CMV: Once civilization is fully developed, life will be unfulfilling and boring. Humanity is also doomed to go extinct. These two reasons make life not worth living.
Hello everyone,
I hope you're well. I've been wrestling with two "philosophical" questions that
I find quite unsettling, to the point where I feel like life may not be worth
living because of what they imply. Hopefully someone here will offer me a new
perspective on them that will give me a more positive outlook on life.
(1) Why live this life and do anything at all if humanity is doomed to go extinct?
I think that, if we do not take religious beliefs into account, humanity is
doomed to go extinct, and therefore, everything we do is ultimately for nothing,
as the end result will always be the same: an empty and silent universe devoid of human
life and consciousness.
I think that humanity is doomed to go extinct, because it needs a source of
energy (e.g. the Sun) to survive. However, the Sun will eventually die and life
on Earth will become impossible. Even if we colonize other habitable planets,
the stars they are orbiting will eventually die too, so on and so forth until
every star in the universe has died and every planet has become inhabitable.
Even if we manage to live on an artificial planet, or in some sort of human-made
spaceship, we will still need a source of energy to live off of, and one day there
will be none left.
Therefore, the end result will always be the same: a universe devoid of human
life and consciousness with the remnants of human civilization (and Elon Musk's Tesla)
silently floating in space as a testament to our bygone existence. It then does not
matter if we develop economically, scientifically, and technologically; if we end
world hunger and cure cancer; if we bring poverty and human suffering to an end, etc.;
we might as well put an end to our collective existence today. If we try to live a happy
life nonetheless, we'll still know deep down that nothing we do really matters.
Why do anything at all, if all we do is ultimately for nothing?
(2) Why live this life if the development of civilization will eventually lead
to a life devoid of fulfilment and happiness?
I also think that if, in a remote future, humanity has managed to develop
civilization to its fullest extent, having founded every company imaginable;
having proved every theorem, run every experiment and conducted every scientific
study possible; having invented every technology conceivable; having automated
all meaningful work there is: how then will we manage to find fulfilment in life
through work?
At such time, all work, and especially all fulfilling work, will have already
been done or automated by someone else, so there will be no work left to do.
If we fall back to leisure, I believe that we will eventually run out of
leisurely activities to do. We will have read every book, watched every
movie, played every game, eaten at every restaurant, laid on every beach,
swum in every sea: we will eventually get bored of every hobby there is and
of all the fun to be had. (Even if we cannot literally read every book or watch
every movie there is, we will still eventually find their stories and plots to be
similar and repetitive.)
At such time, all leisure will become unappealing and boring.
Therefore, when we reach that era, we will become unable to find fulfillment and
happiness in life neither through work nor through leisure. We will then not
have much to do, but to wait for our death.
In that case, why live and work to develop civilization and solve all of the
world's problems if doing so will eventually lead us to a state of unfulfillment,
boredom and misery? How will we manage to remain happy even then?
I know that these scenarios are hypothetical and will only be relevant in a
very far future, but I find them disturbing and they genuinely bother me, in the
sense that their implications seem to rationally make life not worth living.
I'd appreciate any thoughts and arguments that could help me put these ideas into
perspective and put them behind me, especially if they can settle these questions for
good and definitively prove these reasonings to be flawed or wrong, rather than offer
coping mechanisms to live happily in spite of them being true.
Thank you for engaging with these thoughts.
Edit.
After having read through about a hundred answers (here and elsewhere), here are some key takeaways:
Why live this life and do anything at all if humanity is doomed to go extinct?
- My argument about the extinction of humanity seems logical, but we could very well eventually find out that it is totally wrong. We may not be doomed to go extinct, which means that what we do wouldn't be for nothing, as humanity would keep benefitting from it perpetually.
- We are at an extremely early stage of the advancement of science, when looking at it on a cosmic timescale. Over such a long time, we may well come to an understanding of the Universe that allows us to see past the limits I've outlined in my original post.
- (Even if it's all for nothing, if we enjoy ourselves and we do not care that it's pointless, then it will not matter to us that it's all for nothing, as the fun we're having makes life worthwhile in and of itself. Also, if what we do impacts us positively right now, even if it's all for nothing ultimately, it will still matter to us as it won't be for nothing for as long as humanity still benefits from it.)
Why live this life if the development of civilization will eventually lead to a life devoid of fulfilment and happiness?
- This is not possible, because we'd either have the meaningful work of improving our situation (making ourselves fulfilled and happy), or we would be fulfilled and happy, even if there was no work left.
- I have underestimated for how long one can remain fulfilled with hobbies alone, given that one has enough hobbies. One could spend the rest of their lives doing a handful of hobbies (e.g., travelling, painting, reading non-fiction, reading fiction, playing games) and they would not have enough time to exhaust all of these hobbies.
- We would not get bored of a given food, book, movie, game, etc., because we could cycle through a large number of them, and by the time we reach the end of the cycle (if we ever do), then we will have forgotten the taste of the first foods and the stories of the first books and movies. Even if we didn't forget the taste of the first foods, we would not have eaten them frequently at all, so we would not have gotten bored of them. Also, there can be a lot of variation within a game like Chess or Go. We might get bored of Chess itself, but then we could simply cycle through several games (or more generally hobbies), and come back to the first game with renewed eagerness to play after some time has passed.
- One day we may have the technology to change our nature and alter our minds to not feel bored, make us forget things on demand, increase our happiness, and remove negative feelings.
Recommended readings (from the commenters)
- Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World by Nick Bostrom
- The Fun Theory Sequence by Eliezer Yudkowski
- The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch
- Into the Cool by Eric D. Schneider and Dorion Sagan
- Permutation City by Greg Egan
- Diaspora by Greg Egan
- Accelerando by Charles Stross
- The Last Question By Isaac Asimov
- The Culture series by Iain M. Banks
- Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
- The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
- Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom by Martin Hägglund
- Uncaused cause arguments
- The Meaningness website (recommended starting point) by David Chapman
- Optimistic Nihilism (video) by Kurzgesagt
The second scenario will never happen.
