Poll: Reality is weird.

[AngryMongoose]

Aye.

Take, for example, the Sun. Hanging above half the world every single day is a gigantic ball of fire, perpetuated by a lack of respect for the conservation of energy, perfectly capable of permanently damaging the skin and eyes of creatures supposedly born on this planet.

And rain. Water falling from the sky. What part of that is normal!?

 

[dues1031]

Its because there is likely no God that our reality is like that. We fight for resources because there are limited resources and no one wants to starve/freeze/ or be eaten. You would need a reality completely devoid of predators, with infinite resources, and a extremely non-aggressive populace. There is no need for us to be here at all, the human race is just one more animal species fighting to propagate and spread. And while yes life would be simpler if everything was carefree and pleasant, the chaos of creation and evolution inherently creates just as many negative situations as good ones.

 

[StBishop]

Welcome to free thought. It's fun hey?

It's not really a big deal man, just enjoy your time and don't fret about those sorts of things. It seems very small minded but in the end you're right, we're all meaningless meat sacks on a rock, lucky for us we have the capacity for joy and love. So experience them while you're alive and die a happy man.

What's funny about life, actually, are the "norms". The only reason we find certain things weird and certain things normal is because that's what we've come to expect. I like to think that there's an alternate universe where dragons live and constantly attack things, but it's normal and so people just prepare for it and don't really think anything of it.

On the same token, in that world, it's considered perverted to have sex. Breeding occurs remotely in two separate capsules by the mind.

There's an alternate country where sex is considered perverted. It's called the United States.

Seriously, there tends to be a prudish distaste for sex and the body but it's not like that's news to anyone.

 

[Whateveralot]

It's strange, but I'm as human as everyone and I can understand the feelings. You can too if you weren't so darn apathetic!

Just kidding, I don't think you are. I actually am pretty good at understanding feelings.

 

[Brandon237]

I've been thinking lately just how random and really how ultimately pointless our existence really is. I just don't quite get how out of every conceivable possible existence we could have, for some reason our current one was the one that came to be. I mean, why the hell do we look the way we look, act the way we act, think the way we think, etc., etc. For example, why is it in our nature to make warfare on one another and to let our stupid pride get in the way of our better reasoning, and why is our drive in life pretty much solely driven by just emotion, and on an even more basic level, why are we composed in the form we are composed in with eyeballs and ears and kinda oddly shaped bodies that function pretty inefficiently and constantly need fuel (food/water) and can be destroyed relatively easily. Anyways, point is, I just think existence could have, and in some ways should have been far more "divine," for lack of a better word, instead of it featuring a bunch of unpredictable, strange sacks of flesh and bone called humans that live on a strange floating ball of rock in space called Earth.

First: I think this is how religion started...
Second: I can't tell if you are going into or breaking out of a rather nihilistic state of mind, the two are equally confusing.
Third: The word you are looking for is arbitrary. Random means unbiased.
Fourth: We exist because the laws of this universe and its specifics have allowed us to form, if it weren't us here, it would be something else somewhere else. We won the cosmic lottery for this little section of the Orion arm. Yay. Enjoy it.
Fifth: Why do you need reason, you are alive exactly as you are, the chances of which are infinitesimally low, we are all lucky bastards, and we don't exactly have long here, so enjoy the ride, find happiness, excitement, love, sex and peace, and don't waste time wondering why, or posting on internet forums...

The idea of that post was in there somewhere... I think...

EDIT: Added boldness for readability of the paragraph... Shiny...

 

[Brandon237]

This is fairly normal, most people have their naive existentialist phase in their mid teens.

The reason we make war is the same reason that if someone nicks your stuff you thump them and take it back.

The reason our bodies are inefficient is that they evolved to meet the needs of our environment in a non-driven manner, they weren't consciously designed from the ground up.

Dude, you're grounded too much in the rules of our existence with your reasoning. Your more explaining HOW things are the way they are, not WHY. It's not like war needed to exist, nor did evolution or any of that other survival of the fittest crap (which is exactly what it is, despite it being true, because I think it's a barbaric and ultimately shitty way for life to exist). We could have just as easily been a race of super intelligent, peaceful beings that are at utter peace with one another and live an existence of pure bliss and perfection. In fact, I think that would have been far more simplistic and "normal" than this seemingly unnecessarily chaotic existence that we do have. The amount of detail that goes into the chaos of our existence is really quite excessive; I think it would've been way easier just to make us more in tune with one another, rather than constantly being in conflict.

