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Getting depressed is my body's way of reminding me what I'm really here for.

I disagree. If the only reason for existing was reproducing then I would have killed myself a long time ago.

Edot: do you think the purpose of walking is to produce steps? Lol

Have you fullfilled your purpose?

My purpose is to explore purpose

what have you found so far?

Dank memes

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You don't reproduce, so you don't pass on your genes. For evolution's sake you are a dead end already.

Ultimately I think it just comes down to helping people. You know feed clothe and offer shelter to the people around you if you can.

I'm a little self conscious about talking about my own thoughts honestly. Lol but I think the happiest people live for others. But not to the point of being stepped on and taken advantage of. There's a lot of nuance to consider.

Reducing humanity's purpose to reproduction and basic animal instincts is not only dumb, but also very close minded and a huge disservice to what we've accomplished over the years.

My purpose is to explain things that I hardly understand myself to strangers online.

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Is it preparing ourselves to die?

So why else are we here?

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Your niblings also carry ‘your’ genes. The whole human race carries genes in common with you.

Helping the tribe is enough in evolution. Not every individual reproduces, and yet here we are with a strong urge to cooperate.

Its essentially a mild mind controll that we are cursed with, wasting immense amounts of time and making us make terrible decisions

I'm a nihlist so I agree, there is almost an infinite variety of ways humans create meaning for themselves, reproduction is just a very common one. I am just referring to our central unconscious biological drive, which is to survive long enough to procreate. I know thats reductionist and simplified but there we go.

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No it's reminding us that if you are REALLY committed to it, you can make your dreams come true...

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Mr. Burns channeling your siblings who actually have children

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Nobody is keeping you here lol

What if I do neither

None of us are permanent and neither is the human race. So by your logic aren't we all dead ends in the end?

I completely agree with you, as someone who’s never happier than when I’m improving someone else’s life. There was one time I was leaving the grocery store and a lady rode up to me on a bike, asked if I could help her buy dinner for her family. I said sure, put my groceries in my car, and went back into the store with her. We walked through the whole store and I chatted with her while she grabbed what she needed. It was one of the best moments in my life. Ironically, it’s helping family/friends/people who know you personally that you need to be careful with. I’m always happy to help a stranger, but make sure to have boundaries when helping friends/family, especially when it comes to money.

Peeing in your bed is your bodies way of reminding you what you're really here for.

Really? Cause when I'm depressed my body tries telling me to kill myself.

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That’s the joke

Just do it!

That’s only true if you have a gene that’s unique to you. Otherwise the gene pool stays the same even if you don’t reproduce since other people carry on your genes.

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Neither evolution, nor life, rely exclusively on genes and traditional vertical gene transfer.

What is Einstein's genetic contribution to civilization? Or Shakespeare's? Or Netwon's?

Life, especially complex life, is a complex pattern of vertical gene transfer, as well as both vertical and horizontal meme transfer.

Just because we/life as a whole couldn't persist that long without reproduction doesn't mean that there aren't still many hundreds of absolutely necessary processes that also absolutely have to happen for life to carry on for any significant amount of time.

For life to persist as a single, large, complex organism.

That requires a lot more than just reproduction.

People that act as if reproduction isn’t a main purpose of life are out of their minds. It’s kind of pathetic to be honest.

You’re still part of the system. Even viruses, which are bad for us, act as selective pressures culling the herd and making sure the future human iterations are “stronger” in their environment

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What if I kill the strong to make way for the weak

We aren't here for anything, you need to figure out for yourself why you are here. I don't think there are a lot of people whose only purpose in life is to reproduce, if it was the case why don't they kill themselves when they become infertile? You can find joy in life from other things, like your friends, family, goals, achievements, etc.

Niblings sounds like some fantasy race

Funny how the most terrifying space aliens tend to be the hive insect type

Our need to exist runs so deep, we credit ourselves with the random shuffling of chromosomes that occurs during our own conception, and we trust the products of our mating activities to somehow carry our essential selves into the future.

I'd argue that humans have at least a handful of "central biological drives". Communication is probably just as important as reproduction. Biological reproduction doesn't differentiate us from most animals. So if your idea of "our" is "all animals", then you may be right. But if you mean "humans", you're probably wrong.

Not to say that we can necessarily survive significantly long if we all stopped reproducing... But that we wouldn't survive much longer (as humans) if we all stopped communicating. Probably less, given the state of things today.

Laughs in gay

We are all pawns, controlled by something greater:
#MEMES, THE DNA OF THE SOUL

Why do you think I'm shopping Amazon for a new toaster.