Might as well say "since I'll be dead in 50 years, why live?".
I don't think life has a meaning. The meaning is yours to make it.
I don't necessarily mind passing away one day if what I'm doing is something useful, as it would still be useful after I die (to other people). My fear was that what we do may be ultimately useless and pointless (not in the immediate future, but on a cosmic timescale), and that would make me feel like life was not worth living. I speak in the past tense, because I've been given some counterarguments that changed my perspective on this.
If your line of reasoning only lets you be satisfied if you personally become relevant and useful on a cosmic scale, the word for that is "godhood"; your philosophy is demanding your apotheosis. I think that philosophy is a little suspect. I spent a couple of hours at work last week teaching someone to program - a waste of time, since he eventually is going to die? It was an enjoyable interaction for me either way. Moreover, you never know what he will do with the small knowledge I was able to impart. He might program something that gets used by many humans over the years; he might teach someone else that ends up making a huge difference. Our interactions can ripple out from us, having downstream effects years or centuries down the line that are probably not for us ever to know about, but that can be pretty extravagant, considering how cosmically small a human is.
That's not at all what I've said. I meant that what we do would be pointless, because on a cosmic timescale, if humanity goes extinct, then the end result would be the same, no matter what we do in this life.
I agree with the rest of your comment.
But it wouldn't be the same. The fact that you ask these questions means that you care, and that's all there is to life: You care. About people, about the beauty of nature, about what the future might bring, about the lessons of the past.
If you don't see a difference between a life of joy and fulfilment and a life of pain and fear, it doesn't matter if it lasts only a few decades, trillions of years or for eternity. And if you do see a difference, the difference is relevant even on the smallest time scales.
Imagine time is crammed into a flat dimension you can watch from above, like you can watch different parts of a painting. You can look at different points in time like you can on a painting. You notice that some parts of that painting are better than others. Doesn't it matter if the overall painting is good or bad?
I am not sure I see why that would be the case... If in the end, humanity is just gone, it wouldn't really matter if people were happy or miserable, ultimately.
I suppose it would be better if the painting was good, but my gripe was that it wouldn't really matter if there was nobody left to look at the painting.
Are you familiar with the Buddhist Koan about whether a tree falling in the woods makes a sound? This seems to be the essence of what you are struggling with.
"This movie will eventually end, so why watch it?"
"Eventually I'll be finished with this meal, so why eat it?"
Things don't have to last forever to be worthwhile. In fact, it's the things that are ephemeral, finite, that won't always be here, that are the most valuable. We're here, now. Maybe not tomorrow.
I don't mind joyful moments in life being ephemeral, as long as what we do in life be not useless and pointless. I was struggling with the idea that everything we do might be for nothing, rendering all of it pointless.
Even if folks lived forever and we didn't have an end to humanity/universe, 99% of folk's lives would still be "useless and pointless" in the terms you're providing. I'd take the scope of your focus from "humanity" to "my community". There is tons of impact you can have locally and almost none of us will have an impact on "humanity" rit large.
I think that while the majority of people's lives wouldn't directly make an impact on such a scale, it would still play a role in the sense that they are part of a global economy that powers the development of civilization. Even if they do not directly impact the future of humanity in a significant way, they help those who do do that, as they would need a functioning economy to get things done. These people can range from the entrepreneur building rockets to send people to other planets to the scientist whose vital work is funded by the taxpayers.
My more essential goal was to point out the absurdity of deciding everything that's not infinite is useless and pointless. It's just completely disconnected with the entirety of human experience. Would you not scratch an itch because it didn't forever relieve you of itchiness? Would you refuse to share a kiss because it didn't last forever? Is doing those things really pointless?
I think maybe part of the anxiety here comes from imagining that one could stand at the beginning of time and look forward to see that humanity has built a metaphorical tower, each human life adding a brick to that tower that gets ever higher on into the infinite future. But a more accurate metaphor might be not one tower, but a dense forest of structures of all kinds. Over time they rise and fall, in every combination. Looking into the future from your point a the beginning of time, it's not one point that gets higher, but waves of chaos and color and noise. And eventually, maybe nothing. But all the noise in the middle is where all the exciting stuff is. The indelible footprint of humanity.
I don't think that this is absurd. We can come to terms with the fact that everything we do in life is pointless and still enjoy life, but that wouldn't make life any less pointless.
I think that something can be immediately not pointless to a person who values that thing, but still be ultimately pointless. For me, as a person who deeply values life being not pointless, the latter overshadows the former.
Hmm. Well, I guess first I should acknowledge that we can't really know that either 1 or 2 is true. As pointed out elsewhere, our knowledge is completely insufficient to assume either thing will definitely happen. But for the sake of argument, let's take as given that humanity/the universe is not infinite, and that the ultimate fate of everything is nothingness or the like.
If this is true, does it follow that everything is "pointless"? I suppose, if the actions we take in life are simply vectors of causality that over time inevitably lead to nothing, then in that sense you could say they had no impact on the ultimate outcome. They were "ultimately pointless". But then, if that is our destiny, what should we do about it? By this logic, our experience is a string, constrained at two endpoints. Does it really not matter what happens in the interim? How long it takes to get there? What paths we took? From my perspective, in this case these are the only things that matter. I would want the ultimate doom of humanity to be as far away as possible. Even if that's a fight we're doomed to lose, I would want people's lives, my life, to be as long and as joyful as possible. Because that's all there is. And that makes it infinitely precious, and worth caring about.
That's an interesting take, thanks for sharing.
Highly recommend kurzgesagt's video on Optimistic Nihilism -- nothing has inherent meaning, and everything will end. This means you're free to create your own meaning, and don't need to feel pressured to create something permanent. You can still enjoy moments even if they don't last forever :)
Thank you for the recommendation, I'll check it out.
We can enjoy moments even if they don't last forever, but why would we do anything if the end result is a silent and empty Universe devoid of human life and consciousness? Why would we solve climate change and cure cancer, or do anything else at all for that matter, if the end result is gonna be the same anyway?