Think about a perfect, symmetrical, unchallenging, balanced, unchaotic universe for a second. Do you know what you would find in such a universe? Photons. And what else? Photons. Did I mention anything else? No. Would I be able to mention anything else? No. A perfect universe would have matter / antimatter evenly spread amongst each other. Photons. Light, blissful nothingness. Not quite perfection if you ask me...
Without chaos, without that element of imbalance, without a seemingly arbitrary system of cause and effect with laws of nature and science so open to exploitation and the creation of the unusual; we would not be here.

If life stayed as it started out, with simple herbivorous organisms, an intelligent species would never have arrived. This type of conflict, this biological arms race, is the only reason thinking, reasoning beings like ourselves are here.

Everything you complain about is actually the very reason for your existence.

 

[HardkorSB]

I think it would've been way easier just to make us more in tune with one another, rather than constantly being in conflict.

Make us? The thing is, we weren't "made" into what we are now, We adapted to the environment around us.

I'm asking why in the sense of why would there even be the need in the first place for resources; why don't we just have all that we need already and not have to go out and fight each other over stuff. It almost feels like its a game or something, as if there was some strange God out there who made us simply to be entertained or something by making our existence so chaotic and constantly full of unpredictable conflict.

OR maybe it just is chaotic because it is? Maybe chaos is the only order in this universe that you're going to get?
The way you're phrasing your ideas indicates that we are here because some higher intelligence made it so.
Other than that, your questions are kind of stupid and pointless.
Why is our blood red and not green?
Why is darkness black and not white?
Why is helium lighter than air?
Why is fire hot and not cold?
See, I can ask dumb questions as well.

We could have just as easily been a race of super intelligent, peaceful beings that are at utter peace with one another and live an existence of pure bliss and perfection. In fact, I think that would have been far more simplistic and "normal" than this seemingly unnecessarily chaotic existence that we do have. The amount of detail that goes into the chaos of our existence is really quite excessive

This is another thing that's wrong with your reasoning:
Progress demands conflict. If everything is peaceful and stable, there is no need to evolve. If every lifeform had exactly what it needed to survive all of the time then we would still be single cell organisms.
And what is this "perfection" you speak of? Can you define it so that I can at least dismiss it properly?
The "excessive amount of detail" you see in chaos comes from the fact that it's chaos. I can pick up a handful of dirt and then throw it on the ground and it will form a shape or multiple shapes. Why these shapes and not other? Wouldn't it be better for it to form a different, more simplistic shape?
Can you see the flaws in your thinking?

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Yup its weird. I've accepted that and moved on a long, long time ago...

[sub]In a distant galaxy far away...[sub] [sub][sub][sub]Naboo was under an attack.[/sub][/sub][/sub] [sub][sub][sub][sub]I thought me and....[/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub]

 

[FalloutJack]

Nothing is definite around here in reality, not even in its randomosity. Truth remains stranger than fiction.

 

[Brandon237]

Yup its weird. I've accepted that and moved on a long, long time ago...

[sub]In a distant galaxy far away...[sub] [sub][sub][sub]Naboo was under an attack.[/sub][/sub][/sub] [sub][sub][sub][sub]I thought me and....[/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub]

So... many... subscripts... I kinda just quoted this out of morbid curiosity as to how many you used... oh damn... TOO MANY...

Reminds me of:

Spoiler

http://www.google.co.za/imgres?q=excuse+me+wtf+are+you+doing&hl=en&biw=1920&bih=1017&gbv=2&tbm=isch&tbnid=dH2TnTqvQCScaM:&imgrefurl=http://erroraccessdenied.com/node/650&docid=I07nUUjQXtbTGM&w=400&h=400&ei=AklZTrnmIIX0mAX_tqyvDA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=765&vpy=80&dur=41&hovh=225&hovw=225&tx=121&ty=136&page=1&tbnh=142&tbnw=142&start=0&ndsp=60&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0

I don't think anything needs to be said

 

[ArchAngelKira]

I'll ask the guy whos in charge after I pass away.

