These are some thoughts I’ve had for a long time and I just wanted to see if anyone else has anything to offer on them.
Despite the fact that we possess a cerebral cortex, we are not much different from animals in the sense that we simply exist to reproduce. Our sole function is to survive in order to reproduce and survive to nurture our offspring until they reproduce, thus completing the link in an endless chain. The programming and hardwiring of our machine, our body, is geared towards survival. Our body is essentially a self-sustaining machine. Our organs repair themselves when damaged and are constantly functioning to ensure that we do. Our hunger makes sure to motivate us to feed, in order to sustain our bodies.
The only thing our cerebral cortex has provided for us is the creation of a more complex arena for these battles, more sophisticated weapons to fight with, more rules of engagement, and most importantly, the ability to create an illusion of purpose. Though we often try to create a higher purpose for ourselves, we only do so to make our existence seem more meaningful. At the end of the day, it’s simply about surviving.
Why do we live in groups? Because it improves our chances of survival. Why do we feel a bond with our family, the ones who clothe, feed, and shelter us? Because they help ensure our survival. Why do we wage wars? To gain power. Why do we want to gain power? To survive. And naturally, our biological urges will push us to reproduce. Looking past the complicated web of social appearances and internal complications, confusion, and abstractions, our existence is pointless beyond reproducing.
purpose is always synthetic - even the purpose of reproducing is something we assign to ourselves, being fully capable of deciding not to reproduce - but once you realize this, you should realize two further things:
If purpose is illusory or fake, then so is purposelessness - to critique purpose in negative sense by saying it is pointless is to beg the question: whatever purpose - or lack thereof - we experience is a product of our own volition.
The point to everything, then, can be whatever you want it to be - as weak or strong as you are capable of deciding it should be - if you choose that your only purpose in life is to reproduce, then that’s what it will be, but someone else may choose that their purpose in life is to be a billionaire, and that would be no more or less arbitrary. This choosing of purpose is one of the freedoms language grants us.
good post. you are correct that survival is our main drive and motivation, along with seeking power (these two are related of course, but its not as clear-cut as one before the other, in some instances drive for power underlies and gives meaning/context to the drive to survive, then again, sometimes its the opposite). basically, we have this biologically-based desire, call it survival or growth or power or adaptation, what have you. beyond that, all so-called meaning or purpose in life is artificial and dependent on/predicated by this primary drive-desire to survive/seek power.
yet that doesnt mean that all is"pointless", as you seem to think. your reaction/feeling is typical of the first glimpse “behind the curtain”, but dont give up, youre on the right track! perspective will come with time, just remain strong, make yourself and your will hard enough for these hard truths: life IS desire, drive to survive and seek power. there is nothing fundamental to life BUT this! it is in all life, from the molecule or cell on up to their larger and far more complex organic arrangements. perhaps this desire is even at the heart of all nonorganic matter as well, the fundamental physical force behind all “natural laws” and natural physical motion or energy. however, even if this is true, there still seems to be a difference between living and nonliving things fundamentally in the WAY that they act; it could be that living things are just a larger and more efficient/complete/refined/exact expression of this physical drive behind all reality itself.
either way, dont sink into nihilism or hopelessness! just because all human society and meaning is not “absolute” does not mean it does not exist! we need society, love, suffering, creative expression, work, leisure, passion, knowledge, religion and science and philosophizing, all the routine things about our lives that give it RELATIVE MEANING within the context of the life-desire itself. human meanings are not absolute, they are CREATED; and yet, remember that they are created FOR A REASON!
we need to work, think, produce, be creative, love, fight, create and destroy societies, argue politics and religion, create philosophical paradigms, believe or disbelieve in God… we need these things because presently as a species we could not live without them, they are OUR expression of desire for survival and power! they are the means by which we secure this survival and seeking of power, on a personal and species level.
so we can see that all human meaning is not “pointless”, it is conditional. human life itself is not pointless, it is conditional upon the underlying life-desire for survival and seeking power, which is inherent to all life (and perhaps all energy/matter everywhere). dont get discouraged or hopeless because you have “seen through the illusions”, because now you are free to begin the infinite exploration of what is real, of reality and human life and the nature of life and reality itself. you are free to see things in their respective place, and no longer in absolutes or in terms of irreducible primaries: you have gained perspective! just dont let the wonderous vision blind you! let it liberate you.
