fight to the death (a common precursor to mating), then only the survivor will live to mate and propagate the species. This makes the survivor "good" and the other one "bad".

Is this moral in the human context?

Many people seem to justify homosexuality as "good" (e.g. "not bad") simply because some species have been observed engaging in same-sex copulation (dolphins and some apes) in their natural habitat. If we extrapolate this reasoning to the survivability conundrum stated above, then - absurd as it may seem - Pol Pot was "good" in his genocidal "cleansing" right up until the moment he died; then he became "bad" and the rest of us became "good".

... yeah ... it seems weird to me, too ...

I'm not saying that they have a meaning independent of what humans attribute to them (and I am very interested in how humans attribute these qualities - or ethics, as we call it.) I'm only saying that it's a separate debate to life having no intrinsic meaning.

I fully agree with your definitions of good and bad above; certainly from an evolutionary perspective. Something is subjectively 'good' that is beneficial to an organism and something 'bad' is something not beneficial to the survival or propagation of that organism. Of course this means there is not absolute 'good' or 'bad' because one organisms 'good' may well be another organisms 'bad' - one of my chickens finds a tasty worm - good for the chicken, bad for the worm.

It is interesting how humans have extended this concept of good and bad into morality and good and evil. As such it often differs widely to the evolutionary concepts of good and bad. You have just got to look at religious doctrines which advocate "good" behaviour which may be harmful to the individual or prohibit bad / evil behaviour which may be actually of benefit to the individual. Sexuality is often an issue for which the religious concepts of good and bad behaviour are very much mangled.

Regarding meaning to life; from an evolutionary perspective there is no meaning. Life is simply a chemical feedback loop with DNA propagating itself in an endless cycle, generation to generation; the more efficiently it manages to do this perpetuates those organisms with that DNA.

However, most humans want some "meaning" from their lives. In this sense the concept of "meaning" is a human invention and as such it is down to the individuals to find their own meaning and purpose in life. This usually coincides with the hard-coded programming of our DNA; in other words "find a mate, reproduce and raise offspring". From that fundamental hard-wired-code everything else follows... need food and shelter, hence need money and need to work etc. Most people are too busy with the daily cycle that they probably don't question the "purpose" of their life. Raising their children gives them "meaning". For others, they want to know more and understand their existence and they either turn to science or religion for answers... and that is a whole other story.

Sure there is its to work have babies then die!

Looking at the bigger picture, my own chosen purpose in life is to learn as many useful skills as possible, in the hope that some of them may carry over into the next lifetime. Or who knows, they may be useful in case our infrastructure fails as it has in so many other countries around the world. Keeps me busy anyway.

Topic creator: prove it.

In that event, would an incident of rape be good for the rapist and bad for the victim and all those who sympathise? Or would we agree there is no context in which the action could receive positive evaluation?



Can science as such provide a meaning to one's life beyond the aforementioned reproduction, nutrition et al? Or do you imply a narrow kind of 'science' not taught as a mainstream discipline?

It is good for one's psychological health to have life goals and a sense of purpose. Unfortunately I've reached a point in my own life where it has little meaning, other than surviving from day to day. I wish I had the drive and enthusiasm of my youth, but it has pretty much evaporated into a sense of world-weary pessimism.

It would seem then that the purpose to life is to live long enough to propagate the species.

Empirically speaking: "Reproduction is Life; Life is Reproduction."

From a dispassionate evolutionary perspective, if the rapist manages to father children by such acts of violence then he has been successful compared to say a moral male who never fathers any children. The DNA of the rapist have been passed on, so he has been successful!



I think biological / biochemical science can only provide the evolutionary perspective regarding meaning...i.e. the perpetuation of DNA. The soft science of psychology would likely say that humans have an intrinsic need to feel a sense of purpose in their life too, over an above simply being machines of procreation. Whether that sense of purpose is real or imaginary is less important than having the sense of purpose. I truly think that concepts of heaven and gods are false; but will acknowledge that those people who believe in such things may benefit from a psychological angle. Someone who feels their life is hopeless and who is suffering may have enough strength to persist through belief in an afterlife for example.. AuntBlabby said as much in another thread.