# What is the point of living if we're all going to die?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-living-if-were-all-going-to-die/829123
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [February 7, 2019, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-living-if-were-all-going-to-die/829123 "2019-02-07T15:06:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2019, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-living-if-were-all-going-to-die/829123/21 "2019-02-07T18:10:45Z")
What would be the point of living if there’s an afterlife?
Like, you live and create your memories and personality, and then you die, and go on to some sort of eternal existence.
And what’s the point of the eternal existence? You’re supposed to sit on a cloud and play a harp? Contemplate God? Experience eternal punishment for your failures?
What’s the point of an afterlife? God decreed that there was a point? Who died and made God God? Why does God get to dictate what the purpose of existence is? OK, he’s God, but so what?
The good news for me is that if our existence is meaningless, then getting upset about the meaninglessness of life is meaningless. Your depression over the meaninglessness of it all is meaningless. So why bother getting depressed over it? Why bother doing anything?
The real reason people bother to do anything is that we’re creatures that evolved over billions of years to survive and reproduce, and the creatures that didn’t bother to survive and reproduce didn’t. And so we have inherited a complex system of behaviors and internal states because that’s what allowed our ancestors to create us. Why does it feel good to eat a nice dinner, have sex, care for your children, look at a sunset? Because those are the things that meant survival. But you don’t have to do any of that. You could curl up in a ball and weep, and it would mean just as much as enjoying dinner with your spouse and then getting some snuggle time. It’s all meaningless, in a cosmic sense.
But it’s not meaningless to me, because I’m on the inside. I have needs and desires that I didn’t choose, but were imposed on me by evolution. I don’t need to act on those behaviors. I could refuse to eat, refuse to come in out of the rain, refuse to get out of the way of the oncoming traffic, refuse to breathe. And then I’d die, and nothing would happen, because my death would be just as meaningless as my life.
So do whatever you want. You’re free! The meaninglessness of life shouldn’t make you suffer, because it’s meaningless. Your suffering is just as meaningless as your joy. The only thing is, I prefer happiness to suffering, because that’s the kind of organism I am. And so I choose the meaningless happiness over the meaningless suffering. You don’t have to do that, but don’t expect me to get all upset when you deliberately make yourself miserable over something as meaningless as the meaninglessness of life.
---
### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2019, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-living-if-were-all-going-to-die/829123/22 "2019-02-07T18:11:44Z")
> [@senoy](#):
>
> If our goal is simply joy, then why not spend our days as high as we can for as long as we can until the money runs out or the highs stop working and then OD in one last glorious orgasmic state? There’s nothing that’s going to make you as happy as heroin.
It sounds like you’re treating “joy,” “happiness,” and “pleasure” as synonymous. (As opposed to, for example, [C. S. Lewis’s use of the word](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/09/unseen-cs-lewis-letter-defines-joy-surprised-by-joy).)
---
### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2019, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-living-if-were-all-going-to-die/829123/23 "2019-02-07T18:17:53Z")
Observe your dog for enlightenment on this subject. Dogs of course have no understanding of such existentialist concepts, but that’s precisely the point; if they did, their lives would be much the worse for it. Observe your dog: observe his pure joy when you arrive home, his boundless joy at the prospect of a walk or a run in the park, undiminished and untroubled by any thoughts about the purpose of his life.
I love this quote by the wonderful writer Wendell Berry:
\*“When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and I am free.” \*
I believe that there is actually much wisdom in the way that dogs and other intelligent animals approach life. Not only are they untroubled by existentialist angst and thus well equipped to enjoy life to the fullest, but there is anecdotal evidence that they also have a deeply ingrained primal understanding of death, and will calmly choose that path when they feel it’s time, such as in the face of debilitating illness. I’ve read all the stories, but I’ve also seen it myself, in a deeply moving way that still brings tears to my eyes.
---
### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2019, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-living-if-were-all-going-to-die/829123/24 "2019-02-07T18:36:20Z")
He who dies with the most toys, wins.
Or maybe not.
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### Author:  [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2019, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-living-if-were-all-going-to-die/829123/25 "2019-02-07T18:49:57Z")
“I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don’t want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment.”
–Woody Allen
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### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2019, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-living-if-were-all-going-to-die/829123/26 "2019-02-07T19:29:12Z")
The point of living is to enjoy the life you have. You only get the one, and that’s fine - make it fun while it lasts.
---
### Author:  [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2019, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-living-if-were-all-going-to-die/829123/27 "2019-02-07T19:43:04Z")
Personally I consider it my goal to piss off all the people who have wanted me dead, or its related never-born, for as long as possible.