Scuba. If I can’t scuba then what’s this all been about? What am I working toward?

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I get the joke but depression is really telling you that everything is not ok.

We weren't meant to work, eat, sleep and die. We were meant to get stronger, learn, fuck and pass to those traits on so humanity can evolve.

Capitalism is stunting evolution

I understood your point and I don't think it's reductionist and simplified, I mean... I do think that, but I mostly think it's just wrong.

Grab the nicest toaster you afford. why not treat yourself?

Humans will eventually go extinct anyway. So whatever evolution has accomplished by then is of no consequence. Therefore, I don't care about doing the right thing for evolution.

Cool, so why are you here? To find joy? Is that why your parents conceived and raised you and you voluntarily continue to live?

Suggesting humanity has a purpose is elitist and egotistical

> We were meant to get stronger, learn, fuck and pass to those traits on so humanity can evolve.

Which we are doing if you look at it from the bigger scale. I think of different cells which were stronger individually but then evolved to form a multi cellular organism losing their individuality and each cell losing one of their strengths. Meanwhile the organism is strong, complex with a lot of specialties.

Capitalism is ripping us of our individuality because it is not efficient.

You mean me or the OP?

If gay, then adopt. Task failed successfully.

(Not everyone has to raise kids, it's a joke)

It is the main purpose of any animal. Survival and Reproduction

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The gentle niblings are a sweet addition to our world, often playing happily in the background of family gatherings, sleeping soundly (for all we know) in the homes of other people.

We bring them offerings of noisemakers and candy, as is tradition. It is believed the right tithings will ensure a great harvest of comeuppance over our childhood rivals. Blessed is the home where niblings visit frequently!

My parents decisions are out of my control, especially their decision to conceive me.

I'm here to have fun, to love others, to be loved, to positively influence others around me, and the like

What the fuck are you talking about? Haha

Individuality and abstract thinking created every single piece of technology we have. Abstract thinking's brought fire out of the wildness into a home for heat. Individuality brought electricity.

Capitalism? Capitalism brought mass genocide, religion, famine, and slave labor. All capitalism has done is exploit advancement for money. Do you realize how much further along we'd be if the $2 trillion dollars every year we spend on bombing each other was put towards fusion energy or ai?

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How do you know what we were meant to do? For all any of us know humans were created by aliens as replacement bodies for their big, psychic brains and they're just waiting until we unlock the other 90% of our brains so they can swoop down on us and begin the harvest.

This is a very profound topic, so please forgive my argumentative response. Your first sentence kinda aligns with the topic of this thread. We never choose to be here. We only make the best of what we got (or not).

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Because we know what drives humans through studies. We know what we're biologically drawn towards.

By meant, I mean what our bodies are programmed for. Who programmed them and for what use? Who fucking knows.

to pollute the planet

p.s. if this was removed, how did it show up in my feed?

cue the platitudes from people who don't understand, but think they do

Oh I agree, I just think that saying that reproduction is "what you're really here for" is kinda sad, you're more than a baby making machine

I disagree.

Yeah, cause saying "you're useless and nothing about your existence matters" is so much better

There are evolutionary models that show altruism evolved because it does offer an evolutionary advantage in the way you claim. But as evidenced in the real world, it is only advantageous in a limited amount. Too much altruism leads to the the individual being taken advantage of and losing out.

Yes, if you can't find a mate, then helping with your neices and nephews makes evolutionary sense. But statistically speaking, you (and your close genetic family) are better off with additional lottery tickets rather than "better" lottery tickets.

If you have 4 neices and nephews that you boost to a 50/50 chance of "success" then there's a 0.0625% chance none of them succeeds. If you have your own 2 kids, and that reduces everyone to a 40% chance of success, then there's only a 0.004096% chance that none of them succeeds. That's a whole order of magnitude difference. Obviously, these numbers are for example purposes. But it's reasonable to assume that a reasonable amount of additional support from an aunt or uncle is only going to offer a small boost in outcomes on average.

No it’s surviving and the Species surviving.

looks up from my plate of garlic bread and laughs even harder in ace

It's only a joke when you get called out. Your view is super hetronormative

Sometimes we’re too smart for our own good.

Calm down I was just giving an analogy like you were.

I was saying if you look at the global scare, we are getting stronger, we are learning and adapting at a pace never seen before and we are passing on the genes, genes which would have died out before now can survive and contribute to humanity.

