Ask HN: Do you Consider Life to be Futile

Usually if you enjoy your live you don't stop to ask if it's futile or not. When life is hard or boring... that's when such questions usually arise.

So... I don't what to assume to much, but if life is too boring, you CAN make it better. It's not futile. The general strategy seems to be to 1) get skills, 2) get paid for those skills, 3) have free time, 4) figure out what's interesting to you and spend time and money doing that. Many people have problems figuring out each of these steps, but they're all solvable.

This presumes that life has its own predefined explanation that all organisms must obey. But:

1. Evolution by natural selection contradicts the idea that life has a predefined explanation, and evolution is one of the most powerful and well-supported of scientific theories.

2. As thinking creatures, we get to use our intelligence to decide for ourselves what our lives mean. This is the personal version of natural selection.

So, on that basis, if you have the idea that life is futile, just come up with a new idea. This intellectual latitude is what separates you from a rock.

> And please don't bring uncertain entities(like God) or concepts.

Wouldn't dream of it. God (religion) is one of the classic traps that makes life seem to have a predefined meaning, one not in our control. On that basis alone it should be rejected by all free thinkers.

In ten years that might mean having kids, right now it means trying to set myself up so I can focus on making a real difference when I figure out how to make the world a little bit less fucked.

Like I said, I dont think anyone can argue this without first assuming their view is somewhat correct in the first place. All of the above is just my views on this topic. Take it or leave it I'm not really fussed, just thought I would share.

We potentially don't have a 'purpose'. But why do you need a 'purpose'? Does the moon have 'purpose' too? Will a Blazar be 'evil' if it destroys us with its gamma radiation someday? The human brain is wired to find purpose behind simple things. This simple 'feature' has helped us come so far. It helps us while dealing with the social/human/biological order of things. Why does the US government have this policy? Why did facebook buy WhatsApp? Why is an elephant so big? These are reasonable questions. But it doesn't apply to the natural order...why are we here? Why does the earth exist? Of course, "how we got here" is a relevant scientific question. But "why" is probably not.

Look at the irony. The human brain is arguably the most important thing in the universe. Despite that fact, it is potentially 'futile'. Probably, there is nothing in the universe which is not 'futile'.

You can't alter the universe. But you can alter the race which has the potential to alter the universe. So help the human race get there.

just my 2 cents.

I'm really on here just trying to get a job. wktdev [at] gee mail

1) Read "The Conquest of Happiness" by Bertrand Russell. It really helped me.

2) If you have the gift of building stuff, a good purpose of life is to build bridges. I don't mean to connect people together. Think of a tribe on an island. The island has another island beside it. People might be able to get from their home island to another, but it is a pain. When someone (maybe me, maybe you) builds a bridge to the other land, all of society gains a little bit. If the bridge is solid, maybe it will last for generations. People will go about their business but their lives will be somewhat improved by the bridge. This is one of the reasons I like to write software. My attitude has caused me some problems in my career. I'm a scientist and I should not be writing software most of the time. But whatever, that's what gives my life meaning.

There are no elegant arguments. Eventually you'll find a book, an idea, or an experience that speaks to you ... and that will make you comfortable in not knowing.

"incapable of producing any useful result; pointless."

As I feared, it begs the question: what is considered useful?

If it is leaving the world a better (healthier, more peaceful, more ccmfrtable) place than when you found it, no, life is not futile.

If the goal is personal happiness or at least contentment, no, life is not futile, though it certainly feels that way during clinical depression. (Long, dark winters can do that -- look up S.A.D.)

    Life's a bitch and then you die
    That's why we get high
    Cause you never know when you're gonna go
    Life's a bitch and then you die
    That's why we puff lye
    Cause you never know when you're gonna go

Cells are the basic building blocks of life. We are made up of trillions of cells. If each cell were "conscious", they would think of you the same way we think of the interconnected consciousness of the 7 billion humans on this planet.

What I'm trying to say is that there are layers upon layers of "life". I believe it goes on endlessly in both directions and sometimes we get trapped into thinking too much about "I" or "me".

Life is what it is. Enjoy the fact that you're able to see and undertand a very small glimpse of it. That is truly a miracle.

Therefore, all we can be is matter that obeys the laws of physics. That's all we can be - nothing more.

In particular, it is impossible that we have any kind of free will or real choice. Matter that obeys the laws of physics doesn't choose anything - it just obeys the laws of physics.

Love (in the real sense, that of choosing to do what's best for the other person) is impossible, because choosing is impossible.

And you can keep going down the list. Everything that we think of as making us human is dead, and we are just machines made of atoms biochemicals, and neurons. We're slaves to the laws of physics.

If that's the case, then what kind of meaning is possible? Even meaning that we make for ourselves, we're making as robots.

There lies the horror of modern humanity. We have all these human aspirations, including the longing for meaning, but we don't believe that what we long for is at all possible. The impersonal universe, creating us by chance, has made us with desires but with no way to fulfill them. What a horror we are trapped in!

You have asked that we not bring God in. But at this point, you kind of have to, because the existence of God would totally change this picture. If there is a God, and if God is a He rather than an It, then personality can a real thing, rather than just a "ghost in the machine". And if He made humans, then human personality can also be real rather than just a facade that emerges from complex mechanistic behavior.

So that's the alternative: Either you were created as a cruel joke by an impersonal, mechanistic universe, or as a true personality by a God who is a person. Now to my point: I assert that your desire for meaning is not just a cruel joke. It is evidence - evidence that you are more than the materialist view says that you can be.

Commence hellbanning in 5, 4, 3...

Life is beautiful (to the average human) in so many ways. Anyone who can read and contemplate this kind of post has won the greatest lottery in the universe, and those winnings shouldn't be squandered on worry and complaint.