I understand what Willow is saying here, however I think that it is more a comment about having a respect and a sense of reverence for the living of life in the here and now, as opposed to ignoring the present in favour of some imagined future moment. I don't think it is actually a commenting on purpose itself. — Punshhh

But as I said, I don't think we can know the purpose in the absence of a knowledge of the purposes entertained by the agency which brought us into existence to begin with. — Punshhh

So are you talking about my fathers desire to ejaculate inside my mother? As that would be the purpose of the agent (my father) who chose to bring me in to existence.

Or do you refer to all life when you say "US" as in "god was the agent who brought us in to existence".

Oh no, now I see it was the latter. But I have seen many people reject this notion in favor that there is no agency that brought us in, it was just a fluke of nature. single celled organism evolved after lightning struck certain chemicals in the atmosphere and we are now just an absurd, random nothing with no rhyme or reason. How do incorporate purpose then? It would seem to go back to what willowofdarkness said: "To think in terms of living for a purpose is to consider life meaningless. As if life was nothing, with meaning only to be found in escaping it to some notion of purpose."

Yes, I see this, but in terms or agency this is irrelevant, we can be unconscious agents and still have agency. — Punshhh

Right, but this isn't OUR agency. It is the agency of something of which we have no control over and are not a part of (the unconscious brain). We are separate from it even though we share the same house.

I suggest that all cellular and multi-cellular organisms have agency and most of them don't have "free will".By agency I mean a self organising system which develops a complex strategic action as a response to the environment. — Punshhh

I would call that autonomy, not agency. Agency implies careful deliberation, decision making, conscious choices etc.

The most reasonable thing would be to doubt that odds of that sort imply that one can't win. — Terrapin Station

Is that a hyperbole? Because there is a chance but a slim one.

What would be the case though if you constantly kept encountering scenarios where you found yourself being the 1 in 300,000,000 every single day? IE. You go skydiving and your shoot fails, then the next day you get yourself in to a car accident, then the next day you get attacked by a crocodile, then you win the lottery etc.

Would that then prove solipsism MORE than just one instance of being the 1 in 300,000,000?

It seems empiricists and rationalists would find no justification no matter how many weird events you encountered. It is like even if God appeared with miracles before their very eyes they would just say something like "weeellllllllll, for certain it is odd.... buuuuuut it's just a coincidence... it's nothing spooky, it's just random chance". Such comments are worthy of a slap in the face! How can you even fricken say that! Can you elaborate on this Terrapin and try clarify what I am trying to say in this paragraph with better wording/terminology?

Man, I've had religious ecstasy, and I've had transcendental peace. These are both high-end gold-wrapped candy which are dandy, but philosophers know that liquor is quicker. And more certain as well. Right now I have in my hand a glass of tonic, New Amsterdam gin, and ice cubes and already I am experiencing the divine tranquilization of the spirit world that I have come to know and love. It works, and it's quite affordable. — Bitter Crank

Haha! Oh man what a great post, transcendental peace & religious ecstasy from ethanol intoxication? When pigs fly! :D haha

Does being extremely lucky justify metaphysical solipsism?

Suppose I win the powerball lottery with a single ticket. The odds of this are 1 in 292,201,338. If I win, isn't it more reasonable to doubt reality than to assume that I actually won the lottery against such enormous odds?

Why do the most successful people not have serious doubts about the existence of other minds? If I am Bill Gates, why wouldn't I find it more reasonable that other minds don't exist than that I have actually succeeded at earning more money than every other person in the U.S.?

Isn't it more reasonable to assume that reality and other people don't exist than to imagine that I actually won the powerball jackpot?

Is there any philosophical work that grapples with this question? I know that solipsism has been discussed in great length by many philosophers, but has this specific question ever been dealt with? If so, I would love to read about it.

Thanks. — Josh

I am partially a solipsist but am still unconfirmed on the nature of physical reality yet to just subscribe my self to a 100% belief pattern like foolish atheists and christians do. I keep an open mind. I see myself as the universe, which is in totally one thing. Such a statement isn't far from solipsism.

