Welcome to Gaia! ::

the ultimate goal in life? to live.

I demand proof.

But you don't go around torturing, maiming, killing people for no reason, do you? You believe that the death penalty is the just reward for someone doing immoral things. So I'm afraid that I cannot accept your particular argument about people having different morals, because if you believed it then I don't think that you would support the death penalty.


What is your definition of better? Physically fit?
What about those people who fall in love with someone who is crippled? And those who are strong are not always good life partners, since they may not be kind or intelligent.

Is intelligence better to produce better offspring?
How about the fact that intelligence has so many stipulations to it, like a high chance of bad eyesight, depression and physical weakness? If mating were simply an animalistic survival instinct, then we would not be attracted to intelligence; it does not seem to be the best survival trait.

Trumpster:

But what does memory mean to you once you are dead? If you believe that you can look back at the earth once you die, then perhaps immortality through remembrance would be a good thing. But if you go on to something else, or just simply stop existing, what does it matter?

Also, under your philosophy, it does not matter what you do to achieve recognition. Forgive if I bring up a touchy point, as I see that you are a follower of National Socialism, but according to your theory, Hitler was a laudable example of a man living up to the purpose of life. After all, he is remembered. I understand that everyone has their own ways of achieving immortality, but that seems to me to be the antithesis of life.

I concede the point about Hitler, but I'm not convinced about being remembered; it seems to me almost that in a way, memories keep a person in existence. That would be why the purpose of life is to be remembered; those memories stave off the void. I don't know if that is true, but that seems to be the only reason that being remembered would truly matter to a person after death.

"Even if people don't remember him that way he can be proud of what he did..."

Then perhaps it is simply knowing that you have done something great that is important, not that others remember that you did something great.



Again, I understand completely what you are saying, but I don't see the connection to being remembered. The good a person has done does not disappear simply because the world forgets about that person. I would love to be remembered throughout the ages as a hero, or an inventor, or something, and I understand the thirst for immortality. But doing good and being remembered aren't necessarily synonomous or of equal importance. Being remembered is a wonderful thing, but I'm not sure that it is the primary focus of life.

eek Consensual reality again! You can't become something else until no one believes in you as you were any more. Or something like that.

*is straying dangerously toward off topic* sweatdrop

Ultimate goal of life? Well, I can think of several possibilities:

Maybe life has already accomplished it's purpose, and we were just unaware of this happening. Maybe life is now just a pointless tool whose purpose has already been fulfilled, like a hammer that is done with it's nailing and has been cast aside, but not destroyed?

Or maybe life has no purpose in itself, but it rather an end in itself, as opposed to a means. Maybe it's already a finished product? If so, the point of life is surely to sustain itself and continue to fulfill it's own purpose? Like a house that has already been built, all it has to do is keep fulfilling it's purpose constantly. This is my personal opinion on the matter...

It's entirely possible that there is an ultimate goal to life. Something that life strives towards. If this is the reality, it isn't something any one human is likely to discover, but rather, something that life as a whole will accomplish eventually. I mean, your cells aren't aware of your struggle for your own goals, are they?

People's individual lives have individual purposes(which are decided by people themselves), but life itself as a whole is probably something that will continue to fulfill it's own purpose as long as it exists.

I personally think that the need to make an impact on the world so that you are remembered is by proxy a fear of death. Since there is no possible way to avoid death, and the person longs to live forever. Thus the person attempts for the next best thing, to never die in the minds of his or her peers.