These are more rhetorical questions than anything else, as I've been given some counterarguments that changed my view on this:
Suffering is still suffering, even if it, like all things, is temporary.
Both dying of cancer and watching someone you love die of cancer is terrible. Even though you know they'll eventually die and no longer have to suffer, and eventually you'll die and no longer grieve doesn't mean that suffering and grief weren't real.
If we can prevent suffering, even though that suffering is temporary, it's worth doing, just like it we can make people happy, even if that happiness is temporary, we should.
Even though we know that all things come to an end eventually, wouldn't you rather have humanity live a long, happy existence versus a short, miserable one?
In a sense, yes, if we're going to be here anyway, we might as well try and live well. My point was that, if ultimately nothing matters, as the end result would be the same, it would ultimately not really matter if we did or did not live well.
I don't disagree with you, nothing really matters after all is said and done, but that doesn't mean that things don't matter while they're happening. It also doesn't follow that because nothing will matter 100 trillion years from now, we should all kill ourselves.
Our lives can ultimately be meaningless in the grand scheme of things and still be worth living.
You might find insights from reading some of Sartre and Camus? I feel like they have dealt with these questions in their philosophical thinking. Camus starts off the Myth of Sisyphus by stating:
From what I can remember thet conclude that life is worth living, but you must also find your own meaning and joy in the everyday life. Camus says that while Sisyphus is doomed to roll a rock up a hill, he thinks Sisyphus is happy when the rock rolls down and he's got to start over. That's the moment he doesn't only see a rock, he gets to see the world from the top of the world and enjoy a stroll down. He's finding the happiness he can in an otherwise pointless existence.
In general I interpret it as you believe a meaning will be served to you. It won't, you have to find it.
I don't believe Camus's position was to find your own meaning (he was an absurdist, not an existentialist), but rather to come to terms with the fact that there is no meaning and never will be. It is to enjoy life in spite of a lack of meaning, or even to enjoy it because there is no meaning. You are free from metaphysical expectations and directives. Do not search for the thing that will give you meaning; find contentment and joy in your circumstances.
That's not to say you should just roll over and be content to wither away on the side of the road. Take agency over your own life where you can. Just enjoy the journey rather than waiting and expecting that joy will come when you reach the destination. Enjoy the struggle. And when things get shitty, when circumstances overwhelm you, enjoy it out of spite. Enjoy it as an act of rebellion.
Yeah this might be the more accurate take. It was a good few years since I read their stuff.
I feel like deciding to enjoy life in spite, or because of a lack of meaning, or out of spite for it being rough, shows that we humans deeply want it to be meaningful, and not pointless. It seems like this strong wish, because life seems not to have meaning, turns into intense frustration, which resurfaces almost as a grudge, contempt, or even spite for life.
I suppose this is one way to react, although possibly not the healthiest. Thank you for sharing still.
That's actually the basic underpinning of the different existentialist philosophies (which absurdism gets lumped into).
For background, Essentialism is the belief that things (including humans) have an essence which fundamentally defines them. For example, you could say the essence of a table is a flat surface that things are placed upon. If it does not have a flat surface and/or you cannot place things on it, then it is not a table. What's important here is that what defines a table, what gives it its meaning and purpose, preceeds the physical table. You could destroy all tables in the world but that wouldn't change what a table is. Essentialism has effectively been the predominant (Western) worldview since Plato.
Nihilism is the belief that life (and human beings) have no inherent meaning. What it means to be human (in a metaphysical sense) is not predetermined by God, the universe, karma, or anything else. We are simply here without reason or purpose. It is neither good nor bad, simply fact. Notably, nihilism doesn't tell you what to do with that fact.
Existentialism is a response to nihilism. Existentialists are nihilists who recognize that humans still crave a life of meaning, but when we look to the universe or cry or to God for that meaning, all we get is silence, and that causes us great distress. The need for meaning in a meaningless universe is referred to as "the absurd", and the distress we feel over it is referred to as "angst".
Different existentialists had different ways of dealing with this problem. Kierkegaard, arguably the father of existentialism, was actually a Christian (he believed in God, just not that God created us with purpose). Living in a Christian society, he believed most people believed in God and lived a Christian life out of convenience, because they were told to and thus felt no fulfillment from it. His solution was to take a leap of faith towards Christianity and live a life fully for God.
Nietszche, on the other hand, was staunchly anti-Christian. He believed that Christianity encouraged people not to question their values and simply do as they're told. He believed we need to reexamine all of our values, determine our own values for ourselves, and live a life of self-actualization. (He also didn't like Buddhists because they encouraged an abandonment of the ego.)
There are other influential existentialists (notably Sarte, Heidegger, Camus, etc) with other nuanced takes, but the core tenets can generally be summed up as:
There is no inherent meaning to anything. Existence preceeds essence.
We really want there to be meaning, and when we look for it and don't find anything, we feel great distress.
The cure for this angst is that whatever we choose to do, it must be our choice, not imposed upon us, and we must follow it through. We must live authentically.
Whether it's spending your life surfing at the beach or global domination, you have to find it for yourself; no one can make it for you.
I'm not too familiar with their works, thank you for recommending them to me. I don't know if I'll find Camus' conclusions satisfying, as I tend to deeply value the idea that life should be useful. However, I'm not sure humanity will ever manage to show that life is irrefutably in and of itself useful, so I might as well try to get used to it not being so...
I've never really managed to find satisfaction in the idea that one should find their own meaning. I feel like it ultimately does not really make life any less pointless. Is creating your own meaning satisfying to you? How do you guys do it?
You're making assumptions about the future of humanity on a timescale that by it's very nature guarantees we cannot possibly fathom the situation they'll find themselves in.
We just literally cannot possibly know what context life will find itself in that far into the future. Your premise is as flawed as a hunter-gatherer 15,000 years ago telling the others that because the pack of animals they're following is dwindling and will run out eventually the whole world will die and therefore, life isn't worth living... that human couldn't possibly have the foresight or context to fathom humanity creating so many forms of transportation allowing them to travel to new areas previously impossible to reach, discovering so many new food sources, the development of agriculture and livestock farming to develop those new sources leading to creation of permanent settlements 2000-3000 years after our hypothetical hunter gatherer lived, the creation of cities around 4000 years after that etc.
