I’m only very new to philosophy, but immediately I was attracted to the question, “what is humanity’s purpose?” And I've thought about it a lot. This is my theory, and I want to know what other people think of it.

One could say that the meaning or purpose of life is up to the person or that it’s something like happiness but in my opinion the reality is probably harsher than that. That’s not to say you can’t have some kind of motivation or have something you feel is your purpose, but I think saying it’s the entire reason you were born is incorrect.

Compare humanity to all other living things that exist, or perceive at least. Everything else that lives has some kind of role to play, no matter how minor, on Earth at least, everything fits nicely in and has an underlying purpose. Everything that is, except humans. Take away an animal or plant and ecosystems and complex systems collapse. Take humans away and life and the world flourishes. Humanity is essentially a tyrant conquering and trying to control the world. Not necessarily individuals – although many people do actively contribute – but humanity as a whole wreaks havoc on the natural world and other humans. Even though animals can be cruel, they all support the ecosystem and keep everything alive. Humans are cruel without that and even the majority of the kind ones only help other humans. Even the ones that do help the world do so by going out of their way, they don’t support the world just by doing what they need to like everything else. Which brings up the question, if humans don’t do what others do, what do they do? Nothing. Or their underlying purpose is destruction/death.

It’s hard to believe that this one species would be useless and go awry when everything else fits together as it does. Well first of all, how is everything made in such a perfect way? A god? Unlikely, or at least, unlikely in the way most people imagine gods, in my opinion at least. Perhaps there is a force that determines the complex systems that function perfectly. There is no way to know.

Back to humanity’s purpose. Life and death are simply two sides of the same coin, one can not exist without the other, and there is a cycle of life and death that must take place. So, it is possible that humanity is the death side of the coin. And that there is a cycle being repeated, and that perhaps humanity really is only there in order to make that cycle a reality. Nature brings life and prosperity, and humanity brings around death and loss. It is possible, after all I doubt humanity really is not there for anything, unless something went wrong somewhere along the line, in which case the existence of some guiding or determining force is likely. It is also my belief that the universe, space, doesn’t follow the rules of time and that saying there is a start to it, and also saying it has been there forever aren’t quite right.

I believe space is essentially a time-less holding pen for the cycles of life and death, birth and destruction to take place, and that time is a thing not fit for space. If imagining space as a fishbowl with many planets inside, each repeating phases of life and death, with a time-line independant to said fishbowl helps visualise it, I think that accurately expresses my belief. When I say space, I exclude planets, stars and the like, those are the things in the fishbowl, which is separate from the fishbowl itself.

I know very well that this may not be true and is probably already a theory, but I just wanted to know what others thought of my perception on our underlying purpose and the connection it has to space and the universe.