However what you say directly relates to how I view my unfortunate instances with chance occurences. Whenever I had an accident in the past, the accident could always seem to be correlated with something I had done, will do or was thinking about doing...and by the fact the it was so unlikely to happen it almost looks as if it is the product of intelligent design. This isn't just seeing correlations where there isn't any, I am aware of this and stay away from it.

So in the same way you suggest the unlikeliness of winning the lottery validates a belief in solipsism, for me the unlikelihood of bizarre circumstances of bad fortune (and good fortune) seem to confirm to me that something else is afoot although I can not say what. Foolish people just deny it, mainly because they can't see how they could prove such a thing and find logical positivism, naive realism and atheism the easiest belief systems to work with.

So I don't think you can say for sure it means solipsism exists. But if you are inclined to already believe it already exists, it will confirm your beliefs even more as Mongrel was saying.

If I won the lottery, I would be looking to see why. How would I find out? I already have a history to which I can draw correlations from and I also have the rest of my life to see how it pans out, what happens with the money etc. and draw correlations from both.

It is too easy to just say "what ya'll on about? you win the lottery caus ya'll got lucky on that's all, nothin more." You should try and get them to describe what luck is and then prove it. haha.

But Good Luck tends to reinforce the ideology that existed at the time it happened. and subsequently assumed that they must be loved by God Almighty. — Mongrel

Good fucking point!

Winning the Powerball would be proof that solipsism is wrong.. see what I mean? — Mongrel

No I don't. He is sitting there all handsome and loath and then finds out he wins the lottery. He thinks "Oh that is just my one mind, my one experience creating something new". It doesn't invalidate his solipsism any less.

Unlikely things happen pretty regularly. Just think of all the events that had to go just so in order for you to be born at all. As a friend of mine explains: 'Just by being born, everybody is a lottery winner.' — Mongrel

I dunno about that, all sperm are created equal and have no consciousness. That is like saying one grain of sand is luckier than another. Unlikely things do happen but are you sure it was by chance? Where is your proof chance exists? There is non like there is no proof against gods existence either. We can rationally decide either way.

Now, what if the WIS is not known to be the case, but simply conceivable (which it is, I am capable of imagining a great many things including WIS). Do we still have an ethical obligation to have as many children as possible, simply out of the conceivability of WIS? — darthbarracuda

What? This is the first time you said anything about making children. Don't get me wrong, I love talking about making children... especially the making part but how is WIS correlated with ethical obligations of birth? You mean as in the suffering the new child may endure (aka antinatalism)?

What you are really talking about is whether you should do something if you know there is a risk? It depends on how great the reward is, or how much you are willing to play dice just for the sake of it.

Unfortunately, animals don't make those judgements and just fuck each other until a new one pops out and it keeps happening regardless if a cheetah eats of half their leg. It is foolish for a daddy zebra to think "ooooooh i dunno if we should have kids margret, wat if dat cheetah eats half his legz?"

Nevertheless we human animals can gauge with great accuracy of probable scenarios... however IMO it seems to come down to what you believe about the nature of chance and probability. Is there even room for randomness in our universe? Physicists are telling us not with theories like chaos theory, etc. and from my own experience it seems like there is an intelligence to chance events, or at least a connectedness that occurs causally. I rarely see random things as I have learnt to see correlations where normal people don't anymore (thanks to psychedelics). Our ordinary state of mind sometimes doesn't give us the most accurate representation for these sorts of things.

the sheer conceivability of unconceivable pain disqualifies any talk of likelihood. — darthbarracuda

Why would it disqualify an talk of likelihood? Also you can't conceive the inconceivable.

But if we focus on mitigating encounters with insects as to prevent (conceivable) suffering, we fall back into the same problem as before; we'll treat insects with respect because they might feel pain, but we won't usher people into worldly existence simply because we doubt they actually exist before they are born? What's the cut-off here? — darthbarracuda

This reminds me of buddhist monks who aren't allowed to kill anything including mosquitos in fear of detrimental causal connections (karma).

Anyway, I like how you drew parallels between not knowing how to prove subjectivity and the ethical obligations of humans on to other creatures. This can be seen in many arguments for vegetarianism vs carnivorism. To answer it might help if you ask two questions: How do you prove a human is sentient? How can you relate that process to proving an insect is sentient.