We are just as poorly informed about what the future holds 15,000 years in the future. We simply cannot fathom what we don't know about it, If there's three things that humanity has proven over and over, it's:
In our very recent past scientists believed it was impossible to go much faster than 35 mph because we couldn't possibly breathe at such mind boggling speeds! Up until 1947 it was considered by many to be impossible to travel faster than the speed of sound (767mph), 20 years after that humanity traveled to the moon through the vacuum of space at 27,000+ mph!
It requires an astonishing amount of hubris to assume humanity now knows anything about what the next 100 years holds for us let alone the next thousand or million years. Don't base your current life on conjecture that by the nature of the timescale you're talking guarantees we couldn't possibly be better informed about it than the hunter gatherer from 15,000 years in our past giving up on humanity because the pack of animals they were following ran out.
Δ. Our knowledge is very limited, and my premise that we are doomed to go extinct could be completely wrong. We may one day know of ways to survive indefinitely, even as we run out of stars to live near to.
Thank you for this answer. I think it helps a lot.
It's my pleasure to be of some help. I'd wrestled with similar concerns but as I grew older I started to realize despite all we know as a species, it's basically nothing. We have so much to learn and so much more room to grow it's amazing, these days I focus on keeping myself humble, learning new skills, new perspectives and being the person anyone can depend on. It's another aspect of what's helped me develop a much more positive outlook.
From the noted physicist Max Planck:
Obviously there were more than a few notable developments in our knowledge of the world after 1874, but that did not stop a leader in the field from declaring that we had it all figured out. It would be challenging to predict what our concept of the universe would look like in 2100, to say nothing of timescales where we're discussing the heat death of the universe; living that far is beyond the current age of the entire universe by orders of magnitude. We can't even imagine what form humanity will take on that timescale, and it is assuredly not something that would resemble our current state.
You don't know what you don't know, and running out of knowledge and new frontiers is not a problem that we're going to face down anytime soon. Don't let unfounded anxiety about a nebulous future detract from your present.
This is more or less my line of thought as well. Assuming that the species can make it past the bottleneck of the next 50-100 years and eventually move up along the Kardashev Scale, putting humanity’s eggs in a few more baskets (other planets, star systems, etc) ensuring that our development and evolution has a reasonable chance of proceeding somewhere unimpeded, it’s not unreasonable to think that the species will exist in a vastly more advanced form by the time the heat death of the universe occurs and will have an understanding of the universe that would make present day humans look like small woodland creatures in comparison.
Incidentally this is also why I think it’s important to press forward on sciences and technologies that have no immediate benefit on our current problems, because failing to do so dramatically increases the chances that we won’t make it past that bottleneck. It’s important to solve climate change, world hunger, etc but focusing on those things exclusively is tantamount to staring at our feet while walking toward a sheer cliff.
Δ. This is similar to an argument made by another commenter, and it is equally helpful. You're right that we have still so much left to understand. We are not in a position to assess whether humanity can survive indefinitely, and we probably won't be for a very long time.
Thank you for helping me.
I'm glad I could help!
I think what you're really saying isn't about the future of humanity, but instead giving a voice to feelings of negativity and pessimism or even depression. I don't think anyone can convince you of optimism or hope because I don't think any kind of thought process or argument would address those underlying feelings.
In other words I think the source of your question isn't any kind of reasoning or argument.
I think what you're really asking is how you can feel better. Your mind is trying to solve a problem (in it's view), you are trying to help yourself. The mind is very energetic about trying to solve problems. But feelings aren't really a mental process, and they aren't a problem to be solved. You have feelings, and you want to feel better.
There's nothing wrong with having feelings, whether pessimistic or hopeless or anything else. They're real feelings, they are valid and true, but they are not "the truth." Feelings tell their own truth about themselves or about your inner world. Sometimes they're driven by thoughts. Sometimes they're driven by your past, or assumptions, or beliefs, or whatever you imagine. They don't necessarily tell you what's true about life. But they are commentary and support for your own inner process.
I think your questions are incredibly valuable because you're giving voice to those feelings - they need to be heard, expressed and processed. I think the point is really just how you feel, so anything that helps you speak for yourself, get it out there and feel understood is really important.
I don't have anything here to change your mind or convince you of anything, just my perspective. So I don't really have a "solution." But I would suggest just asking yourself how you feel and then listen to whatever the feeling is. If you work with that, you'll get closer to helping yourself feel better.
Thank you for your care and empathy. You're right that I wasn't feeling very well some time ago. Thankfully, a number of commenters (here and on reddit) have made compelling arguments showing mine to be wrong. This helped me a lot. I feel appeased now.
Thanks again for your support.
You're very welcome!
I thought earlier today that one can believe life to be objectively useful without knowing the reason why. It seemed to me that it did help to appease me, even though it is more of a trick than an actual answer.
I'm not sure I know why I feel such a strong need to answer these questions, but you're right that thinking too much about it (or not having the answers? or both?) can negatively affect my well-being. Thankfully, I'm feeling so much better now, in large part thanks to a number of arguments made by various commenters.
Thank you for your answer.
I was basically in your shoes at one point, my mind racing all the time, worried about the future of humanity and wondering what the point of it all was. At some point I just slowly began living more for the day because as you plan further into the future, certainty becomes less so and there's always a small hope that it isn't or won't be as you see it by the time those events approach. Living with uncertainty can be tough and I still don't deny some of the more worrying aspects of humanity's future but these days I tend to focus on the more local joys in life, the here and now, as those can be approached with more certainty.