go about your life, dont avoid or condemn it or the meanings you create or aquire from others or society; use them as you must to survive and grow, thus ensuring optimal conditions for your own survival and seeking of personal power and efficacy/self-actualization… these are the necessary conditions of human existence. man presently needs his fictions and illusions and ‘wills to nothingness’, so dont despair them, because they are necessary-- just never forget to see through them even in their utility, use them as you wish but do so consciously, with full awareness of the grand scheme of things. and live for the future of humanity and the rise of the Overman, who will no longer need such constructed meanings and useful lies in the face of a cold, harsh and impersonal reality. one day man will affirm himself and all of existence AS IT IS, without smoke and mirrors and clever philosophical or religious lies.
we as individuals will never live to see that day. but we can be proud and satisfied in our species, in our type, that one day it will come, and we can make ourselves “ancestors of the Overman”, as Zarathustra says, which can indeed be our “highest calling”. so enjoy your life, live joyously and lightly, seek out knowledge and love and power and new experiences, expand your perspectives and awareness to new things and grand visions, RETUNE YOUR BODY AND MIND to vibrate in tune with reality itself rather than with the necessary illusions of human society… learn joy and love for your own insignificance and your own God-like power at the same time! but always remain aware of your personal emotional and mental limits, and expand yourself slowly, with care, so you do not lose yourself to insanity, schizophrenia or nihilistic existential despair. we are, after all, only human, and our psyche can only handle so much.
dont despair reality for being harsh, cruel or impersonal; embrace it, for precisely these reasons
Do not become dismayed that there is not an absolute purpose to legitimize and give meaning to the universe; as if it needed an excuse to exist!.
This is a mental disease that such religions as christianity have spread everywhere like an intellectual plague - one lives to deny and repudiate life in the hope of the transcendent; a “better” life, the afterlife.
Forget the absolute; seek a human meaning in life; your meaning.
Read the new thread I just posted in this forum, it basically refutes the whole “existence is pointless” argument.
“Why does the nihilist denounce all of life? To support his own ego and increase confidence in his own power, so he may survive better.”
You’re going to believe what you want to, but why crash other people down and disrupt their lives? Are you any better than them then?
Hi,
The whole idea of that life is a deterministic machine executed by some program has some operational value but, it has a weak explanatory value, precisely because it still has some conscious finality to it. Unless you forget about the programer?
If life was all about survival, we would never have evolved from single-celled organism. Single-celled organism can survive very well, thank you. I say survival—existence—is a form of power and a prerequisite for the acquisition of power.
Reproduction, too, is a form of power. The sexual drive is a form of the will to power. Hunger, too, is a form of it. The feeling of power (“joy”, “happiness”, “pleasure”, etc.) is what makes life good.
I don’t know that this statement is true. Maybe you have gotten some words confused. Just because an organism is driven by survival does not mean that it cannot experience mutations which increase the chances of its survival. Actually, this is perfectly logical (and as such, why Darwin developed his theory).
But, on the main topic. As everyone else has pretty well summed up, existence is whatever you want to make it. Yes, vincent_lee, you do point out that the only reason we are here is because we evolved from species which were driven by survival. However, personally I don’t like to think of reproduction as a ‘sole function’, which implies a purpose. Species which are driven by survival and can reproduce will be the only species to exist for long periods of time; it can be no other way. Imagine when life first started. If a couple of the first cells (species A) were not driven by survival, they would not care to reproduce, nor would they care to nourish themselves, and they would die out. Their genes would not be passed on. Consider the next species, B, which cannot reproduce. Their genes might program them to try their hardest to survive, but alas their genes also will not be passed on for lack of reproduction. Finally, consider species C. These creatures’ genes program them to survive at all costs, and also to reproduce as much as possible. By reproducing and passing these genes on, they inevitably create billions of more creatures with an undying will to survive and reproduce, and the cycle does not stop. (Oh, it’s also worth mentioning that all of this is happening under suitable living conditions.)
So basically, it cannot be any other way than to be programmed to survive and reproduce. Once a being is programmed like this, numerous other beings will arise with the same programming.