Either way, it still comes back to what I said in the above paragraphs. Animals don't give a shit, they rape and kill and fucking eat it all up. Humans are not exception (I don't call a captive bolt gun an exception here). They just do it.

Should we not? Should we be something other or something more than how nature made us?

Ethical Qualification of Investigative Capability (EQIC): that which cannot be conceivably investigated is not morally important. — darthbarracuda

Nice title, but does it make total sense? What about something I can't investigate like dreams? spiritual experiences, psychedelic experiences (real as they may seem)... or physical things like beyond the planck scale, inside a black hole, the vagina of my ex wife (similar in physical characteristics to the previous examples). Does that make them automatically not morally important?

we ought to see the value of a something as seen from the point of view of the universe as additionally seen through the eyes of value-beings — darthbarracuda

Are they not one and the same thing? How do you get the former without the latter?

Ethical Qualification of Pragmatic Investigative Capability (EQPIC): that which cannot be conceivably investigated, or that which cannot reasonably be investigated without disproportionate risk or effort on our part is not morally important. — darthbarracuda

That last part doesn't cohere linguistically

So, do you agree that purpose is generated by agency and that there is no purpose in the absence of agency? — Punshhh

There could be purpose both ways. If it was created by agency then it would be akin to what willowofdarkness says "To think in terms of living for a purpose is to consider life meaningless. As if life was nothing, with meaning only to be found in escaping it to some notion of purpose."

But you are conflating the two categories which results in the confusion. As I said, in order to consider the purpose of the agency, or process resulting in the existence of the existence we find ourselves in, we can only coherently address it in reference to that agency, or process. But unfortunately we can't do this because we are in ignorance of what, or who it is. End of story. — Punshhh

Ok, I say that I was conflating the two categories now. Thanks

"The illusion of agency" is an unwarranted assumption. Determinism hasn't been proved to be the case, it is merely speculation. — Punshhh

I wouldn't call the libet experiment "speculation". It indicates our actions are driven by unconscious decisions and that we percieve them as conscious by mistake.

I very much doubt that most Buddhist monks, most of the time, have nothing at all to live for. They meditate for a reason, don't they? — Sapientia

No.

Those in glass houses...

It is by NOT wanting to attain, achieve that they find their success, their "nirvana". It comes when they give up completely. They enter in to deep portions of the human psyche well beyond what you and I experience and are able to do things like set themselves on fire and not flinch a muscle.

You made a false analogy, and I said as much. If your conclusion that it's absurd depends upon this false analogy, then that's good reason to reject your argument.

Can we drop this jargon of "extensions of human experience"? How about simply seeking pleasure or contentedness or happiness, for example? Why the heck would that be absurd? (And don't give me some rubbish about your pinky toe). — Sapientia

You claim it is false but don't provide any reasoning as to why.

It is not a trivial point because if you ask anyone on the street what their purpose of life is they will claim it to be pleasure: my wife, my kids, food, enjoying my work, my hobbies etc. etc. etc.

Happiness can be a purpose as in it can be a goal but a goal is not the same thing as a life purpose. If I have a goal to peel 50,000 apples wouldn't it be ridiculous to claim it as the sole reason for my existence? Likewise it is ridiculous to claim the sole reason of your existence to seek happiness. There are small/weak purposes like instinct and mowing the lawn and then there are grandiose purpose like why humans even exist at all. It is absurd and foolish to claim small/weak purposes as grandiose ones (which is what my OP pointed out) IE. "Why do humans live? To mow the lawn of course". "Why do humans live? To experience the biological reaction sadness of course" Why do humans live? To experience the biological reaction called happiness of course"

And no, I haven't just told you that. I addressed your OP, as you encouraged me to do, and I have countered several of your points. — Sapientia

Is "several" a hyperbole? because I only made 2 points in my OP and I don't ever remember being told how they were flawed in truth (of which I would like).

