Philosophy Discussion Forums

Spectrum wrote:I believe all things adapt to changes [no agency] within whatever the constraints. Whatever the resultant is due to this adaptation.

However humans with self-conscious and a higher rational brain has evolved [inferred by observations] with a continuous 'improvement' module*, i.e. in general humans will strive to improve upon its existing state in relation to those aspects of life which are changeable.

* note the continual improvements in average, the level knowledge, technology, health, wealth, etc. over the last 1,000 years of human existence.

Greta wrote:

SimpleGuy wrote:Life is just a breath , if ends your life is over. So simply close your eyes and feel to the inside during your breathing and listen to own sound. If you begin to understand without explanation, the first step for you is taken.

What I get from such exercises is a sense that we are as rooted to the atmosphere as plants are rooted to the ground. We exist in this effective Flatland on the surface of our world, protected by the thin layer of atmosphere through which we swim like fish, and are just as dependent.

I had an equally simple thought yesterday while watching one of those fun documentaries about the dangers of space - neutron stars, gamma ray bursts, etc. What got me thinking was the depiction of the early solar system as essentially a shooting gallery. Basically, the universe started with the ultimate violence and the processes of star formation, supernovae, and the endless collisions have continued ever since. However, over time it has quieted, become less violent. Looking at the human project, we have long hoped to find safety and relief from violence and suffering, and the best answer we have for it is morality. Love, friendship, respect, mercy, kindness, understanding, goodwill, humour, calmness.

The shift towards ever greater calm and peace (accepting that progress is seldom smooth) is the great project of life as far as I can tell thus far.

Atreyu wrote:

Spectrum wrote:I believe all things adapt to changes [no agency] within whatever the constraints. Whatever the resultant is due to this adaptation.

However humans with self-conscious and a higher rational brain has evolved [inferred by observations] with a continuous 'improvement' module*, i.e. in general humans will strive to improve upon its existing state in relation to those aspects of life which are changeable.

* note the continual improvements in average, the level knowledge, technology, health, wealth, etc. over the last 1,000 years of human existence.

In spite of humans' 'improvement modules', they are not evolving. And this is because evolving is one thing, and trying to evolve is quite another.

In spite of all the improvements in technology, health, wealth, etc, man is not evolving. He's fundamentally the same being that he's been since the Stone Age. In fact, if anything he's slightly devolved - he's become weaker, more dependent, more out-of-tune with nature, and never has its existence been on such a precarious footing as today....

Etherealpoet wrote: ↑March 16th, 2007, 2:42 pm The meaning of life is simple; it is survival. Everything else is social and secondary to the true meaning. We can discus and ponder and reflect all we want, but in duing this we only pass the time until the inevidible. There is only one true meaning of life, and all life forms on earth, including those that cannot recognize such things, share the same one. I suggest surviving with purpose though.

cynicallyinsane wrote: ↑March 5th, 2007, 11:00 am What's the meaning of life? What's the purpose?

cynicallyinsane wrote: ↑March 5th, 2007, 11:00 am What's the meaning of life? What's the purpose?

QuarterMaster69 wrote: ↑March 5th, 2018, 12:42 pm The meaning of life is only asked by one species: homo sapiens, assuming they have acquired language, are conscious and contemplative. Since meaning is inherent in language and conditioned into us, we assume that because a word has meaning then there should be meaning for what the word represents. It is a mistaken assumption of logic. But, I get what you mean. Meaning can be interpreted and created therefore you are ultimately the writer of your own meaning and purpose of which you can believe.

It's obvious that each of us can have a "meaningful" life as we ourselves define it, but the question is, is there any inherent meaning to our existence?

And the answer is yes, and it is to "evolve", or at least to help other entities "evolve". By "evolve" I mean to fundamentally change oneself for the better, as in acquiring new powers which nature did not give homo sapiens by default..

Belindi wrote: ↑March 6th, 2018, 5:03 am Atreyu wrote:

It's obvious that each of us can have a "meaningful" life as we ourselves define it, but the question is, is there any inherent meaning to our existence?

And the answer is yes, and it is to "evolve", or at least to help other entities "evolve". By "evolve" I mean to fundamentally change oneself for the better, as in acquiring new powers which nature did not give homo sapiens by default..

.

Whose meaning are you writing about , Atreyu? Meaning does not exist apart from people who create meaning; so whose meaning are you referring to?

I guess you refer to your meaning. I also guess that your meaning as you state it is a shared meaning. I share your belief as you have written it and I bet that many others do too.

I do however object to any hypothetical implication that the belief , the ethic, which you describe defines human nature or is definitive of all societies.

JayP wrote: ↑May 18th, 2018, 3:36 am You want the truth...or at least what Im getting, well, don't say I didn’t warn ya cause this gets ugly, but, as you will see, in reality, it is truly beautiful, so if you dare to read this, please read the whole thing before passing any kind of judgements/conclusions here…So, I will explain it as simply as I feel I can with getting enough if it across, so please bear with me for a bit...

