# Why are we alive?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [July 25, 2009, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200 "2009-07-25T04:36:02Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Nation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nation)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2009, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/1 "2009-07-25T04:36:02Z")
Seriously, whats the point? If there is no life after death or consequences for our actions, then whats the point of life? I dont mean “oh my life is terrible why am i alive i wish i were dead” shit, but the actual point of existing.
Animals will do just about anything to stay alive, or protect their young, but to what end? Just to procreate and keep the cycle going?
---
### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2009, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/2 "2009-07-25T04:44:19Z")
> [@Nation](#):
>
> Seriously, whats the point? If there is no life after death or consequences for our actions, then whats the point of life? I dont mean “oh my life is terrible why am i alive i wish i were dead” shit, but the actual point of existing.
Whatever we choose it to be.
What makes you think that it would be better to have been given a “point” by some god ? What’s desirable about being a tool or a toy ?
> [@Nation](#):
>
> Animals will do just about anything to stay alive, or protect their young, but to what end? Just to procreate and keep the cycle going?
Yes, but they’re animals. They don’t have the capacity to decide to make another purpose for themselves.
---
### Author:  [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2009, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/3 "2009-07-25T04:48:00Z")
Um, really? ::sigh:: OK, I’ll bite.
The whole thing is about the process. The purpose of life is to live it. Not necessarily to be “the best that you can be” but to be something. To become more distinctly yourself over time. To pay attention to what you are and to what you do. To be more when you die than you were 10 years before, and 20 years before, and so on. However you define those terms.
Lest this sound too self-indulgent or solipsist, you are obliged to do all these things in and with the real world as it really exists, with all that that entails.
Needless (I hope) to say, this is a topic that could easily occupy the proverbial five foot shelf of books. This is a very short \*precis \*of my view of the matter.
Good luck,
Roddy
---
### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2009, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/4 "2009-07-25T04:51:03Z")
Life is an end in itself; it doesn’t need any external justification. So you get to decide your own purpose and reason for existing.
---
### Author:  [@Nation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nation)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2009, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/5 "2009-07-25T04:51:12Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#):
>
> Whatever we choose it to be.
>
> What makes you think that it would be better to have been given a “point” by some god ? What’s desirable about being a tool or a toy ?
>
> Yes, but they’re animals. They don’t have the capacity to decide to make another purpose for themselves.
I didnt say it would be better to have a given point, and I can assure I’m no tool or toy of and god.
We’re ALL animals, we just have best brains to dream up all kinds of shit as to why we exist, or what we’re supposed to be doing, how we’re supposed to do it, you name it.
---
### Author:  [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2009, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/6 "2009-07-25T05:33:51Z")
Imagine a Universe where at least one species advances to the point that they understand time on a technological level. At that point, they are capable of cataloging every living thing and would be able to preserve it at the time of “death” (linear time ceases to have limitations).
---
### Author:  [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2009, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/7 "2009-07-25T05:43:05Z")
Read _The Selfish Gene_.
---
### Author:  [@Interconnected\_Series\_of\_Tubes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Interconnected_Series_of_Tubes)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2009, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/8 "2009-07-25T06:44:11Z")
> [@Nation](#):
>
> Animals will do just about anything to stay alive, or protect their young, but to what end? Just to procreate and keep the cycle going?
Yup.
I don’t know if you’re looking for some sort of existential debate, but the factual answer to your question can be easily explained by natural selection. Organisms that fight to survive, by snarling or biting or poisoning or multiplying rapidly or oozing lysing agents or evolving complex brains to innovate and dominate the globe tend to survive. Organisms that cheerfully coexist get scared, bitten, poisoned or out competed in short order. So what you’re left with are a bunch of grizzled, scumbag mercenary genes that do whatever it takes to survive.
So, yes: viruses, bacteria, cats, dogs and we all exist simply to procreate. That we can consciously decide not to, now…well. That’s an interesting (but different) question.
---
### Author:  [@Anomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anomie)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2009, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/9 "2009-07-25T06:44:39Z")
> [@Cisco](#):
>
> Read _The Selfish Gene_.
Yep.
We’re just mechanisms that have evolved to keep self-replicating chemicals replicating efficiently, in a given biological niche. We differ from other animals only to the extent that our most notable adaptation allows us to dominate pretty much every niche, and ask questions like the OP.
As for what to do with your life, the best suggestion I’ve ever heard was from Slartibartfast: Hang the sense of it and keep yourself busy.
---
### Author:  [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2009, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/10 "2009-07-25T07:11:58Z")
> [@Nation](#):
>
> Animals will do just about anything to stay alive, or protect their young, but to what end? Just to procreate and keep the cycle going?