So you don't believe a more fulfilling life is better than a less fulfilling life? — John

where did I say that? You keep talking as if you know what the purpose of life is, when quite clearly in the post YOU QUOTED ME ON I was saying that we haven't proved that yet.

Don't you remember?

"There are small/weak purposes like instinct and mowing the lawn and then there are grandiose purpose like why humans even exist at all. It is absurd and foolish to claim small/weak purposes as grandiose ones (which is what my OP pointed out)"

It is not a trivial point because if you ask anyone on the street what their purpose of life is they will claim it to be pleasure: my wife, my kids, food, enjoying my work, my hobbies etc. etc. etc.

Happiness can be a purpose as in it can be a goal but a goal is not the same thing as a life purpose. If I have a goal to peel 50,000 apples wouldn't it be ridiculous to claim it as the sole reason for my existence? Likewise it is ridiculous to claim the sole reason of your existence to seek happiness

I was saying that purpose can not be happiness or pleasure.
— intrapersona

I'm not sure if I've understood you correctly, because that seems like a trivial point. Apples can't be bananas and circles can't be squares.

My counterpoint would be that seeking to attain happiness or pleasure can be a purpose. — Sapientia

It is not a trivial point because if you ask anyone on the street what their purpose of life is they will claim it to be pleasure: my wife, my kids, food, enjoying my work, my hobbies etc. etc. etc.

Happiness can be a purpose as in it can be a goal but a goal is not the same thing as a life purpose. If I have a goal to peel 50,000 apples wouldn't it be ridiculous to claim it as the sole reason for my existence? Likewise it is ridiculous to claim the sole reason of your existence to seek happiness. There are small/weak purposes like instinct and mowing the lawn and then there are grandiose purpose like why humans even exist at all. It is absurd and foolish to claim small/weak purposes as grandiose ones (which is what my OP pointed out)

Right, but what's the point of questioning the meaning of 'good' in a discussion on whether purpose is necessary or sufficient for a good life? — jkop

I didn't think we were questioning whether purpose is necessary or sufficient but whether it exists at all.

My statement was asking whether a good life=a purposeful life and if so how?

You obviously don't know what you are talking about. How could there be a "huge debate" over whether the brain gives rise to consciousness when we don't have one single case of a person without a brain being conscious, and when every person with a perfectly functioning brain are conscious. — Harry Hindu

That fact seems to go in my favor, for if there is no one without a brain at all how can they say what it is like to not have a brain and be dead? Therefore, how can you claim what death is like? Which you seem to do.

If you dob't think there is debate about what consciousness is and if it is synonymous with brain states you can read this thread and if you are right you will find that everyone shares the same opinion to you, if you are wrong you will find that I am right in that there is a debate about such things. I just created it for you to blabber mouth your unvalidated opinion in :D http://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/721/is-consciousness-created-in-the-brain

It is you who believe in fairy tales of "spirits" and the "supernatural" (theories that can't be falsified) having the same explanatory power that scientific theories (theories that can be falsified) have. If there were a fire-breathing dragon in Ukraine, you and I could both prove or disprove it by going there and finding evidence of it's existence if not see it directly. That would be a falsifiable claim. Theories about the existence of some supernatural domain aren't. — Harry Hindu

So did I actually claim there was a dragon did I? Looks like you misread just so you can have something to debate... sorry I mean ARGUE to me.

If you are saying that you are more than your body, then the burden of proof lies on your shoulders, not mine. — Harry Hindu

It lies on both of our shoulders if we want to assert anything beyond what we see in the physical world. Just because they don't come back doesn't mean they don't exist somewhere else, you can't claim that. All you can claim is that they are no longer in the physical world, whatever the physical world even fricken is! which you don't know either!

It means I think the purpose of life is to learn to feel ever more subtly and deeply. — John

What is the purpose of life daddy? To learn to feel ever more subtly and deeply of course. But why daddy? Well because it enhances our lives. But why do that daddy? Because we live better lives. But why live better lives daddy? Because... it makes it more purposeful?

Does a better life make it more purposeful? Aren't you sort of ignoring what I said about how it is absurd and/or foolish to claim small/weak purposes as grandiose ones (which is what my OP pointed out).