 

[Sightless Wisdom]

Well... I'm a nihilist. I don't think anything has more meaning than what is apparent. We exist for one reason or another but we have no purpose other than what purpose we give ourselves. The key is not to try to think about how anything exists, like space or the absence of space and what the difference is between them. That just makes you go crazy, seriously I've had moments where I was unable to think straight or really function because my brain was too concentrated on figuring out the logic and implications of existence.

 

[RickRoll]

This is fairly normal, most people have their naive existentialist phase in their mid teens.

The reason we make war is the same reason that if someone nicks your stuff you thump them and take it back.

The reason our bodies are inefficient is that they evolved to meet the needs of our environment in a non-driven manner, they weren't consciously designed from the ground up.

Dude, you're grounded too much in the rules of our existence with your reasoning. Your more explaining HOW things are the way they are, not WHY. It's not like war needed to exist, nor did evolution or any of that other survival of the fittest crap (which is exactly what it is, despite it being true, because I think it's a barbaric and ultimately shitty way for life to exist). We could have just as easily been a race of super intelligent, peaceful beings that are at utter peace with one another and live an existence of pure bliss and perfection. In fact, I think that would have been far more simplistic and "normal" than this seemingly unnecessarily chaotic existence that we do have. The amount of detail that goes into the chaos of our existence is really quite excessive; I think it would've been way easier just to make us more in tune with one another, rather than constantly being in conflict.

But we aren't. Existence is what it is. You will probably never find the answers to most of your questions, and if you do, they're unlikely to be the answers you wanted.

Just stop being so negative. No, the world isn't a giant ball of love, intelligence and tolerance, but quite frankly it's a miracle that there is even a small amount of love, intelligence and tolerance at all. Do you have any idea how many hurdles life has had to overcome to get from a random ball of chemicals at the bottom of the ocean to where we are right now? Do you have any idea how slim the probability was of surviving any of those challenges, let alone all of them? If one thing is for certain, we are not "inefficient" and we are not "easily destroyed".

You can't deny reality no matter how strange it seems to you. If you want to leave this world a bit better than you found it in the short time you have then get right on and do that. At least then you would actually be helping people and making a difference. But the one thing that helps no-one, least of all yourself, is just wishing for things to be perfect, especially if your going to brood over every single flaw you encounter whilst completely ignoring the brighter side of life.

In short, deal with it.

I'm not being moody or grumpy about it at all. I'm just weirded out by it all. I think you give existence too much credit by saying that our survival lasting this long is a miracle, and that there even being some tolerance and intelligence is a miracle. Positivity and hope are just the equal, but opposite side of negativity and despair. These are just the rules of the universe. "Miracles" are just illusions; I don't think stuff happens purely through "random chance." I think that the universe is far more organized that it appears, despite how often chaotic it is. If it wasn't organized, than we'd all be random blobs of mush with no proper intellegence and the universe would just be a cluttered mess of unorganized mush. Clearly the universe can't be truly "random" just by considering the simply fact that we have DNA which deliberately and repeatedly constructs that same human form consistently in a very similar manner. I just wonder why our DNA, and for that matter whatever other force was the blueprint for our universe as a whole, decided to make these specific choices when there could have been soooooo many other possibilities.

 

[RickRoll]

Well... I'm a nihilist. I don't think anything has more meaning than what is apparent. We exist for one reason or another but we have no purpose other than what purpose we give ourselves. The key is not to try to think about how anything exists, like space or the absence of space and what the difference is between them. That just makes you go crazy, seriously I've had moments where I was unable to think straight or really function because my brain was too concentrated on figuring out the logic and implications of existence.

lol, my brain has been like that at least half the time I've been alive (20 years) XD!

 

[Shockolate]

There is no set point to life.

Life is just there, and it's whatever the hell you want it to be.

 

[gabe12301]

When I die I'll post it here. ok?

 

[RickRoll]

I think it would've been way easier just to make us more in tune with one another, rather than constantly being in conflict.

Make us? The thing is, we weren't "made" into what we are now, We adapted to the environment around us.

I'm asking why in the sense of why would there even be the need in the first place for resources; why don't we just have all that we need already and not have to go out and fight each other over stuff. It almost feels like its a game or something, as if there was some strange God out there who made us simply to be entertained or something by making our existence so chaotic and constantly full of unpredictable conflict.

OR maybe it just is chaotic because it is? Maybe chaos is the only order in this universe that you're going to get?
The way you're phrasing your ideas indicates that we are here because some higher intelligence made it so.
Other than that, your questions are kind of stupid and pointless.
Why is our blood red and not green?
Why is darkness black and not white?
Why is helium lighter than air?
Why is fire hot and not cold?
See, I can ask dumb questions as well.

