Ask HN: What is the purpose of life in your point of view? - ghostpirate
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sp527
The only objective ‘purpose’ seems to be the evolutionary imperative to
successfully reproduce, but I’m not convinced that even that one matters.

Other than that, life is basically a choose-your-own-adventure game with
rules/constraints superimposed by the nature of our reality.

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muzani
I explore God's world, extracting meaning from God's creations.

A painter doesn't try to imitate the colors, lighting, subject. A food painter
would try to capture the senses - taste, moisture, saltiness, spiciness,
temperature. A painter of a scene would try to extract emotions; the fear and
chaos of a battle, the sexual tension in a romance.

I choose to observe things in the world and extract what they're really about.
I don't simply build features and observe analytics. I understand the pains of
a user, the emotions, the process they work through it, their frustrations and
joys.

I continually try to fix problems, and fix it a little better day after day.

Sometimes I choose myself as the subject for extracting meaning.

I wonder why my own body and mind is so flawed and what can be done to make it
better. How to heal faster, to run better, what triggers emotions like fear
and procrastination. I pick one thing I'm bad at and see what makes me improve
on it. Or observe why I do sins even when I know I shouldn't.

I pick these flaws up, experiment and improve, or see what doesn't work. I
also experiment with different philosophies and ideals, plant them as a New
Year's Resolution, and see how that works out over a year.

There's a good deal of enjoyment when you successfully extract meaning from
something and get better and better at it each year.

So, recursively, the purpose of my life is to get better at finding the
purpose of my life.

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markcmyers
The question is humorously anthropocentric. Purpose is meaningful only to
humans. Life occurs independently of human notions.

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kesava
I like the Vedic representation of primordial debts wonderfully elucidated in
David Graeber’s Debt: 5000 years of history. The purpose of life is to repay
three debts -

1) Repay the ancestral debt by becoming one. 2) Repay the teacher/sage debt by
becoming a learned one. 3) Repay the societal debt by doing good to others.

(Mr. Graeber obviously does a much better job of summarizing them, but you get
the general idea)

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stealthcat
For starters let's start with this question: Where do you came from? Do you
believe humankind started with Adam, or do you believe humankind started with
_millions_ of years of evolution? If the latter, how much you trust
statistical physics and modern science and the variance of carbon-12 dating
and the publications of the researchers themselves?

I took the revealed knowledge route, study Islam, study Quran, study Hadeeth.
Glad I did. As side bonus my logic, reasoning and critical thinking have
improved a lot.

In the end it is your choice what to believe after witnessing proofs after
proofs, after proofs. Choose wisely.

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jklein11
In the words of Philip J Fry, "Just sitting here turning quarters into urine"

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howscrewedami
This question can have multiple meanings, for example:

1\. What should we do with our lives.

2\. Why is there life on this universe.

For question 1: I don't thing there's a single purpose that fits everyone.
However, this doesn't mean that nothing matters and we are free to whatever we
want - we are human beings after all, and there are some things that humans
should not do. The obvious ones would be rape and senseless killing.

For question 2: life is just a thing that exists. Why do things exist? Why are
there things in the universe, or even a universe at all? Truly mind blowing
stuff in my opinion.

These 2 questions are probably related, not sure how.

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Nomentatus
To distract you while it reproduces itself.

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makerleader
“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he
must recognize that he is who is being asked." \- Viktor Frankl

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Mz
Well, according to the Christian Bible, god was lonely, so created humankind.
If you believe that origin story, then our purpose is to be entertainment for
a cosmic intelligence.

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altsyset
The only purpose of life is giving purpose and meaning to your own life and
collectively. Most prefer just accepting a collective purpose, meaning or goal
in life. This will eventually lead to self doubt.

Few prefer defining their purpose and influencing others with it. We call them
leaders, artists, visionaries etc.

Some prefer manipulation of lack of understanding of purpose. They become a
leading to force in preaching things they don't understand themselves.

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dragonbonheur
It's the reduction of uncertainty.

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tugberkk
For me, there is no purpose. I mean not in a general sense. Maybe you can find
yourself a purpose but I don't believe "there is".

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SirLJ
For my own life is for me, my family and friends to be happy, which involves a
lot of money unfortunately :-)

For the life itself, the only purpose is reproduction

And the meaning of life is 42 (in case you need to include it in your paper as
well ;-)

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thebossbiatch
There's a lot of work on this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_of_life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_of_life)

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JSeymourATL
"I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold, service was joy". - Rabindranath Tagore

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pks016
Life generally: To create new life and follow rules that nature and society
have created until a threshold reach.

Human life: Do whatever role/job you like. Be happy and die at last.

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nurettin
Purpose of life is to collect iron and feed it's cells with oxygen using that
iron. Unless it is anaerobic. Then I have no idea.

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foxyv
To find new, interesting, and possibly tasty things.

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tabeth
Happiness. However, you'd want to maximize this through the longest possible
time frame.

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billconan
the purpose of my life is to fulfill my curiosity.

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hacknat
My purpose is to derive as much joy as I can.

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miguelrochefort
The purpose of life is efficiency.

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hkmurakami
Listening to and following your mind.

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mabynogy
Reproduction.