Not trying to say you are a fool, just want to argue my point in the OP to see if it holds up to truth ;)

An answer to the question, what is the meaning or purpose in my life? Is a person's life cannot have meaning or purpose independent of the species or race of which they are a member. So their purpose and meaning is equivalent to the purpose or meaning of the species or race as a whole. The purpose and meaning of the race as a whole is,
"that the answer is for humanity to secure its long term survival with a healthy social culture, which manages the planetary resources sustainably and cares for and maintains the biosphere." — Punshhh

That is just saying our purpose is to going on towards going on towards going on at the same time caring for our biosphere.

Why are we here daddy? to survive of course. But why daddy? why to survive of course? but why daddy? why to survive of course... can you catch a snake before it eats its own tail?

There are small/weak purposes like instinct and mowing the lawn and then there are grandiose purpose like why humans even exist at all. It is absurd and foolish to claim small/weak purposes as grandiose ones (which is what my OP pointed out). Yet you are all seeming to disregard this.

So you have an ambition to stop being absurd and foolish. Well death doesn't seem to fulfil that ambition. A fool does not become wise in death.

And yet I suggest to you that it is not wise to be so ambitious.

Can you catch this snake before it eats itself? — unenlightened

Well it wasn't a purpose that I was given but which nature gave to me, I thought that was implicit in what I actually said before you quoted me out of context.

The purpose nature gives its animals are absurd. Eat, sleep, sex, die. Why? nature responds: "just cause... lol"

we face an entirely different set of issues for which traditional practice is not well suited and there is a mass movement, known as The New Age, in which people have begun to develop more appropriate approaches and techniques to embrace a natural spirituality in the modern world. Unfortunately it is a bit chaotic with false prophets and one is required to sort the wheat from the chaff to a certain degree — Punshhh

Yeah, unfortunately what happens then is that people mistake genuine spiritual practices with New Age woo woo so no one ends up looking in to spiritual or ascetic practices.

Anyway, where I said it "is clear, there is none", I should have explained that on the assumption that following death, there is a complete lack of existence, this would be the case. — Punshhh

Yes but you can't go around making assumptions as if their truisms. I can't just talk to people as if the already believe that there is a red princess coming to great me after death. You must say "is clear, there might be none" or "is clear, it is assumed to be none by myself of course".

Well I don't know the rigourous logical steps involved in this, but surely if an organism is at liberty to pursue purposes, at some point it will pursue them, or at the very least might do so. If it does pursue one of these purposes, it can be described as having purpose in its action. — Punshhh

Just because an organism is at liberty to pursue a purpose doesn't mean that his life has a purpose. As we already established there are small purposes like tasks and their is a purpose for your life beyond doing the dishwasher and mowing the lawn.

To let go of the feeling of needing to keep trying is half the battle. There are numerous techniques and affirmations which allow one to dispel these sentiments and thought patterns that you find yourself preoccupied with. I have found that to achieve spiritual contentment doesn't actually require you to do anything, rather to stop doing things, things which amount to a distraction. So you can put yourself into a frame of mind where all you need to do is relax, rest, allow peace, stillness and quietude into your life, or into spaces in your life. Perhaps a quiet room, or special place in your garden. For me, to sit quietly in a woodland and just listen to the wildlife, feel the breeze, relax into the stillness and feel a space in the silence, would allow the hypereal state of mind to permeate. There is a hypereal joyful state in silence, especially if one can become acostomed to letting one's mind still and enjoy a lack of thought and the peace in simplicity. — Punshhh

It is all easier said than done. The chaotic mind wants to stay chaotic. If you offer it peace it will decline (the reason why meditation still isn't very popular at all in the world).

People are to immersed in objective reality, thinking it is real and gives substance to their existence to actual engage in any solemn activities in quietude (including myself).

I'm going to shamelessly post having read very little of the thread. I just really like the question and want to get an answer out there.

So, the first thing I'd say is that one very big reason I continue to live is that I know the toll suicide takes on loved ones and I'm too cowardly to do it anyway (I was very close & learned that truth about myself and it crushed me.)

But I guess that would answer a different question: Why don't you stop living?