---
### Author:  [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2019, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-living-if-were-all-going-to-die/829123/28 "2019-02-07T19:50:04Z")
> [@senoy](#):
>
> My problem with this is ‘enjoy.’ If you posit the point is to experience rarity, why put ‘enjoy’ in there? We know that joy is just a chemical reaction that is an attempt to maintain the coherence of the system. There is no value to it, any more than there is value in suffering or ennui. If your goal is rarity of experience, then joy is illogical to seek since that’s what all the other humans are seeking and their bodies are telling them to do. Rarity would be rebelling against joy. Experiencing the rare might not be a joyful experience. If novelty is the point, then your goal should be mixing drugs for new emotions or doing things that have never been done - and I would posit most of those involve more suffering than joy. Thousands of people have climbed Mount Everest, how many have had their testicals torn off by an anglerfish?
I’m not sure I understand your version of rarity. You have never before been _you_. You have never experienced what you’re currently experiencing. No one ever has, and no one ever will. That’s not rare, it’s _unique_. And it has nothing at all to do with what other people have experienced.
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### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2019, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-living-if-were-all-going-to-die/829123/29 "2019-02-07T19:54:59Z")
> [@andros](#):
>
> I’m not sure I understand your version of rarity. You have never before been _you_. You have never experienced what you’re currently experiencing. No one ever has, and no one ever will. That’s not rare, it’s _unique_. And it has nothing at all to do with what other people have experienced.
I experience the same things over and over all the time.
---
### Author:  [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2019, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-living-if-were-all-going-to-die/829123/30 "2019-02-07T19:56:55Z")
> **[If we all end up dying, what’s the purpose of living?](https://www.quora.com/If-we-all-end-up-dying-what-s-the-purpose-of-living)**
>
> Answer (1 of 1277): As far as we know, none of us asked to be born.
>
> But what if we were, each one of us?
>
> I’ve pondered this question, posited to me by a friend who has a master’s degree in comparative religion (undergraduate degree: philosophy).
>
> I...
"Same purpose every creature that has ever live has had… to pass on your genes and ensure the survival of your offspring so the unbroken chain of survivors from the first single celled bacteria to you, continues. Honour the struggle of billions of individual ancestors of yours by contuing the unbroken chain of survivors that has lead to you, right now, right here. This is a fundamental reality written into every single one of the many billions of cells in your body.
You can then also have a good time generally or maybe try to learn a few things about the universe or whatever whilst you are around. But these are optional really and don’t stress too much about these because plenty of creatures from small marsupials to really stupid humans don’t bother with this bit… people tell you stuff like ‘be happy’ but this is just a state of being we use to describe some hormones in the brain. You can hack that shit quite easily, with a line of cocaine for example. It’s not the purpose of your existence, just a pleasant way to get through it."
---
### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2019, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-living-if-were-all-going-to-die/829123/31 "2019-02-07T20:00:43Z")
> [@Dropo](#):
>
> [https://www.quora.com/If-we-all-end-up-dying-what-s-the-purpose-of-living](https://www.quora.com/If-we-all-end-up-dying-what-s-the-purpose-of-living)
>
> "Same purpose every creature that has ever live has had… to pass on your genes and ensure the survival of your offspring so the unbroken chain of survivors from the first single celled bacteria to you, continues. Honour the struggle of billions of individual ancestors of yours by contuing the unbroken chain of survivors that has lead to you, right now, right here. This is a fundamental reality written into every single one of the many billions of cells in your body.
>
> You can then also have a good time generally or maybe try to learn a few things about the universe or whatever whilst you are around. But these are optional really and don’t stress too much about these because plenty of creatures from small marsupials to really stupid humans don’t bother with this bit… people tell you stuff like ‘be happy’ but this is just a state of being we use to describe some hormones in the brain. You can hack that shit quite easily, with a line of cocaine for example. It’s not the purpose of your existence, just a pleasant way to get through it."
This makes the rather bold presumption that the propagation of the species matters. Sure, we’re around because it does happen and has happened to date, but that’s merely a causal chain of events. It doesn’t mean that nothing else matters, or even that nothing else is more important.
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2019, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-living-if-were-all-going-to-die/829123/32 "2019-02-07T20:03:21Z")
You should _really_ enjoy reading [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_an_expanding_universe).
---
### Author:  [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2019, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-living-if-were-all-going-to-die/829123/33 "2019-02-07T20:07:05Z")
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> I experience the same things over and over all the time.
Respectfully, you don’t. Similar, sure. But not the same. You’ve never before been the precise age you are now, f’rinstance, and never will be again. You’ve never had the precise set of past experiences you have now, and never will again. Every instant of your life is literally unique in all of space and time.