I disagree with your assertion that individuality brought technology. It was the communication and humans' way of co-ordinating together to adapt and pass on the information. We survived literally because of our community and social relationships not because of individuality.

I never denied capitalism did not do that, and I am not sure why you mentioned it since majority of comment barely mentioned capitalism.

Are we though? When people want to get married, have kids, and live that white picket fence dream... How much of that is biological programming and how much of that is social programming?

I love to bang, but I've never knocked anyone up and I'm about to go in for the snip so I don't have to. And it seems that more and more people with the mind set are starting pop up.

Humans have sex for pleasure, for emotional support and stability, for validation, etc. To say we were built up work a certain way, when there's so many humans that are the exception and not the rule, seems incorrect to me. I believe we've already evolved past the point of species propagation for survival, there's no need to carry on one's genes when billions of others are already doing it.

Why settle for a toaster bath and not a bath in HeH+

Actually multi celled organisms are weak af

No, am gay and trans, will make jokes about almost all things. It's a joke, fellow person! Sorry it sounded heteronormative!

I meant the second strong as in one which is more efficient and is able to survive in different environments than a single cell would have.

Bacteria especially are resilient fucks

People aren't having kids anymore because it's expensive, and quality of life is declining.

If everyone had everything they needed including time, a lot more people would be having kids. Pleasure is what interests us in sex, but offspring is what drives our biology. Baby fever, ya know?

Yeah but they cant do what we can. They are evolved and have adapted to their niche, and if changes occur they undergo slow process of evolution. We the humans may not be as resilient. We have outpaced the need for evolution, we adapt our environment for us rather than the other way around.

That was my point, we may be weaker as individuals but as a species? we are the strongest and are only getting stronger. Although our civilization wont progress at some point in future because it came at the expense of our nature :{.

Altruism does imply a choice is being made. The organization of a group into reproductive and non-reproductive members doesn’t usually happen at the choice level in nature. It’s developmental.

Humans can only survive in groups larger than a nuclear family unit. We have to have tendencies inborn to make that work.

Think of dogs. A litter of puppies, left together, will naturally organize themselves into extremes of dominant and submissive personalities. In the wild, the next generation will be coming from the alphas, but sustained and protected by the group. With domestic dogs, we find that separating the puppies at the right age will result in more balanced individual personalities, desirable for training. The dogs aren’t making a reasoned choice to become leaders or helpers, it’s just their programming interacting with their environment, with a little randomness nudging them each down one path or another.

People are unique in the sense that we like to think we have control over our own life paths. We have free will, and we use it, and we have this wonderful ability to analyze those choices with game theory and such. But we’re still animals at the same time, living in an unpredictable world.

>Altruism does imply a choice is being made.

>People are unique in the sense that we like to think we have control over our own life paths. We have free will, and we use it, and we have this wonderful ability to analyze those choices with game theory and such. But we’re still animals

Your definition of altruism takes for granted that choice exists, which you acknowledge may be an illusion by the end of your comment. So, no, if choice could be an illusion, and altruism still exists, then altruism does not imply that a choice is being made. It's just another instinct, one that we mainly/only clearly see in social animals.

Well yeah I guess I got off track.

The point I intended to get into was to look at it from the grandparent generation perspective. Clearly there’s success in genes that produce a mixture of self-sacrificing and selfish individuals.

It doesn’t make sense to me to call contributing, necessary members of a group an “evolutionary dead end” when the differences between them and the direct reproducers are pretty much epigenetic. But maybe a different dose of hormones in the brain would change which parts of the picture I focus on in the first place lol.

You aren't your grandparents. Looking at the situation from their point of view makes no sense. You, yourself, pointed out how disgusted we are at the idea of hive minds/social structures. You, from your POV, are not just a replaceable worker ant for your grandparents, and I'd assume that you would be upset if they told you that you were, even though on some level you are.

Although, nonetheless, even from their POV, the statistical math of you and your siblings having more total offspring is still better. If you pump all of your parenting into your nieces and nephews, and those families go on vacation together and all die, then obviously it would be better for your grandparents' genes if you had your own kids instead.

Maybe spend a bit more time on spelling and grammar before you get to reproducing: “bodies” - plural “body’s” - possessive - this is probably what we’re looking for here “bodies’” - plural possessive - if we’re talking about our bodies’ way.

What is the main purpose of an animal then?

Why should it be any different for them than it is for us?

I am. I found quite the product with 4 slots and a bagel function. 1 star reviews say it has a problem with not shutting off immediately after popping up. Gonna take this bad boy out for a spin in the jacuzzi

>That was my point, we may be weaker as individuals but as a species? we are the strongest and are only getting stronger. :{.