So, what I live for. Very rarely, but often enough that I can't chalk it up to a handful of meaningless anomalies, I experience a piece of a music or a gathering of friends or a book or whatever in this strange very intense way. Everything has a different quality. I feel like I'm actually seeing things for what they are, and what they are is way more expansive then I thought. I understand myself better too. Things are simpler, but also more complex, and my normal way of viewing things seems incredibly flat and limited. It's clear to me during these experiences that there is a rich, complex layer of life - I'm fine with calling it spiritual - which is a kind of transcendental condition for the brittle simplistic habit-driven life I usually live. It's clear to me, then, that there's a lot I don't understand and that the world can have this deeply meaningful spiritual texture that is usually foreclosed (one poor but suggestive enough analogy is to the kind of meaning and import you feel as a kid playing or exploring your grandparent's home etc. It's a bit like a grown-up version of that) Importantly, these experiences don't feel hallucinatory or supernatural or surreal - they feel hyperreal. These experiences are sometimes joyful (though they're just as often painful) and it's a joy that's very difficult to convey. (The problem is that I'm trying to talk in my brittle habit-driven state about that which exceeds it.)

So, I always know that sort of thing is out there, that it feels inexhaustible, and that I'm usually living in a kind of fake sedimented thought-world. That gives me a kind of direction, though it's hard to pin that down exactly. I've learned that seeking it out directly doesn't work - you can go too far too fast (one image I've always liked is that of old mystics warning young kabbalists that if they try to breach the garden of eden before they're read, they'll be cut down by the swords of the cherubim.) I think the condition for experiencing that state more than very rarely (and experiencing it as something joyful rather than painful) is to be ok with yourself. And that involves being a better person during mundane everyday life. And being a better person seems to involve shedding the faulty ad-hoc self-identifications and strategies of interaction developed as a kid and teenager. And being able to shed those involves paying a lot more attention to the patterns in your life.

So that gives me somewhere to start. And I've started a bit. It's slow work, but I think I'm making some progress. But not enough clearly: witness my endless antagonistic interactions on this board. — csalisbury

I know exactly what you are talking about and think about it daily. This seems to enhance the questioning of what to live for though.

Imagine if you could be in line with state of living permanently? For everyday experience to take on a deeper meaning and connection to it? Life certainly would have more value and you would feel as if you had more of a purpose than you do now although you couldn't express what it was in any more detail than you can now.

It is like saying, I live for that small experience of spiritual insight that happens twice a year. It just makes it seem even more dull and purposeless tbh.

I didn't say that people should live for pleasure, but that they should live with, and, I want to emphasize, not for the sake of, feeling. — John

Ok, but that doesn't say anything about the purpose of life

People don't live for their feelings in the way they might live for some stupid fetish or obsession like your ridiculous examples of 'pinkie' and 'stuffed cat'. Arguably hardly anyone lives for such things at all. — John

You are reading me too literally. You have to see the correlation and NOT the literal transcription of what I wrote.

I was saying that to claim pleasure as a purpose is just as absurd to claim a stuffed cat is. They are both components of the human experience, they are just things that happen to you and you can't cling to them, hold them in your hands and exclaim it is the sole purpose for your existence.

Don't think it is true? Go in to the street and ask people what they live for. They will respond with things like "to love, to have sex, to eat ice cream, to play football" all pleasure based.

which cause their lives to be something that merely happens to them while they are busy thinking about something else altogether unimportant. — John

Sounds very similar to:

But wouldn't even that be because the thing most important to them is to feel safe and secure and unbothered, or not to have the face the difficulties and insecurities that might come up if they actually started thinking about their lives? — John

Or they live with a constant feeling of dissatisfaction due to their tendency to ask inappropriate (because unanswerable or even incoherent) and extremely unhelpful cold, dead rational questions — John

So it is because they ask those questions that their lives are full of dissatisfaction? Surely it is the other way round... *ahem*

A car engine idling nicely is a complete system expressing the lowest possible energy state, while engine parts scattered around a garage is an incomplete system that must first be assembled. — wuliheron

wouldn't the engine off but assembled be the lowest energy state, or if not 1rpm?

