A Rhetorical Question Concerning Existence

[amicus]

To establish my bonafides' and provide a foundation, let me stipulate that nihilism and existentialism, in general, reached the question, I am about to pose, and perhaps several conclusions, a priori, that is without the experience guiding their thoughts, before the following knowledge was available to mankind.

It is only in the past twenty or thirty years, give or take, that man has truly. 'dug up', his ancestors, in terms of carbon dated paleontology, ice core samples and solar observations that have turned science fiction into fact.

Those of you with truly curious minds, will most likely be aware of the few examples I am about to provide, spontaneously, from memory, no links provided, but I doubt few can offer an example I am not aware of.

(I hate ending a sentence with a preposition/conjunction!) ",of which I am not aware?"

1. Plate Tectonics: All the Continents on earth are in motion and have always been; were once all together as 'Pangaea', the 'super continent, and will one day happen again.

2. Earthquakes, volcanoes, tidal waves. of gigantic proportions have occurred before, and will again, just the, 'when' is not known, and could happen at any time causing millions of casualties, even with warning.

3. Pandemic, currently in the news, that have previously killed millions, and may again.

4. Solar Flares, that cause the Polar Borealis', of such intensity as to destroy all satellites in orbit and devastate surface electricity grids, destroying huge transformers that would take years to build again.

5. Cosmic Gamma Radiation from a distant Star going Nova or the intense energy beam from a, 'black hole', nearby and directed towards the earth by chance.

6. Reversing Magnetic Polarity, which has happened many times before and denuded the magnetosphere, thus destroying all life on earth with solar radiation unchecked by Earth's magnetic shield.

7. Comets, Asteroids, after Shumaker-Levy, that impacted Jupiter and are thought to have visited Earth many times and wiped out most life on earth.

8. "Snowball Earth", when the entire globe was encased in ice thousands of feet thick; happened before, they say, could happen again.

9. Global Thermo-Nuclear War, we could always play that game, which, I suspect, was the basis of many science fiction writers over the last half century; and during and following WW2, the meat of the Nihilists' and Existentialists. Or the bugbear, 'over-population', starvation, death and disease and that other fourth horseman of the Apocalypse.

10. I would add, 'Alien Invasion', as per the 'X-files', but, science has told us there are none in the neighborhood.

11. God gets really pissed and with 'its' middle finger, flicks us out of existence. But we can't seem to locate his residence in this Universe anyway.

A couple of tentative conclusions: We cannot migrate to another solar system until and if, we can expand the laws of physics to include surpassing the speed of light in a vacuum.

I most likely left out a few, E.L.E.'s, but, hey, not claiming perfection here.

Now, I know the answer to the, 'rhetorical question', I am about to pose, but what is your answer to, 'the meaning of life', taking into consideration the fragility illustrated above, and the total chaos, or unpredictability about the day after tomorrow?

Give us the full treatment here, please. The meaning and purpose of all the things that life is, love, sex, family, career, education, wisdom, age, health, the environment, the planet, your recommendations for man and society at large.

Spare me nothing.

Amicus

 

[slyc_willie]

We've been watching the same shows and looking into the same things, Ami. Not that I'm surprised. I swear, if the only channels available to the general public were History Channel and Discovery, the suicide rate would soar. Good thing we have TV Land and Sci Fi Channel to balance things out.

The meaning of life for me is rather simple: Learn all you can, and pass it down. Don't worry about immortality, because it ain't gonna happen. We all die, and we're all gonna be forgotten. Our immortality lasts only as long as the mortality of our race dictates.

Watching the first episode of the show "Life After People" was an interesting experience, to say the least. The show's creators did a good job of taking a very unlikely premise -- that all humans might suddenly disappear -- in an effort to show that, no matter how great we believe our civilization is, it too will crumble and vanish, leaving behind only our bones.

I know how you like the occasional film reference, Ami, so how about this: remember the movie A.I., with Haley Joel Osment? As an android boy, he ultimately becomes frozen in a submerged Coney Island, to be revived centuries or millennia by an inquisitive and benevolent alien race. They reveal that they have been able to replicate humans, but for some reason, they only live for a single day, albeit with all memories intact.

Quite a prophetic ending, that.

