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What Is The Meaning Of Life?

tuco said:
The meaning of my life seems to be looking after two cats, ( well that's what the cats think anyway ).
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Screenshot_20200221_205820_compress97.jpg
 
Seeing that this thread is presently active (was about to say, 'trending' and then thought better :))...

Just posted under the, 'Particle Physics: New Discoveries' topic, was a precis of and link to an newly published article entitled, 'In a Huge First, Physicists Have Captured Individual Atoms And Watched Them Merge'.

Aside from deliberation re the procreation of those atoms...



...why?

Just always a wonderin'... :btime:

:headbang:
 
This also encompasses the search for planets that are so far away we will never be able to go to them; even if we do discover a second Earth. Something rather poignant about knowing that your planet is doomed, and that there is another out there, but you cant get to it.

But I am in favour of all this research into the very depth of subatomic reality.For me, it is easy; we have to know. That's what we do, we look.

And for the price of a few city killing missiles we can afford to let our brightest minds play with the best equipment we can produce.

We need to know the Big Picture (or, perhaps, the Small Picture) .

And when you think of it, most of the stuff we read about and study every day is of no real value to us. Yes, it is something to help us converse with our fellows. But would it really matter if we all just gave up worrying about the World and stuck to planting cabbages and watching the Sun set over a glass of red wine ?

A question.

Are any here Patreons ? If so, why ?

I give a small monthly amount to a guy who produces YouTube videos that are instructive and useful to me.

Why ? Because It helps him to produce other similar stuff. And to me it is just the cost of a few cups of coffee.

So I guess that makes me a patron.

Many artists and scientists had them in the past.

If part of my tax money goes to Escargot's son while he looks for ever smaller particles, Good luck to him.
 
INT21 said:
And when you think of it, most of the stuff we read about and study every day is of no real value to us.
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What a fabulous input. Took time to consider your thoughts and then realised I had zero contentions otherwise.
 
INT21 said:
And when you think of it, most of the stuff we read about and study every day is of no real value to us.
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You're right, but one never knows which of those things we study and read will be useful in the long run.

Plus, the alternative is ignorance...
 
kiln_wood said:
You're right, but one never knows which of those things we study and read will be useful in the long run.

Plus, the alternative is ignorance...
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Exactly so. Knowledge may always come in useful in some circumstance you didn't envisage when you acquired it.

But are we any happier than the guy who does his days work then potters around in his garden or watches soaps on tv if we stuff our brains with high tech stuff and endless discussion on whether things really do go bump in the night ? Probably not.

But for a certain section of the population, it is what we do. We have to know.

INT21.
 
INT21 said:
Exactly so. Knowledge may always come in useful in some circumstance you didn't envisage when you acquired it.

But are we any happier than the guy who does his days work then potters around in his garden or watches soaps on tv if we stuff our brains with high tech stuff and endless discussion on whether things really do go bump in the night ? Probably not.

But for a certain section of the population, it is what we do. We have to know.

INT21.
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A certain amount of brain damage is beneficial for a happy life; Nietzsche
 
Too much thinking can certainly be bad for one's health.
 
In a universe where everything is falling apart, only life has the ability to "fall together" making more ordered systems, that in turn have the ability to order more systems, it would seem that the meaning of life is to overcome entropy. Certainly, everything worthwhile that humanity does seems to be in opposition to entropy, so that's my answer and I'm sticking to it, because I think it's the best answer to this question that I've ever come across.
 
INT21 said:
Exactly so. Knowledge may always come in useful in some circumstance you didn't envisage when you acquired it.

But are we any happier than the guy who does his days work then potters around in his garden or watches soaps on tv if we stuff our brains with high tech stuff and endless discussion on whether things really do go bump in the night ? Probably not.

But for a certain section of the population, it is what we do. We have to know.

INT21.
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Don't get hung up on happiness as a goal; we're human, we strive, achieve, feel happy, then content, then get used to, bored and off we go again... :)
 
Indeed. the journey is often more interesting than the destination.
 
INT21 said:
Indeed. the journey is often more interesting than the destination.
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I'd argue the journey is the point. There is no destination as such. We are (at least in most of the Western world) conditioned to think in terms of a 'working life' and some 'retirement Nirvana' at the end of it. I used to think that myself, but lately have come to realise I will be better off for continuing my journey.

A good friend of mine, who is some 34 years my senior, published his fifth book this year (I proofed most of it). So I've decided my journey will continue, I'm not going to stop, I'll take easier work, or more fun work, or more meaningful work or something, right up until I'm 'arrested by scythe'.
 
kiln_wood said:
I'd argue the journey is the point. There is no destination as such. We are (at least in most of the Western world) conditioned to think in terms of a 'working life' and some 'retirement Nirvana' at the end of it. I used to think that myself, but lately have come to realise I will be better off for continuing my journey.

A good friend of mine, who is some 34 years my senior, published his fifth book this year (I proofed most of it). So I've decided my journey will continue, I'm not going to stop, I'll take easier work, or more fun work, or more meaningful work or something, right up until I'm 'arrested by scythe'.
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This. Creative people never retire. They just carry on doing stuff they enjoy.
A potter I knew some years back said he'd carry on making pots until he's found dead at the wheel. He was old then, but I think he's still knocking out the pots.
 
Mythopoeika said:
This. Creative people never retire. They just carry on doing stuff they enjoy.
A potter I knew some years back said he'd carry on making pots until he's found dead at the wheel. He was old then, but I think he's still knocking out the pots.
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Let's hope bus drivers don't take on the same phylosophy.
 
Ogdred Weary said:
You could spraypaint your bus pretty colours, dress as a clown and drive whatever route you liked at whatever speed you liked and charge customers things like "two chickens and a sense of ennui."
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You could do that for all of a day before getting fired, yes.
 
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