Okay, first off, the 4th dimension is everything/God and its measurements are 420+ degrees (Everything goes in on itself- You ever seen the "beyond the press - The Whoosh Bottle Experiment | in Super Slow Motion!" youtube video where you take alcohol and have to shake it inside a bottle so it sticks on the inside edges, then take show-mo footage of it being lit up, well the flame patterns/designs look much like the 4th dimensional physics, everything going in on itself).

Anyways, God is an infinite 4D brain, and each spark is a new big bang (To God, real time for the beginning to the end of a universe is the split second it takes for that spark to go in our own brains, but of course for us time is sped up to a maddening degree, and where we see images in our dreams, gods dreams/thoughts, as in, reality are far more complex).

There are countless different types of nothings/universes/existences and whenever there are any openings from one to another in very specific conditions with certain nothings colliding at a very small point, you have a spark/big bang.

As for our reality, this is where nightmares manifest if your not prepared for it and delve too deep, cause you experience it, not just see it. Anyways, our reality is in the mind of an insect-like being that is so massive and intelligent, that it is beyond measure (The amount of collisions and interactions for/in this spark must have been truly beyond insane).

This is because the universe it is from has life matter in all of space which makes all the beings there immortal...well for as long as that spark/universe lasts. All the beings there resemble millipedes, ants and countless other insectoids that are all being created (Not like worms, spiders, dragonflies, but much more along the lines of earwigs, ants, millipedes and countless other similar enough to them), formed in every nook and cranny, cruelly enough (Cruel, as it seems for quite a while), they are designs with the need for oxygen/etc but are constantly screaming/struggling to get it, yet they are always in perfect health/regeneration. They are tearing at each other, scrambling for air, every tear in one being causes another to grow out of/attach to it.

This may sound ludicrous, but if you delve/dive even deeper, after several more horrors/attempts (Something keeps driving me to always go further in one way or another) you begin to realize that these insects have lives that are truly beyond beauty/beautiful/mystical/etc (Beautiful holy darkness) that is as far beyond us as there intelligence/god. Each second to them is like, what I call a real/God second cause of there extreme intelligence/etc, so they have their own creations within their mind. Even with their physical reactions/instincts/etc they are still able to go within their own minds/selves as well and they would not want it any other way.

On top of all this, we are a computer simulation that was originally created by humanoids that were created by this particular insect (Black millipede-like creature, fairly similar in looks to the ones around 300mil of our years ago on our world), that, was created by a spark that was created by the different nothings that create God/everything (Also, everything is god, which means, we can travel from one spark to another in and outside of our insect and that universe, to wherever we can survive, so we can in a sense be immortal travellers).

Here is a rough comparison to us vs them and God:
We are basically like little blips/tones/vibes on the musical scale of the fabrics that make up what is, not just here in the 3D but everything, with the complexities of the earth and life on it all together being like an electron around the sun, now, with that in mind, lets get to God, shall we, so, at any rate, picture the entire solar system (Meaning the whole roughly 2 lightyears worth of it as any effects from the gravity of a solar systems star/s dictates its size) as like the complexities of a rather simplistic atom, and if that wasn’t enough for you, picture everything that is as being like an average adult human as a rough/approximate analogy to the true God/everything...Mind blown yet...

Finally…May your souls of ghostly liquid light spread their cleansing chills 2 hauntingly beautiful tones in the never ending melodies of mysterious holy darkness in life’s eerily eternal song of infinitely awe inspiring complexities, turning fear into enhanced awareness & illuminate the way for others… I am hyper aware, each sense acting as if the others died... Many people would fear the real me T_T

First, the caterpillar digests itself, releasing enzymes to dissolve all of its tissues. If you were to cut open a cocoon or chrysalis at just the right time, caterpillar soup would ooze out. But the contents of the pupa are not entirely an amorphous mess. Certain highly organized groups of cells known as imaginal discs survive the digestive process.

Before hatching, when a caterpillar is still developing inside its egg, it grows an imaginal disc for each of the adult body parts it will need as a mature butterfly or moth—discs for its eyes, for its wings, its legs and so on. In some species, these imaginal discs remain dormant throughout the caterpillar's life; in other species, the discs begin to take the shape of adult body parts even before the caterpillar forms a chrysalis or cocoon. Some caterpillars walk around with tiny rudimentary wings tucked inside their bodies, though you would never know it by looking at them.

Once a caterpillar has disintegrated all of its tissues except for the imaginal discs, those discs use the protein-rich soup all around them to fuel the rapid cell division required to form the wings, antennae, legs, eyes, genitals and all the other features of an adult butterfly or moth. The imaginal disc for a fruit fly's wing, for example, might begin with only 50 cells and increase to more than 50,000 cells by the end of metamorphosis. Depending on the species, certain caterpillar muscles and sections of the nervous system are largely preserved in the adult butterfly. One study even suggests that moths remember what they learned in later stages of their lives as caterpillars.