Fortunately, we evolved to overcome instinct and use logic. While I believe it is not necessarily “logical” to survive (don’t worry, I’ll explain this in another post), once we are born and use our minds to realize a life we have, we can apply logic to help ourselves survive for a reason OTHER than “I’m only hard-wired to do so.”
Existence precedes essence. Make your life’s purpose whatever you want. No, there is no ultimate collective purpose to existence, but who cares? You have yours. Make it.
ive been giving this question a lot of thought lately, specifically the relationship between power (Nietzsche’s will to power) and survival (the biological/evolutionary imperative to survive). Nietzsche states that the will to power is primary and is the cause of the survival drive(s); biology or evolutionary theory states that the survival drive is primary, and (implicitly) states that the survival drive is the cause of the will to power. after careful thought, i have decided that separating these two drives is what results in the one-sided view. both of these perspectives is only half right.
all life changes, moves, grows or fades, waxes or wanes, ocillates between extremes or polarizations, back and forth. not only life, but all energy does this as well, and conversely therefore, all matter and all forms composed of matter. it seems a truism that nothing is static, ever. this seems the basis for understanding the drives to survival and will to power… the lack of stasis, the impossibility of non-motion or changelessness seems the primary place to begin exploring what exactly is the fundamental single driving force behind all life and all reality itself.
it seems that this principle of action, i.e. the principle of the impossibility of changelessness/statis is the fundamental force itself , and all subsequence forces are manifestations of this single basic law of reality-- the survival instinct/drive behind all life, from the cellular or molecular level on up, results from this principle of action in combination with the need for organic energy-configurations such as lifeforms to differentiate from stimuli and select desirable from undesirable, in order to continue to exist in order that they multiply themselves: those entities which multiply themselves, via any means, transmit their specific form/configuration/rules/coding to a future form (the emergence of multiplicative/reproductive activity is resultant of the finitude and fragility of all ‘living’ configurations of matter-energy, in combination with the will to power itself– reproduction is initially an overflowing of power, of force, but this then becomes the means by which survivability and propensity to will to power growth over time resist dissolution and death)… therefore the “survival instinct” emerges, but is really just a result of two simple laws: the principle of action in conjunction with the law that only those living entities which successfully differentiate between desirable and undesirable stimuli will tend to reproduce/multiply themselves over time.
likewise, the will to power emerges as a combination of the principle of action and the survival drive. specifically, the actions taken via the survival instinct itself represent necessarily a power-seeking, an expanding of onesself, ones influence and ability to differentiate and exert influence/force over ones surroundings. this is a necessary prerequisite for survival, as we have seen. however, this ‘will to power’ is not merely in the service of survival itself, for the will to power is a force in its own right: it is created (or emerges) from the conjunction of the survival instinct with the principle of action, but once created it acts under its own power and direction, as do all forces, in resistance against other opposing or different forces around itself. the will to power acts WITHIN life urging it to saturate its possibilities for action/influence/power, to maximize itself within its environment(s), to sense potentials for growth and areas of potential influence and merge or flow into these lines of flight. in otherwords, the will to power is a deterrritorializing force which, while resultant of the fundamental principle of action in conjunction with the survivability drive, it is in fact conjured up BY the survivability drive as a necessary component of survival.
living entites tend to merge with will to power in that becoming an expression or avenue for will to power furthers survivability, in a direct relation to the level or completeness of the merging (this represents the further principle of overcoming/becoming that emerges via the direct interplay between the forces of survivability and will to power). THIS is the reason why life conglomerates and accumulates other life unto itself, digests and grows in size and complexity. it is true that simple single cell life can survive very well, and if survival were the only drive, it would never NEED to grow into organisms (it would never deterritorialize, it would only select), it would only need to compete on its level. but the drive to complexity and evolution results from the conjunction of the survival drive with the will to power, each of which is generated directly by the principle of action, and in reciprocality with one another and this principle itself.
This is my first post; ironically, I discovered what you have discovered, but I think I interpret it differently.