We could have just as easily been a race of super intelligent, peaceful beings that are at utter peace with one another and live an existence of pure bliss and perfection. In fact, I think that would have been far more simplistic and "normal" than this seemingly unnecessarily chaotic existence that we do have. The amount of detail that goes into the chaos of our existence is really quite excessive

This is another thing that's wrong with your reasoning:
Progress demands conflict. If everything is peaceful and stable, there is no need to evolve. If every lifeform had exactly what it needed to survive all of the time then we would still be single cell organisms.
And what is this "perfection" you speak of? Can you define it so that I can at least dismiss it properly?
The "excessive amount of detail" you see in chaos comes from the fact that it's chaos. I can pick up a handful of dirt and then throw it on the ground and it will form a shape or multiple shapes. Why these shapes and not other? Wouldn't it be better for it to form a different, more simplistic shape?
Can you see the flaws in your thinking?

Okay, what I mean is why do we even have the need for conflict to fuel evolution and progress? This "need" is just encoded into our manner of functioning, but it could just as easily not have been. I'm not saying that a blissfully perfect existence is better by any means, because I would view that as quite boring from my human brain perspective, but I don't see why we couldn't have existed in a manner that such an existence actually wouldn't be boring for us and that we'd totally be great with it. On the same note, I also wonder why our brains aren't programmed just to all universally accept and love our existence, instead of many people, like myself, having quite a few problems with it. I just wonder why the need for conflict? It's fine in small doses, but does it have to really be to the excess of horrific atrocities like WWII, Apartheid, Hurricane Katrina, etc., etc. Also, why couldn't existence be more awesome. I mean, it sure does have its high points, but I think it could be a lot more "fun," for lack of a better word. Lol, this may sound very immature, but why can't we have the ability to do magic or fly to other planets like the Silver Surfer or other crazy stuff like that, but instead get essentially teased by such awesome concepts by only being able to have them exist in our imagination.

 

[Romidude]

Reality is a lovely place, but I wouldn't want to live there. (Anyone get that reference? Please?)

Yeah, it's weird, pointless, all that jazz. But, as a friend of mine once said "Life is meaningless, but it isn't worthless"

 

[HardkorSB]

Okay, what I mean is why do we even have the need for conflict to fuel evolution and progress? This "need" is just encoded into our manner of functioning, but it could just as easily not have been. I'm not saying that a blissfully perfect existence is better by any means, because I would view that as quite boring from my human brain perspective, but I don't see why we couldn't have existed in a manner that such an existence actually wouldn't be boring for us and that we'd totally be great with it. On the same note, I also wonder why our brains aren't programmed just to all universally accept and love our existence, instead of many people, like myself, having quite a few problems with it. I just wonder why the need for conflict? It's fine in small doses, but does it have to really be to the excess of horrific atrocities like WWII, Apartheid, Hurricane Katrina, etc., etc. Also, why couldn't existence be more awesome. I mean, it sure does have its high points, but I think it could be a lot more "fun," for lack of a better word. Lol, this may sound very immature, but why can't we have the ability to do magic or fly to other planets like the Silver Surfer or other crazy stuff like that, but instead get essentially teased by such awesome concepts by only being able to have them exist in our imagination.

Why do we need conflict for progress? Picture this scenario:
You have everything you want and you are happy with the way things are. Why would you do anything to change that? Progress is change. There is no need for change if everything is OK.
Another thing, Perfection is subjective. What is perfect for me might not be perfect for you and vice versa, therefore we can't live a "blissfully perfect existence".
Why the "excess of horrific atrocities"? the man made ones are simple - when 2 or more parties want the same thing at the same time and they're not willing to compromise, there's conflict. The natural ones (along with the lack of an ability to "do magic" and all that other stuff) - read a science book (start with physics) or look it up on the web.
Why can't life always be fun? If it was ALWAYS fun, you wouldn't be having fun because you wouldn't know what fun really is. You can only distinguish high points from low points because both exist.
Why isn't the universe different from what it is? Because it is the way it is. If it was different, you still would be asking the same question.
Is it the only reality? Maybe not but right now, we're still too primitive to find that out. Maybe in a few thousand years or so.