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### Author:  [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2019, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-living-if-were-all-going-to-die/829123/34 "2019-02-07T21:03:55Z")
> [@andros](#):
>
> I’m not sure I understand your version of rarity. You have never before been _you_. You have never experienced what you’re currently experiencing. No one ever has, and no one ever will. That’s not rare, it’s _unique_. And it has nothing at all to do with what other people have experienced.
That’s not particularly rare. If i go to the beach, I don’t pick up a grain of sand and say, “Ah, what a unique grain of sand.” It is the result of processes which behave similarly across a large sample set. There is little about that grain of sand which possesses value and its existence or non-existence is a matter of approximately zero consequence. Humanity is no different. We’re simply the result of uncaring processes and our individual value is a matter of approximately zero consequence. Your perceived uniqueness is simply the result of your body sending signals that prioritize your existence over others because that happened to be the way your ‘selfish genes’ survived. Realistically, your uniqueness in comparison to other people is largely trivial. That’s why our behaviour is so predictable.
Here’s a thought study. Name your great-grandparents. Some people can, but most of us can’t name all 8 and even fewer can say much about them beyond their names and possibly occupations. These are some of the most important people to your existence who likely died only a very short time before your birth and you likely know more about your dog or Megan Markle than you do those people. You are those people. They had the same thoughts, hopes, dreams, etc. as you do now and they mean less to their own descendent than whomever the new Bachelor is. If they had died of smallpox as children, the world would not be appreciably different. Sure, you wouldn’t be here, but you also wouldn’t be around to complain. There are an infinite number of combinations of people that aren’t here and we don’t spend much time bemoaning their lack of being. If you were to get hit by a bus ten minutes from now, the implications are basically zero.
---
### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2019, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-living-if-were-all-going-to-die/829123/35 "2019-02-07T21:06:58Z")
> [@andros](#):
>
> Respectfully, you don’t. Similar, sure. But not the same. You’ve never before been the precise age you are now, f’rinstance, and never will be again. You’ve never had the precise set of past experiences you have now, and never will again. Every instant of your life is literally unique in all of space and time.
And the differences between the experiences are so inconsequential that they don’t matter _at all_.
Which is not to say that it’s a problem that I have repeated experiences - I’m not of the opinion that being unique imparts value. That’s actually a silly notion to me - how would it work? No, the closest you could get would be if novelty somehow made you happy for personal reasons - in which case it’s not the novelty that has value, it’s the happiness it imparts.
And I can get happiness from doing things even if I’ve done them before, so that’s all cool.
---
### Author:  [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2019, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-living-if-were-all-going-to-die/829123/36 "2019-02-07T21:15:04Z")
> [@senoy](#):
>
> That’s not particularly rare. If i go to the beach, I don’t pick up a grain of sand and say, “Ah, what a unique grain of sand.” It is the result of processes which behave similarly across a large sample set. There is little about that grain of sand which possesses value and its existence or non-existence is a matter of approximately zero consequence. Humanity is no different. We’re simply the result of uncaring processes and our individual value is a matter of approximately zero consequence. Your perceived uniqueness is simply the result of your body sending signals that prioritize your existence over others because that happened to be the way your ‘selfish genes’ survived. Realistically, your uniqueness in comparison to other people is largely trivial. That’s why our behaviour is so predictable.
>
> Here’s a thought study. Name your great-grandparents. Some people can, but most of us can’t name all 8 and even fewer can say much about them beyond their names and possibly occupations. These are some of the most important people to your existence who likely died only a very short time before your birth and you likely know more about your dog or Megan Markle than you do those people. You are those people. They had the same thoughts, hopes, dreams, etc. as you do now and they mean less to their own descendent than whomever the new Bachelor is. If they had died of smallpox as children, the world would not be appreciably different. Sure, you wouldn’t be here, but you also wouldn’t be around to complain. There are an infinite number of combinations of people that aren’t here and we don’t spend much time bemoaning their lack of being. If you were to get hit by a bus ten minutes from now, the implications are basically zero.
You have a gift for putting things in perspective. 😃
---
### Author:  [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2019, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-living-if-were-all-going-to-die/829123/37 "2019-02-07T21:54:20Z")
> [@senoy](#):
>
> That’s not particularly rare. If i go to the beach, I don’t pick up a grain of sand and say, “Ah, what a unique grain of sand.”
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> And the differences between the experiences are so inconsequential that they don’t matter _at all_…
You make that choice, certainly. Me, I find the idea of pure uniqueness in all of space and time almost dizzying, and an excellent antidote to the daily grind of meaninglessness. :shrug: Ain’t gonna yuck your yum.