For example, I agree with everyone, because I see everything as being the same. Let’s not go into why I see everything as being the same; I wouldn’t be able to convince you of that in the same way you wouldn’t be able to convince or teach me anything that I didn’t want to know, or that you/I didn’t already know, because I believe that what you don’t know and what you know are the same thing.
Anyway, ignore that if you like, it is just another way of expressing the FEELING that you feel, and, by the looks of things, most people feel here. My interpretation, and I have a sneaky feeling that this will appeal to you too, is that we should appreciate that feeling. We should be amazed and awestruck and experience all manner of positive things like love to express ourselves. We could hate it by the same token; it wouldn’t be too difficult to let yourself slip into a depression. But, why do that when it is just a simple to feel love? It’s all about how you interpret the feeling. Perhaps thats what optimism is. It just comes naturally to me.
I think it will come fairly naturally to you too, if you let it.
Keep hoping. Don’t give up. You are right.
Fair enough. But if organisms are solely driven by survival, mutation alone must account for their development into more complex lifeforms. For the will to survival is the will to have one’s genes survive as they are.
Existence is not pointless. The modern western mindset is bankrupt. It can’t help you with this conundrum. But here we are discussing it. That at least presents us with the paradox that our minds tell us that life is purposeful and our culture tells us it is not. Who ya gonna believe?
According to Nietzsche, the will to power is the principle of action (“the most elemental fact from which a becoming and effecting first emerge” [WP 635]).
This again subordinates the will to power to the will to survival.
This doesn’t make sense. The will to power, for example, is both generated directly by the principle of action and in reciprocity with the survival drive??
By the way, do you have anything at all to say about the “principle of action”?
Sure, the principle of action is the same as the will to power. Here’s how I got to that conclusion (I didn’t originally intend on posting this up, because I don’t want anyone to think that I’m telling them anything; rather, I’m just explaining my point of view)
Okay, so I hit my existential crisis and looked at it this way:
If you are living, you exist
If you are dead, you still exist ; therefore, at their core, living and dying are the same: one cannot exist without the other.
But then you look at existence, and non-existence. In exactly the same way, there can’t be any such thing as existence without non-existence, right? So you write down your equation:
Existence= …?
Non-Existence = …?
But I don’t know what to fill in there! I have absolutely no idea, and so I took some advice from an extraordinarily intelligent bloke called William of Occam (Or Ockham, spelling is mostly irrelevant) who said, essentialy, don’t complicate it! The simplest answer is usually the right answer.
So, to me, the simplest answer was like saying
x=1
y= 1
Therefore, x=y (to use maths as an example)
And so,
Existence=non-existence
And similarly,
Will to power = principle of action
So, by that logic, everything must be, at their core, the same thing. And voila- you get the principle for the BIG BANG THEORY. And at the same time, you get the PRINCIPLE ON WHICH RELIGION IS BASED: that EVERYTHING stemmed from ONE. So, which ever way you look at it, you end up at the same conclusion: that everything is the same. It’s just out tiny weeny human brains can’t quite grasp that concept FULLY. I mean you can say “I understand how that works” like I do, but you can never say “I KNOW what it is that is the same.” And so, I reached the conclusion that frankly it doesn’t matter, because if I am you and you are me, then we both be mutually happy if we make each other happy. I feel happy helping other people, because it helps me. It’s so much easier to see the connection at that level that it is at a logical level, because feelings are so much stronger than logic. At least, they are for me.
Obviously, you may have different views, but you wouldn’t be able to convince me that you were, on principle, saying anything different to me. Just expressing it differently. And voila, the illusion of individuality is created. And people cling to illusions, or symbols to help them understand things. It’s very simple, and yet so very complicated.
Vincent, you might wanna keep it down with this whole secrets of the universe stuff. You just can’t go around spurting out answers to the masses like this. It’s just not done. We’ll let it go this time, but not without some reprimands. Your task, for the rest of your life, is to examine how your body-- and the environment around you- is surviving. Take note of all the little intricacies and their probable causal chains in this survival dance. On top of that, we would like you to come up with different ways conducive to survival – be it for you, or those around you. Be creative, you have a lifetime to work these kinks out. Good luck. I’d recommend you have fun, but then I’d be giving away a secret … or two, and we both know that’s a no no.
just dont let the wonderous vision blind you! let it liberate you.