"Although our civilization wont progress at some point in future will soon collapse, if it isn't already in the early stages of collapsing, because it came at the expense of our nature" - FTFY

>I love to bang, but I've never knocked anyone up and I'm about to go in for the snip so I don't have to. And it seems that more and more people with the mind set are starting pop up.

You're not supposed to be able to prevent pregnancy. Your "loving to bang" is supposed to lead to a pregnancy, whether you intend one or not.

>Humans have sex for pleasure, for emotional support and stability, for validation, etc.

All of those good feelings are, again, supposed to lead to pregnancy, which we could not reliably prevent when we were evolving into modern humans.

>I believe we've already evolved past the point of species propagation for survival, there's no need to carry on one's genes when billions of others are already doing it.

Until everyone decides that and no one reproduces... Tragedy of the commons... That's exactly why we evolved to enjoy sex so much, so that we'd accidentally keep having kids even if this idea came into our heads.

I mean, where does being upset or offended come into this?

In evolutionary biology, the F2 (or grandchildren) generation is the more conceptually useful focus point for analyzing the success of various reproductive strategies. Many losses will occur along the way for a wide variety of reasons, some of which are built-in.

Worker ants exist, in great numbers. So do sharks who get eaten by their siblings in the womb. Or sea turtles, alligators and the like who basically start life as snacks and continue to exist only because 1/1000 made it to adulthood. How? There were too many to eat at once.

Genes are genes and individuals are individuals.

If I were a sentient worker ant, would knowing what I am cause a revolution? I think not. Should a sentient baby turtle fall into despair? Wouldn’t be useful.

The vast majority of hominid species that existed are extinct. We’re what’s left, in part by chance. Having a baby is so insanely costly and risky to human women as individuals that given the technology and freedom to avoid it, on average the birth rate falls way below replacement levels. And then on the other extreme Elon Musk has this notion to select all boy children (through IVF, no kidding), who he hopes then will go on to serially impregnate multiple women each, spreading his genes as far as possible. This is also pretty gross. He’ll die at the end of his own life, just like every other person.

So, who are the ‘winners’ versus the sacrificial members of the species here? We each just exist until we don’t. The genes we happen to inherit neither ‘belong’ to us nor define us as individuals. Across generations, life continues on as a massive unguided amoral process, up until it doesn’t.

It isn't. That's the point they're making. We're just animals. Our basic purpose is to survive long enough to breed and help our offspring survive long enough to breed in turn. Everything else is stuff we make up, because we accidentally became too capable of abstract thought to just be satisfied doing the basic stuff, ironically in an attempt to make us better at doing the basic stuff.

Yeah collapse of civilization is not the end of it, Humanity wont end it. If we collapse we will rise again maybe it will take 1000s of years. I am talking at the time scale of millions of years of evolution. We have risen out of harsher climate than what's coming.

>Oh I agree, I just think that saying that reproduction is "what you're really here for" is kinda sad, you're more than a baby making machine

Yes, you are more than a baby making machine, but all of that other potential only exists because it made your ancestors better baby making machines. You can choose to fail at your purpose in pursuit of something else, but that doesn't change that your purpose was to be a baby making machine.

Acknowledging reality isn't sad, and that's the reality.

I think the universe is more than just a mechanical device. If the purpose of life was simply to reproduce then we might as well have just stayed single celled organisms. But then we wouldn't be growing or evolving.

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>Yeah collapse of civilization is not the end of it, Humanity wont end it. If we collapse we will rise again maybe it will take 1000s of years. I am talking at the time scale of millions of years of evolution. We have risen out of harsher climate than what's coming.

We've already mined all of the easy stuff to build this advanced civilization. It's not going to be so easy to do it a second time without the "low hanging fruit" available.

>I think the universe is more than just a mechanical device. If the purpose of life was simply to reproduce then we should have just stayed single celled organisms. But then we wouldn't be growing or evolving.

Or... Multicelled organisms had some sort of advantage over single-celled organisms, and it is all just the result of ongoing mechanical processes and a bit of chance over a long enough period of time.

You're dipping into philosophy. Which, again, is part of the extra stuff, not the basic. Your opinions don't change the objective facts of what life's basic functions are. Ability to reproduce is part of what defines what life is at the most basic level... Even single-celled organisms reproduce.

> Until everyone decides that and no one reproduces...

I don't see that happening, and even if it did, then would that be us unprogramming or being reprogrammed a different way?

