The Goal of Humanity

There could arguably be a few select 'goals, but I find that "The Goal of Humanity" does not exist. Humanity as a whole has no set purpose that I have seen. Individuals, however, do have a purpose. Each individual needs to determine his own purpose in life, or... in the event they have no purpose... they should acknowledge their useless existence and then take steps to either get a purpose or die.

Even religions... most of them, anyway... do not set forth a purpose for humanity. On the sixth day, God created Adam. Why? was God lonely? boredom? Did he do it just to see if he really could? are we some experiment.... he wants to see if we will choose good or evil so he created this elaborate system to make us pick, like rats that run through a maze of his creation? If we hit the "good" button we get heaven and a piece of cheese, but the "evil" button gets us burned in hell? What if I don't want to run through the maze?

The goal was once survival, but now thats short of a laugh. In most of the planet your survival to adulthood is almost assured. In the West you're being prosperous as an adult is almost assured. From the time of columbus to the start of WWI the general purpose was exploration, to "discover a new world". Since then humanity has dwindled down to quite a conceited group. In this day and age it is purely for our own self-gratification.

What is life? Life is a definition seperating life from death. Although there are cases in which opinion can differ from death, the main point is clear. If a child sees a fish on the carpet, flapping for water, and the next moment it is no longet flapping, the child knows the fish is dead.

What is life, than? It is expansive power. Life can only be sustained for so long, and thus to sustain life there must be expansion. Bacteria are constantly prone to immediate annihalation and thus, they must reproduce to statistically enhance their chances of, indeed, life.
This has simply occured by evolution. Those who multiplied lived, those who didn't died. Simple as can be.

What implications could expansive power in early bacteria possible have on society as a whole? Earlier I have compared society with a person, each individual person with a cell. All working together to form a greater whole. Now, the whole concept behind man, on a purely biological level, is of course expansion.

Now, if we look at societies, we can clearly see, throughout history that expansion is the main factor. Now, I'm not simply talking about expansion of territory. I am talking about all possible expansion, meaning technological, cultural and philosophical expansion. On all possible fields, man is trying to expand.

Why are we trying to get into space? To increase our chances of life? Coincidence? I think not. As a reductionist, I believe all behaviour comes forth from instincts, and our drive to expand is driven from a rudimentary drive to persist.

Again, what does this mean on our sociological level? It is simple. If we look at history, it is not the complacent mass that initiates change, that furthers expansion. No, rather it is the 'Great Man', that progresses society, and is the drive behind human expansion. The thinkers like Thales, Plato, et caetera. The doers like Alexander, Napoleon, et caetera.

Now, when glancing back at history, seeing the greeks having large amounts of thinkers, the question emergers: "Where are our Great Men?"
This is no 'Incredibles' movie. They are not living amongst us. Our society, aimed at the consumer, at the supply of materialistic goods to the consumer has failed horribly. True, we are still making progress, but not hardly as fast and advanced as we 'could go'. If society is restructured in such a way that we can aim society to produce as many 'Great Men' as possible, to enhance our society in it's expansion, than will we have a goal.

Interested? Read Nietzsche :).

Mr U

I don't think humanity as a whole has any goal. Except for maybe the furthering and expansion of our species. There are of course goals that all people have for themselves but as far as a goal for all of humanity, expansion and furtherization is the only one I can see.

Nihlism. Learn it, love it, live it. You will find the answer to all of your questions there.

I disagree, TheDon. Although Nihilism and Moral relativism is the only thing to follow from a Christian moral value system (and a muslim moral value system), this does mean that nihilisme is the answer to everything, or in fact, anything to be proud of.

Of course I will concur that nihilism is a sign of intelligence, for it shows that someone has escaped the folly moral values put on him by an arrogant society bent on self-preservation, but that should not imply that I feel that nihilism is the way to live. Quite the opposite in fact, as I have stated before, I would very much like to convert the moral value system into a system of progress, that will challenge young people to optimally develop themselves as progressive human beings, attempting to find themselves in art, science and culture.

Yet, I know, this is merely a shadow of a dream. I do not expect to make the day in which this becomes truth, but I am hopeful. Until than, nihilism will supply people with answers to questions they should not be asking.

Mr U

ive got to agree with theDon. theres a part of nihilism that resounds within bhuddism. so itd be the way to go for me and anyone who would ask that question of me

Nihilism, literally, means belief in nothing. As a philosophical position, nihilism is the view that the world, and especially human existence, is without meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value, and has in the minds of many represented a great spiritual danger of late modernity. It was also a historically significant political movement in 19th-century Russia, which held that all existing socioeconomic institutions needed to be destroyed in order for anything better to appear.

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of the Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit; in Pāli, Siddhattha Gotama), who lived between approximately 563 and 483 BCE. Originating in India, Buddhism gradually spread throughout Asia to Central Asia, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, as well as the East Asian countries of China, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan.

The aim of buddhist practices is to become free of suffering (dukkha). Some schools emphasize awakening the practitioner to the realization of anatta (egolessness, the absence of a permanent or substantial self) and achieve enlightenment and Nirvana. Other Buddhist scriptures (the "Tathagatagarbha" sutras) encourage the practitioner to cleanse him/herself of the mental and moral defilements of the "worldly self" and thereby penetrate through to a perception of the indwelling "Buddha-Principle" ("Buddha-nature"), also termed the "True Self" (see "Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra"), and thus become transformed into a Buddha. Some other schools appeal to bodhisattvas for a favourable rebirth. Some others do none of these things. Most, if not all, Buddhist schools also teach followers to perform good and wholesome actions, to avoid bad and harmful actions. There can be very large differences between different Buddhist schools of thought.

Buddhist morality is underpinned by the principles of harmlessness and moderation. Mental training focuses on moral discipline (sila), meditative concentration (samadhi), and wisdom (prajñā).

Buddhism, per se, neither confirms nor denies the existence of the supernatural (gods, demons, heavens, hells, etc.). Some Buddhist schools do employ deities and celestial protectors in their practices, but these are generally considered to be emanations of the meditator's own mind and thus not fundamentally real.

Quoted both from Wikipedia.com. How exactly does Nihilism fit in Buddhism, or vice versa, I see few similarities.

Mr U

The only parallel I see between the two is they believe in 'The Oneness'. And even then they are completely different terms of definition. We exsist to evolve. Nothing more, nothing less. And whether we evolve fast enough to become pure energy beings before the world goes boom is our united goal as a species. That's my take on it anyway.

"Live long and prosper" - or whatever the dude with the ears said...

And whether we evolve fast enough to become pure energy beings before...

Well, that Akira kid did it back in '88 so the rest of us should be pretty close.

Well, that Akira kid did it back in '88 so the rest of us should be pretty close.

Yes, however the idea of turning into the bloated equivalent of an event horizon isn't exactly what I had in mind. You 'killer' of posts you.