this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
98 points (93.0% liked)

Asklemmy

43892 readers
865 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

When I’m unhappy, I feel like I’m doing life wrong. I’d rather be happy. But is happiness the point of life, or is there more to it? If I pursue happiness, mine first then for those around me, is that selfish? But if there’s a bigger purpose, then what about people with Alzheimer’s or dementia who can’t recall recent experiences or make plans?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] spauldo@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

That's a valid way of looking at it, too.

Realistically, the concept of "purpose" doesn't exist in the universe outside of our imagination any more than justice, beauty, or morality. Things just are what they are and follow the laws of physics.

If we're making it all up as we go along, there aren't any wrong answers. I claim the purpose of living things is to reproduce, but it's true that living things reproduce because that's what living things do (otherwise we'd have run out of them by now). Kind of a chicken/egg thing there.