I contended earlier that families (at least the modern day version thereof) are just ways to combat boredom. It is boredom literally multiplied. One does not want to look inward too much, lest one sees the sheer instrumentality. Rather, it is presumed that if one is concerned with another beings' outcome, this will alleviate one's own need to introspect. — schopenhauer1

Life can be good exactly because you're free from having something to live for. In fact, having something to live for will likely prevent you from having other things to live for.

For example, those who live for their professional careers and therefore neglect their children, partners, parents, or friends. In what sense could their lives be good? Surely not by having careers to live for. If they would instead live for their children, then others would be neglected. If they would live for all of them, then they would live for none of them in particular.

Most people try to care as well as possible for their careers, children, partners, parents, friends etc.. without living for any of them in particular. The latter is for single-minded fanatics, marketers, ideologues or war mongers hoping to make people give up their lives for some special interest. — jkop

That is a good post. It seems living for your career is mosten often like a mouse-wheel which once you get off at 60 or in a mid-life crisis you begin to realise how purposeless it really is and how much you wasted your life. And the ones that actually enjoyed their life weren't pre-occupied with a purpose but where just passively enjoying the beauty of life without trying to possess it, find meaning in it... etc.

I think we just found a solution to the thread ;)

And here we have another "philosopher" who doesn't bother educating themselves in modern science, or more specifically, modern neurology and psychology - who doesn't bother integrating knowledge from all areas of investigation in to a consistent whole and who thinks that unfalsifiable theories are just as powerful as falsifiable ones.

We have scientific evidence that when a certain area of the brain is damaged, we lose the ability to speak, or to remember faces, etc. You seem to think that when the whole brain is damaged that we retain these abilities. If there is an afterlife then that diminishes the value of this life. — Harry Hindu

Correlation is not causation, there is still huge debate over whether the brain gives rise to conscious state. Don't act as if your position is fact when it is not. I have a good understand of neurology and modern science, my point was about you believing in fairytales that you can't prove. Don't say there is a fire-breathing dragon in the ukraine when you can't prove it. Don't say what exists after death when you can't 100% prove it. If any position out of the two of ours adapts the scientific method the most it is mine, have a fun time trying to write a hypothesis about how you can PROVE what happens at death.

I don't believe that you'll even be able to provide any realistic examples of someone with nothing to live for who is coincidentally living a good life. — Sapientia

Buddhist monk, meditates all day in complacency and peace.

I don't feel like saying much else about your OP. I disagree with the gist of it, and I think your comparison of happiness with your "pinky toe" is rather silly, and shouldn't be taken seriously. — Sapientia

Yeah, except you can't explain why so you just sit back and call it silly because you don't have intellectual nerve to actually refute it. Perhaps dare I say, even the intellectual capability to refute it!

You know it's true deep down, but you don't want to admit it because it disables all of your illusory beliefs you set up to give your life value and meaning.

Don't blame me for being silly because you are afraid to change your thinking, that is a form of bigotry.

Let's see if you can respond to this as a philosopher, someone with high regard for reasoning and without some form of hate, aggression or tension of any kind who resorts to words like "silly" to try and attack the other party.

For me the point is to live a life "with heart"; meaning to live in ways that cultivate those things which are the most important to you. What is most important to you, though, is not something that may be coldly calculated, but something that must be felt. The way I see it, things are purposeless if they do not touch your emotions; that is if you don't feel them. What, for example, would be the point of marrying someone if you felt no love for them? Or paying lip-service to some religion or other if it really meant nothing to you; if it didn't inspire any feelings of transcendence or love in you? — John

Ok, how many people out there still live life and are pretty much emotionless? How about the 40-50-60 year olds who are lost the love interest in their spouse but continue to engage in meaningless toil 8 hours of the day? For what? Why do THEY live?

Like I said in my OP john, claiming experiences (or any other facet of your body or bodily functions) as a purpose to living is absurd. You know that if I say to you "I live for my right pinky toe" or "I live for my dead stuffed cat int he living room" is completely ridiculous. Well your statement about living for your emotions is no different than for a dead stuffed cat.