Anti-natalism tends to get quite the emotional reaction, even from stone cold atheists.
---
### Author:  [@Stealth\_Potato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stealth_Potato)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2009, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/11 "2009-07-25T08:04:13Z")
> [@Nation](#):
>
> If there is no life after death or consequences for our actions, then whats the point of life?
Even if there _were_ a life after death, you could just as easily ask "what’s the point of _that?"_
---
### Author:  [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2009, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/12 "2009-07-25T08:08:26Z")
Almost all difficult questions beginning with “why?” have the same answer:
“Why not?”
If you think there must be a more profound answer, you need deprogramming.
---
### Author:  [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2009, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/13 "2009-07-25T08:12:45Z")
> [@Stealth\_Potato](#):
>
> Even if there _were_ a life after death, you could just as easily ask "what’s the point of _that?"_
If I think too hard, the concept of an afterlife freaks me out just as much as the concept of no afterlife. When does the _afterlife_ end? What if it sucks?
---
### Author:  [@Other\_Dreams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Other_Dreams)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2009, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/14 "2009-07-25T08:54:42Z")
> [@panache45](#):
>
> Life is an end in itself; it doesn’t need any external justification. So you get to decide your own purpose and reason for existing.
Well, if it really is that simple…
I declare that my purpose is…
to drink water.
I’m an expert at that!
~S.P.I.~
(S.P.I. & Co would like to offer their sincerest apologies to what some may refer to as a sarcastic reply. This is not the case; S.P.I. & Co really like water, and wouldn’t mind the purpose at all.)
---
### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2009, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/15 "2009-07-25T09:12:04Z")
> [@Cisco](#):
>
> If I think too hard, the concept of an afterlife freaks me out just as much as the concept of no afterlife. When does the _afterlife_ end? What if it sucks?
Yes. Even if there was such a thing as an immortal soul, what if we, say, just spent eternity in a void of sensory deprivation because we have no sense organs ? Or it turns out there’s a whole afterlife ecology and we are the spiritual equivalent of plankton getting sucked up by a passing whale ? What if it’s ruled by the souls of the ancient peoples who got there first, and new souls are universally enslaved ? Given the total lack of evidence for or about it, in the wildly unlikely chance there’s an afterlife, we can’t make any substantive claims about what it’s like. Much less assume that it’s better than nonexistence.
---
### Author:  [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2009, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/16 "2009-07-25T09:12:36Z")
> [@Nation](#):
>
> If there is no life after death or consequences for our actions, then whats the point of life?
I never could relate to this common theistic train of thought. Doesn’t an eternal justice system seem even more perplexing than the alternative? Why would a supernatural force create humanity and then punish some large percentage of us for obvious outcomes? Does he enjoy other blood sports as well, perhaps involving play things from other planets?
---
### Author:  [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2009, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/17 "2009-07-25T10:15:33Z")
We are alive … to post on Internet message boards. And eat chocolate.
---
### Author:  [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2009, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/18 "2009-07-25T11:38:24Z")
> [@Cisco](#):
>
> If I think too hard, the concept of an afterlife freaks me out just as much as the concept of no afterlife. When does the _afterlife_ end? What if it sucks?
Same here. Although I must say the Christian idea of the afterlife isn’t the one I dread the most - but that may be because I find eternal bliss (or eternal suffering)… irrealistic. Somehow. Not sure how I could explain that. Suffice to say, among all the ideas floating about, it’s the one I find least likely.
Now, the Buddhist kharmic wheel ? Going through life over, and over, and over again, and every time it hits just as hard ? Screw _that_. If that’s the deal, I’m suing someone.
---
### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2009, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/19 "2009-07-25T11:39:00Z")
> [@Cisco](#):
>
> If I think too hard, the concept of an afterlife freaks me out just as much as the concept of no afterlife. When does the _afterlife_ end? What if it sucks?
Related to this, I’m kinda curious if damnation to Hell is really supposed to be eternal. If so, figure you spend ~70 years on Earth not being a Christian or whatever, followed by your first billion years in Hell. Wouldn’t the original 70 by then be a well-faded memory, representing as it does the smallest fraction of your overall existence? What’s the point of continued punishment for something the subject can no longer remember? Similarly, what’s the point of eternal bliss as reward for something the subject can no longer remember?
Anyway, I figure we’re a universe trying to understand itself.
---
### Author:  [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2009, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/20 "2009-07-25T13:48:30Z")
> [@glee](#):
>
> We are alive … to post on Internet message boards. And eat chocolate.
Now here is something I can agree with, love chocolate.
I think that is the question we are supposed to discover the answer for, just keep looking. Try studing spirituality. Not religion, but spirituality.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200.md?page=2)