My entire point is, I don't think humans have one set way of doing things and I don't think our purpose is simply to multiply. Sure from a biological standpoint that's how it was in the past. But going back to the hypothetical aliens made us argument, who's to say biological propagation (the desire to fuck and to be a parent) wasn't just a stepping stone to get us to a point where we're supposed to do something greater with the gift of life?

Now I'm not saying that IS the case either, just pointing out that as it stands, we're too insignificant and ignorant to say definitively as OP put, "what you're really here for."

Nobody knows what we're here for, and that's what makes studying our history, our genetics, our own minds, and the universe we inhabit so much fun.

You can reduce life to the basic function of reproducing but that doesn't mean the purpose of life is to reproduce. I'm making a distinction between the process of a function and the purpose of a function. Reproducing is a process of life but the purpose of life is simply to be alive.

I've been talking about philosophy from the start. I'm not sure you can talk about purpose in the sense I'm talking about without philosophy.

That’s exactly what I said. It isn’t any different. We all are animals whose "purpose" it is to survive and to reproduce. Everything we do somehow has something to do with one of these two. Knowledge and fulfillement are secondary factors which we made up that aren’t unique to humans.

I think there's a distinction to be made between the method life uses to perpetuates itself and its purpose in perpetuating itself.

Yes, the purpose in the sense you are talking about is to be alive which is survival. You can’t survive as a species if you don’t reproduce, so these two go hand in hand. There isn’t anything more to it.

There isn’t anything more mechanical than the universe. To see this realization as something negative is stupid. It is just the rejection of the naive thought that we would need more. We can keep telling ourselves some made up stories and reasons maybe to feel better (in the great picture useless and maybe even counterproductive) but that doesn’t make them real at all.

The reason you are referring to isn’t different to the reason I’m referring to. If we look at it now as highly developed animals you could think that they differ, but the process of evolution proves their equality. We exist because the generations of our ancestors had some advantage to the other iterations and species.

We are better than many of them, that’s why we are here. We want to countinue being better and existing, that’s why we want to reproduce and survive.

I don’t have anything more to say.

I feel like reducing life to reproduction is just ignoring the fact that it's alive. The reason I think the universe is more than mechanical is because it's alive. Or parts of it anyway. Lol

Being alive is a label invented by humanity to adress constructs and arrangements of matter that can react to its environment and sense things. Being alive doesn’t mean anything and doesn’t change the purpose of anything. Plants are alive. What is their purpose? Survival and reproduction. Many wouldn’t say the universe is alive but I think it could be just to slow to see, still there is no proof for that.

>My entire point is, I don't think humans have one set way of doing things and I don't think our purpose is simply to multiply. Sure from a biological standpoint that's how it was in the past. But going back to the hypothetical aliens made us argument, who's to say biological propagation (the desire to fuck and to be a parent) wasn't just a stepping stone to get us to a point where we're supposed to do something greater with the gift of life?

>Now I'm not saying that IS the case either, just pointing out that as it stands, we're too insignificant and ignorant to say definitively as OP put, "what you're really here for."

>Nobody knows what we're here for, and that's what makes studying our history, our genetics, our own minds, and the universe we inhabit so much fun.

Until everyone decides that and no one reproduces...

We can't live transcended beyond procreation, because once we stop procreating we go extinct.

If you meditate long enough, once you start starving in earnest you'll probably start seeing some really transcendent hallucinations before you drop dead. Maybe that's the only true pathway to heaven/eternal bliss... But I'm not going to try it. And I'll bet you're not going to try it. So maybe we should slow down on suggesting that all of humanity should do the rough equivalent as a species.

If I wanted to live by bad metaphysical musings, I'd pick a major religion. At least those generally aren't explicitly aimed at annihilation of humanity.

If life doesn't reproduce then there's no more life. If the purpose of life was to live, and then wink out and leave the universe sterile, then we wouldn't exist to be having this conversation.

I'm not "reducing" life to reproduction. I'm not saying life is reproduction. I'm saying that reproduction is part of the definition of life. So if you don't reproduce, you have missed out on part of the fundamental meaning of being alive.

Whew, excellent. Those 5 star toasters have this feature where they shut off at the first sign of a short. Now NOTHING will get in the way of your tub time toasting test.

According to Buddhist tradition and Tibetan literature it is important that we use our lives here and now to prepare for the journey we all must take called death and dying. Yes, it is important to live well and maintain the species, but we must never forget to also die well.

I was just asking if you had a child