One of my long-ago published short stories concerned a small group of humans who escaped Earth before a cataclysm that wiped out life on our planet. As the only living humans left, they utilized an experimental engine that allowed them to travel to the nearest closest habitable planet, which happened to lie 22 light-years away. After arriving on a pristine, Eden-like world, they set to the all-important task of propagating the species . . . only to discover that, for some reason, none of the women could conceive. Becoming pregnant, and giving birth, apparently, could only happen on Earth. And Earth was a dead world.

Be a shame if that was the case, wouldn't it?

 

[amicus]

Thanks, Slyc, appreciate you reading my stuff, especially this one, it has been tumbling around for a while. I did and have watched the two you mentioned and seem to have read a story similar to yours.

I am going to purposely withhold any further comments on this thread until I sense how the discussion, if any, proceeds. Damn memory any way....I think it is the Foundation Triology...

"...The Foundation Series is an epic science fiction series by Isaac Asimov which covers a span of about 500 years. It consists of seven volumes that are closely linked to each other, although they can be read separately. The term "Foundation Series" is often used more..."

(I had to google to test my memory) I read that when I was a mere lad and do not recall much, but I think it deals with human life some 3,000 years hence.

Have you ever seen a film, "Logan's Run?

" "...Logan's Run is a novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. Published in 1967, it depicts a dystopian future society in which population and the consumption of resources is managed and maintained in equilibrium by...."

I thought that might have been written by someone else and I had to look to see...

regards...

ami

 

[slyc_willie]

Thanks, Slyc, appreciate you reading my stuff, especially this one, it has been tumbling around for a while. I did and have watched the two you mentioned and seem to have read a story similar to yours.

I am going to purposely withhold any further comments on this thread until I sense how the discussion, if any, proceeds. Damn memory any way....I think it is the Foundation Triology...

(I had to google to test my memory) I read that when I was a mere lad and do not recall much, but I think it deals with human life some 3,000 years hence.

Have you ever seen a film, "Logan's Run?

I thought that might have been written by someone else and I had to look to see...

regards...

ami

Hell, you might have read my story . . . it was published quite a while ago in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The first page was opposite one of Asimov's commentaries.

The Foundation series was an epic and original look into humanity's future. Like Arthur C. Clarke, Asimov did not see science as the be all and end all of human endeavor. One of the defining characteristics of humanity both those greats shared was an acceptance of "something else." But this isn't one of the atheist threads, so let's not bog down the gist of the spirit here.

Suffice to say that, as a young boy, I found a lot in common with Elijah Bailey.

As far as Logan's Run . . . I can't claim to be a red-blooded American geek if I wasn't deeply intimate with both the movie and novel. I have to say that I preferred the film's advancement of the age of Carousel from twenty-one to thirty. What fun would it be to come of age at sixteen, only to die five years later?

Like all good sci-fi, both the Foundation series and Logan's Run were social commentaries, best applicable to the time in which they were written. Not that Logan's Run wouldn't be relevant to our culture now, with its emphasis on staving off age through artificial means . . . .

 

[amicus]

How damned exciting it is to meet, at least online, another mind! Strangely enough, just a moment ago, I received a wonderful PM, from yet another rational, pragmatic and interesting mind.

I began emptying the local library's shelves of science fiction before I was ten years old, ya think it might have influenced thoughts in later life? Hell, I was an atheist before I could spell the word!

I was a voracious reader and, although I don't recall the years, I read every SF&F mag I could get my hands on, cover to cover, so I might well have read your story. Good on you!

The problem, at least for me, in reading so much science fiction, was that I became hard pressed to create a scenario that had not been written a dozen times before.

I have one I started a few years ago, "Fireflies" and another I am still working on, with sort of an Ann McCaffrey take on ESP, (her Rowan series), but with what we call, 'autistic' children, who hear voices in their heads.

I enjoy our long distance conversations...thank you.

Ami

 

[slyc_willie]

How damned exciting it is to meet, at least online, another mind! Strangely enough, just a moment ago, I received a wonderful PM, from yet another rational, pragmatic and interesting mind.

I began emptying the local library's shelves of science fiction before I was ten years old, ya think it might have influenced thoughts in later life? Hell, I was an atheist before I could spell the word!

