Can anyone give a reason why humans exist? Do we have a purpose, a destiny? And if so what is it?

Intuition suggests the Universe would be a pretty dreary, pointless exercise without the humanoid. We are like braincells in Her mind

Well put XD

…since Intuition strongly insists without the humanoid the Universe is a dreary pointless exercise of random motion and objects meaninglessly bouncing off one another

I believe that human beings were created benevolently by God, primarily for purpose living, enjoying and experiencing life,

I’d question Her benevolence as that’s a sort of vague relative term

and secondarilyfor the purpose of worshipping God and giving him praise.

Nonsense. She could care less Fan whether you go to church

I believe that mankind's destiny is to ultimately be reunited with the divine order;

The words go together well in a sentence, the grammar is ok but the meaning eludes

and that until that time arrives, we will continue to progress (hopefully in a positive direction) as a race.

Nonsense. But if there is A God and if She cares at all, let me herewith thank Her for allowing me to live most of my existence between nuclear wards

I believe that an evidence of this lies in the concepts of good and evil.

Nonsense, these are purely relative concepts. Consider the porker for instance, whom we hang up by the back legs then cut his throat so he bleeds to death before eating him, while feeling entirely virtuous. If he were in charge he would consider intelligence a curse and though he might not torture us he would certainly think it ok to keeps us in a muddy pen and feed us garbage

No matter what a human being's circumstances are in life, they must make the choice of whether they are going to be good or evil

See above. The Islamist for instance feels he is doing God’s will when he beats or kills a family member as punishment for having been raped

It would seem that the earth was made for us to inhabit?

Yes here I agree; the Entire Megillah seems pretty dreary and senseless without the humanoid. The mechanics of it however are pretty obscure

The universal laws where in place before we inhabited the earth.

If you mean the physical constants, yes. If you mean the potentiality for evolution, yes. If however you mean some arbitrary set of “rules" to please Her then again, nonsense

Chance and probability where in place before we inhabited the earth, did we created feelings and emotions or where they created for us to feel?

They are an inevitable result of evolution, necessary for survival

I know that you will probably regard this as "nonsense,"

Yes Fan but nonetheless thanks for clarification

and if we can't discover the location, it must be God.

Thus Jk the appeal of apodictical existential pantheism

Human existence does not exist in order for us to backtrack and answer the question as to why we exist. Sorry this sounds just plain ludicrous.

Not to us

…...or at least for us to speculate and ruminate upon

Whatever it is, I hope I haven't got it!

It is relatively rare

I thought there were deeper and more essential questions in philosophy much more worthy of speculation ...like why are we here and not somewhere else!

Forgive me but if I’m not cogitating under the influence of a kind of grammatical misinterpretation you didn’t specifically identify the question. But you seem to be saying the question of why we exist is less worthy of speculation than why we are here and not somewhere else. Yet the former seems far more interesting and worthy of discussion while the latter is so open to interpretation as to be almost meaningless

If you mean the prop,

Human existence does not exist in order for us to backtrack and answer the question as to why we exist.

is the one you consider unworthy I might reword in order to elicit the interest of other participants: The intuitive notion that there’s something more to the Universe than the simple meaningless random bouncing of particles off one another seemingly even more dreary and pointless without the humanoid, suggests that evolution might have been permitted for some purpose or another, especially considering how many of the physical constants seem to have been set up within a fraction of one percent specifically to permit evolution; one of which might be to speculate upon that very purpose; although the mechanism behind it admittedly is still obscure


If you consider such speculation as worthless, okay, but everyone here might not concur though it’s a pleasure chatting with you

Well Yes & No! Don't you think this is the ultimate existential question??

If you mean

...like why are we here and not somewhere else!

then no, I don’t even know what it means

We are an ever evolving virus which will eventually destroy the Earth

You are quite right Lucy. A quick Googling reveals that people who think about that sort of thing maintain that we’re already overpopulated some 5 to 20 times over

Yet without us the Universe seems like a pretty dismal, meaningless exercise

Dalehileman wrote: Yet without us the Universe seems like a pretty dismal, meaningless exercise

This is an incredibly strange statement!

Yes I must indeed be a pretty strange person

If we wouldn't exist the question wouldn't either and nothing would have changed

If you mean the question whether we have some special significance as at the moment of the Big Bang, its potentiality might nevertheless have been there from Day One or even forever

You presuppose that it is WE who are giving it or granting it some kind of meaning.

Certainly not in the conventional sense, where we seem insignificant

You also presuppose there is no one else out there with our level of consciousness that could make it a meaningful exercise

To the contrary, a very conservative estimate—that is only one inhabitable planet per galaxy—places our number at three sextillion

as if THAT were even required.

THAT I presume you mean a kind of significance but if not please feel free to clarify

And not least you imply the Universe was created essentially for us

In a certain existential way

that without us it's a meaningless exercise.

That’s the intuitive feeling

The Cosmos can annul us out of existence anytime and there wouldn't even so much as a localized Whimper in the aftermath.

Quite so but the potential for our reinstatement persists

We're as dispensable as a flea on a dog.

Yes. I take this opportunity therefore herewith to thank her for having let me live most of my life between nuclear wars

Our own planet couldn't care less if we exist or not.

I suppose that depends upon what you include as “our planet."

We need it, not the other way around.

Not sure what you mean. If “We need Her more than She needs us,” perhaps so but only if you define “need" in terms of our immediate feelings in an apodictical sense


….apologizing for the funny word

http://onelook.com/?w=apodictical&ls=a

But Geheime Staatspolizei. Would not allow it

Hj is he some sort of Admin moderator

What I meant was the whole rotundity of said entity.

It that includes us, Jk, the yes I suppose it does care

Why does man exist?

Uni It’s like the rest of the Megillah. Eventually it will be shown that All exists because the idea of nothingness entails paradoxes and contradictions so in a pantheistic sense the Universe is the way it is because that’s the way She has to be, Things can’t be any other way

Can anyone give a reason why humans exist?

If for no other reason it satisfied the above intuitive notion

Do we have a purpose, a destiny? And if so what is it??

To just be, I guess, do things, think about and appreciate what we are as Pimp infers above

Hjarloprillar, Is there such a thing as a soul?

Everything you are XD except possibly your body

If no, people say there is; if yes, where's the proof?

Not required of this def

What does there have to be to make something exist, to be such a thing?

We could start I suppose with the body

If there is a collective consciousness, then why couldn't there be collective imagination?

Sure why not

- you are saying the internet is an organized entity - a thing with a cognitive self.

Yes Uni, Kin is absolutely right. As it becomes more an more organized the Digital World will further coalesce, submitting humans to an even more obvious state of bondage. We see it happening every day, folks walking around everywhere carrying one of those book-like affairs; people like myself addicted to the Internet Forum to the detriment of other duties. But we won’t realize what’s happening because its technique is to enslave us in exactly this manner

These most recent comments re the Internet while interesting, are "off topic".

Alas true Sch. Maybe Uni, Kin and I should go start a new thread

very real possibility that AI {artificial intelligence} will advance beyond human control

Uni it already has

then the internet becomes the medium of infection - but the infection has to be introduced into it.

The Internet is a part of the reality that faces us and bringing us under its control, one of its major means of interconnection or “thought”. True it will consolidate further, almost all of us happily unaware, blissfully and enthusiastically cooperative

But if some unknown and highly advanced AI intelligence decides that the reason for human existence is to serve its needs

More general than your perception the Digital World is already far into the project and we are serving its needs admirably

If there was a purpose to human existence wouldn't everyone know what the purpose is,

Not at all Windy (forgive pun)

….especially since it might lie almost entirely within the abstract