As for stagnation, only in a stagnant universe would we become stagnant and personal opinion, I don't think the universe will come to rest (heat death) for too long, as to me that just doesn't align with thermodynamic laws but wtf do I know? I'm not a physicist but that topic has been of interest to me due to the 'heat death' problem so I'm somewhat familiar with it but one of its problems is that it assumes we live in a closed system. And of course by then humanity will likely not be in a form we recognize today. What's the point of being a human? It seems to be to more efficiently disperse the sun's energy, to act as an energy gradient, according to Dorion Sagan in his book Into The Blue. Paraphrasing, as it's been a while since I read it and didn't entirely finish it. We seek power, in many forms, and try to disperse it, for better or worse so imo we could take on so many forms in the future, some less prone to entropic disintegration that align with more static elements in the universe, so the future isn't so telling. Of course I do think it's inevitable that we'll evolve, perhaps evolve so much that you'd consider homo sapiens sapiens extinct, as in a dynamic universe there's no escape from entropy's grasp, it is and of the good and bad things we experience in life.
I don't get too deep into those things anymore and just try to stay local in the here and now otherwise confusion will be had. Confusion is less conducive to a happy life and after living most of my life as a confused young man, looking for meaning, shoving gods into my head for spiritual fulfillment, pills into my body from doctors for emotional fulfillment, pushing money into my bank account for the same as well as friends, I've found nothing fulfilling other than expecting I'll never find fulfillment. That includes intellectual fulfillment, the likes of which we're discussing. In the end I can only do and live as I am, a human who likes and does human things, and that often includes just living in the short term, doing stupid things sometimes, and hoping it ends well. If not, just as I view dating, at least I'll have enjoyed the experience rather than regretting it from stressing so much. Of course I still tend to over-think things sometimes but I'm much more prejudiced about what I over-think.
You have issues like I do with dwelling on the existential and because these things, by their nature, can't be known, your head just keeps spinning, never to find a solution and you 'tire' yourself out, which can lead to depressive symptoms. To me, the depressive symptoms I thought were fine because these are problems that need thought about and even if it causes negative symptoms, I didn't care, I thought it was productive, which perhaps in some way to the self it does cause growth but in some way destructive, though objectively not so productive as there's just too many unknowns. So I can't advocate to you for any one kind of teleological approach because on the scales we're talking about, it would be intellectually dishonest if I did, but only to give my experience here and take from that what you wish to.
What did you mean by this?
I suppose that it wouldn't be a problem if what we would evolve into survived.
I'm sorry you feel that way. I hope you'll find the fulfillment you were looking for, and if not, that you'll feel content and happy regardless.
I should edit that, I meant the book Into the Cool. That take is Sagan's take, from the perspective of thermodynamics as to the question of purpose and I found it pretty enlightening as a layman. But it's been so long since I read it that I butchered the gradient part. It doesn't tackle the existential questions on just wtf we're doing here, but that wasn't the kind of answer I was seeking. Mine was more from a perspective based on harder sciences because the softer sciences, religion and philosophy, provide no definitive answers and that book tackles it well, for me, anyway, as I've found the former subjects too soft and shallow. Maybe it doesn't provide purpose to others but the subject matter satisfies me. Of course we're all seeking different things, somewhat, except one thing's assured, we all seek power being power-based entities and seek to disperse it as determined unless new thermodynamic laws are discovered that might tell us differently.
As for the survival comment, who knows? I think we'll be here long enough to survive into a species a bit different than what we are now. We seem to be evolving towards less sexual dimorphism as tourney societies become less pronounced, machines do more work so there's less need for more very strong men and with medical breakthroughs, less need for certain female traits like wider hips and boobies (heh). Also more neotenous traits have slowly been selected for as those are seen as more domesticated which becomes more important with increased population. But hopefully we can colonize space and disperse before the nutcases or something else ruins this planet.
This book seems like quite a challenging read, but it also seems immensely interesting. Thank you for recommending it. I don't think I've understood what you meant by power-based entities, but I guess reading the book would clarify things for me. Thanks again!
It's Carl Sagan's son and a co-writer, forgot the name, so just as Sagan his writing is more directed at the layman. By power-based, the book doesn't quite get into that but by that I mean power is our driver and what motivates us; I'm not just directly talking about the thermodynamic level the book talks about. Be it the powers of intellect, love, financial powers, martial powers, etc, those are in some way indirectly related to the lower physical layers of thermodynamics the book talks about, imo.
Many people may not get much from that perspective but if you want to know our "purpose" and every other answer you get from preachers, philosophers and such just seems a rehash, not touching on the more physical layers of life, it'll have some answers which is what I needed. Of course not just the book, I'm not one who stakes my life on one author, book or one discipline, but in general that way of looking at life helped me with seeing science's take on "purpose" in as much as it can gather without dwelling into other softer disciplines.
The stoics and the epicureans had different ideas about what makes life worth living. Ennui is not inevitable even in extremely boring circumstances. Take a look at the books Zorba the Greek and Man's Search for Meaning and Flow, the psychology of optimal experience by Csikzentmihalyi.
Some depression comes from chemical imbalance. Some depression comes from lack of community. Some depression comes from lack of purpose. And there are more kinds of depression, but the two causes of depression you named don't speak to me or my life or my reasons for getting out of bed and getting on with my projects.
Edit I have recently been learning quite a bit from the writings of primatologist Frans De Waal and his study and observations of chimpanzees, gorillas and bonobos. At the end of the day we are primates and mammals. When I find myself unhappy, sometimes I ask myself what my inner primate wants.
Edit again @hydravion. You are suggesting that no Viking had a fulfilling life because they believed in Ragnarok.
What did you mean in your second edit?
Ragnorok, is Norse mythology, describing how the world is supposed to end.
I was extrapolating from your statements about not finding meaning if we can't prevent the end of the human species in the far future. By the way, I appreciate the honest, straightforward way you have approached this question, including awarding deltas
Ah okay, I better understand. They may have had fulfilling lives, but I'm not sure how if they believed we were going to come to an end. I find it much easier believing the opposite, but that could just be me.
Thank you friend!
I think for context it's important to know how you feel without thinking about existential questions. Are you in frequent pain - mental or physical? I've been moderately depressed before, never suicidal, but I think I could have related to your general line of thinking - that maybe it's all fucked and there's no point anyway.
