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[QUOTE=Sylvanas;885215]That's circular logic. Life has meaning, so people pass wealth to descendants. People pass wealth to descendants, so life has meaning.

But it doesn't and neither does wealth, or horrible children. Especially not them, ugh.[/QUOTE]

True.

Originally Posted by Sylvanas

That's circular logic. Life has meaning, so people pass wealth to descendants. People pass wealth to descendants, so life has meaning.

But it doesn't and neither does wealth, or horrible children. Especially not them, ugh.

True.

[QUOTE=Oberon;885198]Maybe life has meaning past your own existence. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t be passing our wealth on to our descendants. People care about their children. Clearly, for many people their children are more valuable than their own existence.

To return to your point about the simulation perspective. If aliens created this simulation then obviously there’s some purpose for them, and everything you do or at least some of the things we do are highly relevant to someone, somewhere. If this is some complex sociological experiment then maybe the meaning is in living nobly so that the aliens understand what gives life meaning. You could make an entire society of aliens that are above us, better.[/QUOTE]

The idea of saying that the answer to "what is the point of life" is "to serve the entities who created the simulation in some way" is not really an answer, because the question remains: what's the point of those entities' existence? Who created them? It's really not an answer, simply a way to push the problem farther from humanity.

As for meaning past our own existence, [I]maybe.[/I] However, the point about children and all is about [I]principles[/I], which could very well be wrong, and about the will to reproduce efficiently and to have your children survive for the sake of the species. Saying that the goal that goes past your own existence is to perpetuate your species' existence is eluding the question by taking a means for the potential goal to fulfill (reproduction so that people exist) and considering it as the end goal. And in the event it'd actually be the only point of life, this reverts to something very close to nihilism in the end.

Originally Posted by Oberon

Maybe life has meaning past your own existence. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t be passing our wealth on to our descendants. People care about their children. Clearly, for many people their children are more valuable than their own existence.

To return to your point about the simulation perspective. If aliens created this simulation then obviously there’s some purpose for them, and everything you do or at least some of the things we do are highly relevant to someone, somewhere. If this is some complex sociological experiment then maybe the meaning is in living nobly so that the aliens understand what gives life meaning. You could make an entire society of aliens that are above us, better.

The idea of saying that the answer to "what is the point of life" is "to serve the entities who created the simulation in some way" is not really an answer, because the question remains: what's the point of those entities' existence? Who created them? It's really not an answer, simply a way to push the problem farther from humanity.

As for meaning past our own existence, maybe. However, the point about children and all is about principles, which could very well be wrong, and about the will to reproduce efficiently and to have your children survive for the sake of the species. Saying that the goal that goes past your own existence is to perpetuate your species' existence is eluding the question by taking a means for the potential goal to fulfill (reproduction so that people exist) and considering it as the end goal. And in the event it'd actually be the only point of life, this reverts to something very close to nihilism in the end.

If we live in a simulation, then isn't all of what we're doing rather pointless? And therefore, shouldn't we just exclude that possibility, especially since it's not disprovable (burden of proof)?

If we live in a simulation, then isn't all of what we're doing rather pointless? And therefore, shouldn't we just exclude that possibility, especially since it's not disprovable (burden of proof)?