I was a voracious reader and, although I don't recall the years, I read every SF&F mag I could get my hands on, cover to cover, so I might well have read your story. Good on you!

The problem, at least for me, in reading so much science fiction, was that I became hard pressed to create a scenario that had not been written a dozen times before.

I have one I started a few years ago, "Fireflies" and another I am still working on, with sort of an Ann McCaffrey take on ESP, (her Rowan series), but with what we call, 'autistic' children, who hear voices in their heads.

I enjoy our long distance conversations...thank you.

Ami

Hmm, autism . . . something I've become more and more knowledgeable about, considering the SO works with many such children. You know her, Ami, although you corresponded only briefly.

I can't speak much on McCaffrey, since I never really enjoyed her Pern series. At the time, I was more into Piers Anthony's Xanth Chronicles and the works of Robert Lynn Asprin and Poul Andersen. The Boat Of A Million Years was an incredible work.

Unfortunately, the hour grows late, my friend. Bed calls.

We'll see what's become of this thread this time tomorrow night.

 

[amicus]

Please convey my greetings to your SO, Slyc and this gives me the opportunity to add a little something:

This is an unique time in the history of man, considering the totality of the knowledge gained since basically the computer revolution.

When, before, the knowledgeable could properly stand in awe of mankind's ignorance and that left to be learned, but now, is it awe, or fear, or foreboding, this accumulated knowledge mankind has acquired?

In a sense, it has come full circle, from fear of God, concerning our existence, to fear of knowledge, for the same reason.

That was the original 'rhetorical' question I wanted to pose; a strange coexistence with science and faith when they both produce the same result?

Even so, the question seems lacking somehow.

Ami

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

We want immortality and want our fingerprints on everything.

 

[kendo1]

Macroscope

Adept series

 

[xssve]

Love, sex, family, career, education, wisdom, age, health, the environment, the planet.

 

[xssve]

We want immortality and want our fingerprints on everything.

And a Man sat alone, drenched deep in sadness. And all the animals drew near to him and said, "We do not like to see you so sad. Ask us for whatever you wish and you shall have it." The Man said, "I want to have good sight." The vulture replied, "You shall have mine." The Man said, "I want to be strong." The jaguar said, "You shall be strong like me." Then the Man said, "I long to know the secrets of the earth." The serpent replied, "I will show them to you." And so it went with all the animals. And when the Man had all the gifts that they could give, he left. Then the owl said to the other animals, "Now the Man knows much, he'll be able to do many things. Suddenly I am afraid." The deer said, "The Man has all that he needs. Now his sadness will stop." But the owl replied, "No. I saw a hole in the Man, deep like a hunger he will never fill. It is what makes him sad and what makes him want. He will go on taking and taking, until one day the World will say, 'I am no more and I have nothing left to give.'"​

Apocalypto

 

[dr_mabeuse]

"Meaning" is not an intrinsic property of the universe.

Meaning is not something things have; meaning is something that humans bestow on them.

 

[amicus]

"Meaning" is not an intrinsic property of the universe.

Meaning is not something things have; meaning is something that humans bestow on them.

~~~

That is a curious response as it was self evident that, 'human life', is the object of my essay.

Even so, astronomers and analytical scientists have identified 'star nurseries' where new stars, suns, of all shapes and sizes, are constantly being born, live, and die. Observed by any sentient being, other than human if you insist, there is both purpose and meaning in the physical attributes of the Universe.

I believe it was Ann McCaffrey who penned a story about a, 'sentient' planet. Even some of our rabid environmentalists anthromorphize, 'Mother Earth', attributing human action as injurious to the planet.

And of course, it was not the, 'universe' to which I postulated meaning and purpose, but man, and I seriously question that you doubt the individual human life has 'meaning and purpose', inherent in the existence of life.

In a way, that is precisely the 'purpose' of this essay, to define the meaning and purpose of human life in view of accumulated knowledge that tends to indicate that it may indeed be transitory in nature, as with all things.

Sans a divine entity; where does man turn, to establish meaning and purpose to his life?

Or, since I stated, 'spare me nothing', if it is your conclusion that their is no intrinsic meaning or purpose to life, perhaps you would say that?

Amicus

 

[CharleyH]

Spare me nothing.

Amicus

The moment of death is as you face it. Death is as you imagine it. Life means only so long as you live it, so LIVE IT!

 

[amicus]

]We want immortality and want our fingerprints on everything[/I].