Fundamentally that mindset would have come from a completely unrelated starting point to any logical arguments. It doesn't come from an objective logical foundation upon which you have added things until naturally you reach the conclusion that life might be meaningless and everything's a waste. It starts with the fact that every day you're in pain, you don't know how to not be in pain, and that robs you of most moments of joy.
For me today I would argue that life without meaning is acceptable because I get to do cool things and enjoy myself. If you think about all of the possible arrangements of matter and how few of them lead to such an interesting state then it's truly a blessing to be able to think and act in our world. I get to explore my mind, society, the world around me and see what's happening. Just observing is a pleasure. It's all so insanely rich with information and there's more out there than a trillion people could see in a trillion lifetimes.
Anyway - when we think about the very end of the universe we're going into the fringes of what humanity understands. It could very well be that our universe came from a different universe. Sometimes I wonder if our sub-atomic particles are actually flecks of dust following the rules of a sub-universe in a near heat-death state. Our meta-universe thrives on at a quadrillionth the speed of the sub-universe. But as there are no living things left in this sub-universe what does it matter that our particles interact slowly by the old metrics? Anyway, our universe will take a long long time to die. Who are we to say what happens as a universe dies? Or how they die. Or if they can die.
I am not too sure, but I think that I would probably feel well not thinking about existential questions (if I had gotten answers). The issue is that I often end up thinking about them, and I don't think I could simply stop thinking about them or just not care. I usually feel uneasy until I find a satisfying answer, if I ever do.
It could be, I don't really know if depression causes these thoughts, or if these thoughts cause depression. Maybe it's a cycle.
One surprising thing about depression is it affects your memory about your emotions. Who’s to say how things got to be how they are. A weak recall for emotions is a major part of the numbness, at least in my experience.
I did not know that, thanks for sharing. I think part of the problem is also that a depressed person tends to have a very flawed and skewed judgement on things (at least it seems to me).
What you just said is exactly right, in my personal experience at least.
I said more in a previous comment, but for you, I think one paragraph from it will suffice.
One of the biggest takeaways I can say to you, at least from my experience, is this: your mental health is the lens through which you perceive the world. This means that when you're in a bad place mentally - you will perceive and interpret everything in a much more negative light. You're feeling hopeless right now, because your mental health is in a bad enough place that the only thoughts making it through that lens (or maybe filter) are the negative ones. I've been there, and it sucks. But it also makes those negative conclusions you're landing on - life is hopeless - invalid, in the end. You're drawing a conclusion based on incomplete and/or biased information.
Seems like you're on the upswing, but don't be afraid to get more help if you need it. Shit sucks.
Thank you for sharing, and for the support, too.
In regards to fiction I am strongly against the saying that the journey is more important than the ending as it almost always simply means that the ending is garbage and makes the story itself ultimately meaningless.
But in this context life has whatever meaning the one living it assigns to it.
As a civilization we can eventually possibly get to the point that everything is clear and we know everything there is to know about universe, that is debatable.
Unless the structures that are in there then are a dystopia there will always be a choice and there will always be change and there will always be new people
Tangentially I just generally recommend The Good Place tv show.
I personally find it hard to feel satisfied with simply creating my own meaning. How do you do it?
I am replying this late since I tried to think of an answer. This will be incredibly personal for any one person and I don't think any two will be entirely same or even necessarily similar.
Personally I am still searching and maybe that will remain like that which can be one too and maybe it won't.
I think one thing that keeps me going is that this is an incredibly special event that life even exists and has gotten to where we are. I think sometimes I forget about how lucky we are and how cool it is to see the whole scale of what humanity is and all the cool advances in science that we get to see daily. I've always thought that this is one of the coolest timelines to be alive. I have to remind myself of that from time to time when I get caught in the daily grind of life.
Yes!! And how unbelievably lucky are we that out of all the lifeforms in the world, we get to experience life as a human? We get to self-reflect and dream, or simply sit and observe, or observe our observing. We have such interesting and complicated minds that we get to experience and explore.
Well said!
There are two sides of this.
I think we are unlucky because we experience life aware of our own mortality.
I completely agree with you, but the idea that it could be all for nothing in the end did not sit well with me. Thankfully I've been given counterarguments to put that to rest.
Why would it be only the end state that matters?
What I was trying to say is that if the end state is the same no matter what, then what comes before it ultimately does not matter in the long run.
Doesn't it? Do you consider "in the long run" to be equivalent to "in the far distant future"? I think of it more as "over a long period of time".
It may not matter at that specific point in the far future, but in the long run, is the salient measure just the momentary mattering in that distant future or is it the cumulative mattering over all of time?
In my view, the final state, if it was extinction, would render all of what came before it meaningless. Why do you not see it that way?
Because to me whether something matters is defined moment to moment, and the totality of existence is not a moment, but all of space and time. With that premise, to measure how much something has mattered we must consider the effect over all of time.
That is, while it may not matter in the far future, to say that it did not matter before then is to disregard everything other than a moment in time, a very narrowly defined perspective.
Edit: changed wording in the second paragraph; I used "meaningless" before, but I don't think whether something has meaning and whether something matters is necessarily the same.
If we assume that both statements are 100% true (which is already debatable), your conclusion is still wrong. Maybe if humanity was a single organism that only strived towards improvement and an eternity of bliss, then you could say that if this is unachievable, the existence of humanity is not worth it. But since this is not what we are, it makes no sense.
I, and probably 99% of other people, will never significantly contribute to the improvement of our species. I'm not likely to have children, so the longevity of humanity doesn't have much to do with me either. And those are not even some sacred goals of humanity, just two things that you personally find important. So when you strip that away, what's left is the fact that you're here and have a life, and there is so much to experience in it. You personally can never "read every book, watch every movie, play every game, eat at every restaurant, lay on every beach,
swim in every sea" - in fact, you might have to work hard to even do just a few of each.
You're never gonna see humanity go extinct or languish in boredom, and from what we've seen of humanity so far, this latter scenario seems very unlikely anyway. You're here for a limited amount of time and only once. So while you could say oh, then it's not worth it at all, I think if you move the scope from humanity/eternity to individual/lifetime, you'll find that the situation is entirely different and comes with its own set of challenges and questions.