That said, however,
> [@senoy](#):
>
> …It is the result of processes which behave similarly across a large sample set. There is little about that grain of sand which possesses value and its existence or non-existence is a matter of approximately zero consequence. Humanity is no different. We’re simply the result of uncaring processes and our individual value is a matter of approximately zero consequence. Your perceived uniqueness is simply the result of your body sending signals that prioritize your existence over others because that happened to be the way your ‘selfish genes’ survived. Realistically, your uniqueness in comparison to other people is largely trivial. That’s why our behaviour is so predictable.
>
> Here’s a thought study. Name your great-grandparents. Some people can, but most of us can’t name all 8 and even fewer can say much about them beyond their names and possibly occupations. These are some of the most important people to your existence who likely died only a very short time before your birth and you likely know more about your dog or Megan Markle than you do those people. You are those people. They had the same thoughts, hopes, dreams, etc. as you do now and they mean less to their own descendent than whomever the new Bachelor is. If they had died of smallpox as children, the world would not be appreciably different. Sure, you wouldn’t be here, but you also wouldn’t be around to complain. There are an infinite number of combinations of people that aren’t here and we don’t spend much time bemoaning their lack of being. If you were to get hit by a bus ten minutes from now, the implications are basically zero.
I’m not certain I follow your point. Are you arguing \*against \*the idea of individual meaning in an infinite and uncaring universe? I mean, yeah, no shit, we’re going to die and it won’t matter at all. And?
---
### Author:  [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2019, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-living-if-were-all-going-to-die/829123/38 "2019-02-07T22:03:23Z")
**Senoy’s** like the human manifestation of the Total Perspective Vortex…
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2019, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-living-if-were-all-going-to-die/829123/39 "2019-02-07T22:11:28Z")
> [@senoy](#):
>
> If you’re excluding transcendence, then there is no point. There is no difference between you dying today, tomorrow or having never been born. You’re simply a random collection of interacting chemicals that mysteriously happens to know that in some weird way it forms a system. There are trillions of similar systems so your particular system is not particularly unique or important. When your system is no longer able to remain coherent, other systems will react to this dissolution, but their reaction is not unique and they may have similar reactions to the loss of a dog, their shelter or even their favorite book or childhood belonging. They too will cease to be in an extremely short amount of time taking those reactions with them. Eventually, the fact that at one time your particular system existed will have such little impact on the world that your existence or lack thereof is basically the same as throwing a rock in a pond and looking for the ripples two years later.
I just finished a 3,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. Every piece I put in was trivial in terms of the whole puzzle, but the whole puzzle could not be finished without me putting in every one of those trivial pieces.
I’ve worked on big projects. Each person in it might have had a small bit of the project, but the project could not exist without all (or most) of them.
Perhaps some people could vanish without anyone knowing, but I bet most or almost all people add to the world. Having kids definitely changes the world. But you are probably not aware of your influence. I’ve met people who were influenced by papers I wrote - one of them who was in a secret Soviet project, so it might all be a good influence.
Thinking one has no impact really boils down to solipism.
---
### Author:  [@HelenGawn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HelenGawn)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2019, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-point-of-living-if-were-all-going-to-die/829123/40 "2019-02-07T22:14:26Z")
> [@scarface54345](#):
>
> I’ve started to get this feeling “what is the point of living life if eventually we’ll all die”? And furthermore, I got another question. If we die, doesn’t everything come to an end? Don’t you lose memory of absolutely everything you’ve done in life? So in other words, what’s the point of doing things in life if we’re all going to eventually die and never even remember what we’ve done? Maybe other people might but would you personally have remembered this upon your death? I’m talking in a non-religious point of view. From a scientific logical point of view, everything you’ve done in life comes to an end and you cannot even backtrack anything to trace your memories or whatnot. I don’t believe that scientifically there is a such thing as “afterlife” or whatnot.
>
> So really, I got extremely depressed over the past few days thinking about this question. I mean you can be the richest person in the world right now but in probably ~80 years, you’ll completely forget about that. Or otherwise you can live in total misery and poverty but you’ll forget about it maybe 50 years later.
>
> So this question has struck my head really hard. I felt like I didn’t want to do anything. What is the actual point of life if we’re all going to die no matter what we have accomplished?
[To be part of the glorious circle of life.](http://www.eliteskills.com/analysis_poetry/nobody_loses_all_the_time_X_by_e_e_cummings_analysis.php) Not to pick on you, **Senoy,** but I find this point of view rather egotistical - even when I’ve felt it. Why should anyone’s accomplishments grant them eternal life? From a scientific angle, you won’t remember or forget anything. If you want immortality, quit focusing on your ultimately trivial consciousness; as has been said above, it’s just one small part of the mechanism of passing on genes. Even if _your_ genes pass without fanfare, your molecules go back to circulating. And when life itself passes and the earth is swallowed by the expanding sun and the sun implodes, that matter becomes energy in the universe. Starstuff we came from, to starstuff we return.
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