You could scrap some stuff, but just having the highlights would seem to be lacking something valuable and important. — Sapientia

yes, that would be strange indeed.

I didn't regurgitate what you said word for word, but I don't think that it's too far off. But perhaps I misunderstood.

I don't live exclusively for those moments, like I said, so that criticism doesn't apply to me. How many people do? They might say that they live for those moments when asked what they live for, but I think that people just tend to mention the highlights. Whereas, if they gave it enough thought, they would realise that the "whole package" - highlights included - very much matters. You could scrap some stuff, but just having the highlights would seem to be lacking something valuable and important.

I think the fact that such moments are temporary (or, in your words, transitory and fleeting) doesn't really come into it - except as one of the reasons that they're actually worthwhile.

And I think you're wrong when you say that they don't give any more purpose to one's life, but just make life more "exciting". They can do, and actually do in some cases, and you can lose the scare quotes from around the word "exciting". — Sapientia

I was saying that purpose can not be happiness or pleasure. You havn't said anything about why it isn't, you just told me that people think their lives matter and that a finite existence makes life more valueable (which I can see the sense in).

I asked you to reply to my OP about claiming extensions of human experience as purpose is absurd but you didn't manage to do that.

People live good lives regardless of whether they live for something or nothing. A good life doesn't suddenly arise from having something to live for. Nor would the lack of something to live for imply a bad life. — jkop

You didn't list why not, you just stated your premise again.

Explain why you think people don't need purpose in life in order to live good lives.

What is good? Is good happy? Fulfilled? How much of the time are they like that in order to termed "good life"?

I am not talking about the meaning of life here but a purpose that sustains one from avoiding inevitable death
— intrapersona

Can you explain the difference for me? It certainly seems that one sustains oneself with the purpose to avoid death, and that death is inevitable, yet you seem to want another purpose for sustaining life. Well I offer the purpose of overcoming one's need to sustain oneself, one's need for the the personal continuation that then requires in turn a purpose.

Death is inevitable for physical beings, but it has no significance except to that which sustains itself. Self has no purpose, it is unnecessary and harmful to life. So life's purpose is to end self before death ends life. — unenlightened

The meaning of life is what life means, what it IS. The purpose of life is why were are. Some might say the meaning of life entails the purpose but I think that is a misguided understand of the classifications.

I said in my OP that the only rational conclusion I could reach was that we like any other animal just want to avoid death, that is our ONLY reason to live.

I want to find another purpose to life because that one we have is just absurd and downright foolish. It is circular. Why live? Not to die of course! Well why not die? To live of course! Why live then? To not die of course! ........................................................................................................ *cough*

Living fully, though, is not a matter of merely coping. Whether you see life as predominately good or bad is always up to you and is a function of your thinking; there is no objective measure even of what life is, let alone of what it is worth. — John

I agree, but what does it mean to live "fully"? To take every opportunity you get? Why? To live a more dynamic lifestyle? Why? More interesting? Why does an interesting life equate to more value? Wouldn't a more purposeful life equate to more value? If you look at anything that is interestng but meaningless and purposeless, its novelty seems to fade rather quickly.

So are you going now to appeal to the second category of purposes, those in reference to any agency, or process resulting in the existence of this whole world we find ourselves in? Because this seems to be what you are looking towards in the OP. — Punshhh

I don't really know what you are saying, I never saw a distinct classification of purposes. Nor do I see what the illusion of agency has anything to do with it. SOrry.

This is a conflation between instinct and intellectual strategic action. Also you have ignored my classification of purposes. It's almost as though you are not interested in discussing purpose. — Punshhh

I wouldn't call being afraid to fall of a cliff "intellectual strategic action", more like instinct.

I also wouldn't call this a classification of purposes:

"that the answer is for humanity to secure its long term survival with a healthy social culture, which manages the planetary resources sustainably and cares for and maintains the biosphere."

That is just something that humans keep in check in order to sustain a healthy existence, it isn't a purpose to live.

if they have agency they are at liberty to persue purposes, they have purpose — Punshhh

how did you get from "they have liberty to pursue purposes" to "they have purpose'?