Sometimes I wonder if my brain is wired weird, because these sorts of inquiries that drive so many people to religion and what not just carry no weight at all for me.
Life is worth living because it feels good. Even if there were an ultimate cosmic purpose, and you somehow found out what it was, the only value it would add to your life is to make you feel good in a different way before you die anyway. So what is all this baggage for?
For some reason, I deeply care that life be useful. This is probably the root cause of why I felt distressed.
The last Question.
This legendary Asimov short story takes this on.
My thoughts are:
We have no way of knowing what's on the other side of the phrase "develop civilization to its fullest extent".
If humanity survives and continues to advance long enough we eventually won't be humans anymore. Maybe we will move beyond the concept of alive, into a realm of understanding that is as beyond us now as the concept of life is to a rock.
Carl Sagan said:
I believe Humanity's purpose at this time is to understand the universe. By the time that is accomplished, if ever, we will have transformed ourselves into something we inherently cannot currently understand. To assume anything about purpose or futility of existence before we even understand what existence is would be hubris.
Thanks for the recommendation. You're right that our current knowledge is still very limited and that we may well one day find solutions to my concerns.
First, I would like to ask, how are you feeling? Those are heavy preoccupations to endure. That must be difficult. Are you feeling well? Do you have the care and support you need?
There are many things worth living and all of them will go extinct much sooner than humanity's doom. Every one of my kid's smiles is fleeting, and, in the few seconds they exist, I live a thousand lives of pure joy.
A song is beautiful because it ends.
In any case, why are you so certain of humanity's demise? How can you be so sure that whatever limits we find insurmountable today will remain insurmountable in 500 years? Or 1000?
Maybe you should read some science fiction like Charles Stross' Accelerando, or Greg Egan's Permutation City.
It is completely false that the development of civilization will inevitably lead to this kind of life. The very structure of our brains will change, as well as our sources of motivation and joy. Again, read the science fiction I mentioned above. And also, The Culture, by Iain M. Banks.
Your pessimism seems rooted in an understanding of humanity as fixed and immutable. You are extrapolating on our current struggles and limitations. That is not very different from someone who, in 1940, couldn't imagine the internet, predicting a world where new forms of traditional radio broadcasting devices would be invented to fulfill our needs. Your belief in our ultimate doom ignores the possibility of change and reinvention.
Thank you for your care and empathy. I must say that I was not feeling too well a few days ago, but thanks to the discussions I've had here and on reddit, I now feel so much better. This really helped changing my perspective on these issues. Thanks again.
I was not really sure that humanity would go extinct, but I could not see how it could survive indefinitely, so I assumed that it wouldn't. Some commenters have helped me see how it was premature to come to that conclusion at this stage in our history.
Thank you for the book recommendations. Permutation City has already been mentioned a few times here and on reddit. It sounds like it has an interesting plot.
I don’t have any great philosophy to offer or anything — I’m not well-read enough to try to do that and won’t pretend otherwise — but for the more near-term concerns, when I think of what I’d do if I no longer had to work, my needs were all met, and my lifetime were extended I always arrive at the conclusion that I would spend most of my time creating something or another.
Drawing, painting, making music, writing software, cooking, building houses, you name it, if it’s creative I’d like to at least dabble in it, and that alone is well more than enough to keep me occupied for several lifetimes, and that’s not even counting all the time taken by raising a family (or multiple, in the case of long enough youthful life). Being bored is the least of my concerns.
You're right that we can probably keep ourselves occupied with hobbies for way longer than I first imagined. I was worried that we would eventually get bored of everything over a few decades (because of how our hobbies would become too repetitive), but I was probably wrong thinking that.
The Fun Theory goes over this: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/K4aGvLnHvYgX9pZHS/the-fun-theory-sequence
Life is already fully developed but it is also always in the process of developing. I don't think we'll ever reach a situation where there is no inequality across the globe. We might reach economic equality, political equality, social equality, and maybe even physical and psychological equality. But there will always be opportunity for exploration, curation, and arbitrage due to locality affects.
I'd like to hear from op. Is anyone getting through? There's been kinda lot of comments but little conversation.
Hey there, I've posted this in three different places on the internet and I've been overwhelmed with the number of answers (probably close to a hundred). Please hang tight as I read through them and respond :)
Well, these are two very low level philosophical questions all things considered. Like, this is 101-course level in my opinion. I don't mean that to be super dismissive, they are valid questions, but genuinely this has been argued about in philosophy for all of human existence.
To the first question. Obviously, as soon as we came to understand our human nature as a creature who evolved as a life form in a universe that had a definable beginning and has valid end theories (heat death, big rip, etc.) We began having issues with these questions.
Your personal take is basically describing nihilism/fatalism. You are going to die. It might be tomorrow, or 100 years from now. Then the sun will explode, and the universe will have the stars die off in some unimaginable scale of time. Do what you want to do in the meantime. Like, no argument here can disprove that. The real question, is what you do with the obvious inevitabilities.
I personally am a fatalist. My perspective is that life is about dealing with the inevitable rather than any actual control over the matter. You can forestall/prolong, attempt to shift, hasten an inevitability. Anything other than that is folly.
In particular, I find the idea you put forward that we "will cure cancer / end world hunger / give everybody the ability for a happy existence" is such an easy fallacy to fall into. Yeah, we might get bored when we get all of those things done, but we are nowhere close to achieving those goals, due to how stratified our society is. Like, how many people are hungry, diseased, scared, displaced right now? How many millions are living their lives in fear of being slaughtered? To propose that because "we can reach 100% human happiness, and then what? :(" is so invalidating to those experiences, that it is entirely a useless argument. Like, gee it might be real boring one day when everybody gets their fair share of the pie. Let's just cross that bridge when we get to that point....
Also, have you considered that the real issue is that you have a poor definition of fulfillment? Seriously, what does fulfillment even mean? It's really just chemicals sloshing around. The joy of scientific achievement can be easily simulated with some heroin.