~~~

Immortality is perhaps within the grasp of man, Heinlein's, "Time Enough For Love", if memory serves; Lazarus Long, lived 2500 years and could have continued forever but tired of living, until he was rejuvenated as a woman; heh, God forbid!

And, 'having fingerprints on everything', is one of the adorable inherent characteristics of the species, a curious mind, fed by sensory input and, ahm, fingers work well at that.

Ami

 

[amicus]

5]The moment of death is as you face it. Death is as you imagine it. Life means only so long as you live it, so LIVE IT![/I]

~~~

Oh, my, yes, CharlieH, live it indeed....but....(there is always a 'but'))), how? And why? I mean I have been a cloistered Monk, all my life, never tasted a woman's flesh and do not care to; I am quite content observing the shadows cast by a dung fire on the walls of my cave.

Join me?



ami

 

[harrlequin]

I may not have the education to participate in your threads, Ami, but I love to read them.

 

[CharleyH]

~~~

Oh, my, yes, CharlieH, live it indeed....but....(there is always a 'but'))), how? And why? I mean I have been a cloistered Monk, all my life, never tasted a woman's flesh and do not care to; I am quite content observing the shadows cast by a dung fire on the walls of my cave.

Join me?



ami

There are no buts, Ami. As previously said, the meaning of life is to live as fully and as completely as we can.

 

[amicus]

]There are no buts, Ami. As previously said, the meaning of life is to live as fully and as completely as we can.[/I]

~~~

Actually, that is quite a good answer, CharlieH, may I attempt to tease you into expanding it?

Such as a definition of what you mean by, 'fully and completely?' And, 'as we can'; can or may, or might or choose?

There are so many choices when all restrictions are lifted, so many women, so little time.



ami

 

[amicus]

I may not have the education to participate in your threads, Ami, but I love to read them.

~~~

You perhaps underestimate yourself, harrlequin. After a decade of intense learning, I set forth across the countryside of both America and Europe and, I think it will not surprise you, when I say I learned more from the people I met along the way in my travels than I ever did at University.

I do, however, thank you for your brief note and your generous comment, I trust you are happy and well and remain that way.

regards..

Ami

 

[CharleyH]

There are so many choices when all restrictions are lifted, so many women, so little time.



ami

Oh, stop berating me for being female! Any conversation with you is silly.

 

[harrlequin]

~~~

You perhaps underestimate yourself, harrlequin. After a decade of intense learning, I set forth across the countryside of both America and Europe and, I think it will not surprise you, when I say I learned more from the people I met along the way in my travels than I ever did at University.

I do, however, thank you for your brief note and your generous comment, I trust you are happy and well and remain that way.

regards..

Ami

Thank you, Ami. *curtsey*

 

[amicus]

]Oh, stop berating me for being female! Any conversation with you is silly[/I].

~~~


Ah, Charley, your claws extended prematurely, I was referring to my own choices of how to 'fully live', my life...once upon a time in Hawaii, being footloose & fancy free, on radio and TV, I dated a different woman every night, sometimes two in one night, one for dinner, one for a nightcap and my complaint was self directed, "so many lovely girls, so little time to spend on each and, ya just can't love 'em all, try as one might."



toodles

 

[CharleyH]

~~~


Ah, Charley, your claws extended prematurely, I was referring to my own choices of how to 'fully live', my life...once upon a time in Hawaii, being footloose & fancy free, on radio and TV, I dated a different woman every night, sometimes two in one night, one for dinner, one for a nightcap and my complaint was self directed, "so many lovely girls, so little time to spend on each and, ya just can't love 'em all, try as one might."



toodles

I am not angry or confused, Ami. Don't worry so much, but it is sweet that you do ... worry, that is.

The meaning of life? It is to live it as fully and as beautifully as one can. Edit to add, and as completely as is possible.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

"Meaning" is not an intrinsic property of the universe.

Meaning is not something things have; meaning is something that humans bestow on them.

Meaning adds utility to things, and method rescues the universe from madness. The map, of course, is not the thing it represents, but maps are useful.