Real question, why does a return to nothing scare you so much? You were born of the void, and you will return to it. This moment is but an arrangement of chemicals in your skull. Scientifically, there's little difference between yourself and any arrangement of atoms. You aren't really even real in a way I think you want to believe. In all seriousness, one might as well just consider "you" as an etching on the face of time. An inevitable relationships of particles that could exist, and currently does for reasons outside of its control. This arrangement has the ability to create self similar patterns that allow it to reference the composition of the arrangement. It's not necessarily alive, or conscious. One day, the pattern will not exist, and time will continue.
The real answer is you're here now. Read a book on taoism, or sit in a garden, or something.
I thought that was the case, but some commenters have made the point that since we are at a very early stage of the advancement of science, we are not in a position to assess whether or not we are doomed to go extinct.
Whether or not we are close to achieving these goals does not matter, as the argument I made would stand regardless. I did not mean to disregard the experience of people still suffering today.
I do not mind dying, rather I care that the life we live be not pointless.
After having read through about a hundred answers (here and elsewhere), here are some key takeaways:
Why live this life and do anything at all if humanity is doomed to go extinct?
Why live this life if the development of civilization will eventually lead to a life devoid of fulfilment and happiness?
Recommended readings (from the commenters)
I got ideas in my brain about the end of the world that I won't even say. When all the bricks that built my brain will be turning to sand by the eternal wave."
One of my favorite books postulates Information, the very concept and embodiment of Information itself, as a (symbiotic/parasitic) virus that rides along in humans. It could be argued that Information is the true heritage of humanity, for all the "things" and "achievements" we herald as a species are basically some form of Information. And Information - the gathering, consideration, and manipulation of it on a grand scale - is indisputably one of the key elements that separates humans from "lower lifeforms."
Evolution dictates traits that don't contribute to survival tend to fade, or at least weaken. Bravery, for example, is often lauded as something worthy and awesome. Yet if bravery drives people to their deaths, eventually there are fewer brave people to pass on whatever genetic components that might contribute to the higher likelihood of 'Brave' appearing in subsequent generations.
Arguably, cowardice is a survival trait, while bravery isn't.
Unless bravery pushes the collective forward. So, it could be argued courage is a collective survival trait. One that enhances the whole, the species, even at the expense of the individual.
Information does this, in that those tribes which found safer and more efficient ways to gather increasing amounts of safe water and food, secure shelter, abundant resources, were more likely to advance. Those tribes tended to have more children, who lived longer, who had the example of their parents to guide them as they themselves went on to gather, consider, and manipulate new forms of Information. Or at least existing Information in new ways.
The tribes that didn't, that didn't gather, consider, and manipulate Information which might help them, were at a disadvantage. Some of them failed, and many faded.
All because Information pushed some humans forward, using humans to further its own goals. Where once humans considered a campfire in a cave a marvelous advance, one worthy of awarding that campfire's creator a place of honor amid the clan, now we're on the cusp of finally leaving this planet and reaching for the stars.
What will we do there? Out away from this watery rock strewn mudball?
Gather new Information, consider its implications, and manipulate it to employ the secrets it unlocks. It might be quantum mechanics, it might be the better mousetrap, it might be a Dyson sphere or a space elevator or a matter-replicator that eliminates the horrors of capitalism since scarcity won't be weaponizable any longer.
There are no right answers to your questions. There are a few constants, across most of the cultures of humanity over the ages. One of them, in some form or another, tends to be that each human should seek what life best fulfills them. For many, they consider family as the greatest of this. Others desire leadership, or power, or knowledge, or enjoyment.
Some just want to sit on the riverbank fishing, and become experts in the ways of that river as it relates to dropping a hook and bobber on a line into those gently flowing waters.
There aren't right answers. There's just your answers. And as long as the ones you come up with, that you desire to pursue, don't harm others, I (and more than a few others) feel you should be allowed to pursue your answers to the full extent of what ability you can marshal.
Your goals are yours. And they don't have to be immense goals. Just yours. If you're possessed with the drive and wherewithal to harness people and material to your will, and no one's being harmed, then gather it all to your cause and employ it as you pursue.
Maybe you want to figure out just how fast Super Mario Bros. can be completed while blindfolded. Maybe you want to harness cold fusion. Maybe you want to develop and administer a zero-G handball league.
There's no right answer. Do whatever drives you. If your drive is to track the international Rugby statistics in an effort to identify just who the "perfect" rugby player might be, do it! If that's what calls, what drives, then pursue. That is what you should do.
Information wants you to gather, consider, and manipulate. Who can understand the mysteries of Information without at least seeking it out?
Honestly this sounds like a very interesting book. Would you mind giving me a reference?
Thank you for your answer and your advice.
Civilization isn't even fully developed and I already find it unfulfilling. Humans make life miserable for humanity.
Most people have had a good answer to this but my own 2 cents is that no one will really effect humanity at a large scale. There is so much you can do at a local level though and that's enough to feel good about. Everything in life is about what scale you focus at.
Man, that sounds like the rumination of a scientist or someone who draws value/pleasure from work. For me, you can keep that. If we really did "max out" then assumingely we've figured out how to meet everyone's needs without destroying everything. Awesome. Now is the time to indulge in whatever pleasure you want. For me it would be a combination of gardening, mountain biking, climbing, and ocean based sports. That sounds soooo good. I will never be and don't feel the need to "push the envelope" on any of those. In my own life I'll never reach the pinnacle of any of those, so if people had pushed even farther into what is possible, it doesn't matter.
It sounds like you're quite result driven and it might stress you out less if you think of all of this as just passing things to experience and enjoy.
I didn't mean that I personally had to greatly impact humanity's future, rather that what we humans as a whole did in this world may be for nothing if we were going to go extinct anyway.
Find solace in uncertainty. The reality is despite thinking we know how life the universe and everything else works, we only have a narrow instrumentalist/positivism based view of reality. We will never truly know the purpose of the universe, or if it is all purpose. You can find your meaning, and try be a good person. That is all you can do. You may find all these pointless things are actually ultimately meaningful.