TED Conversations

Alex Percival

This conversation is closed. Start a new conversation
or join one »

the universe does not need to have meaning behind it.

The meaning and reason of the universe and life has been debated over for centuries. religion always states that the point of life is to serve god, or gods, or to fulfil your role in society. with religion, the meaning of the universe is usually not to far off from the reasons for life. as in to serve the god or gods of those religions. with modern discoveries, we have found that the meaning of life itself is pointless, but we are extremely lucky to be here because the probability that any one of us being in existence is next to 0%. there is no meaning behind the universe; however we are trying to discover one. we, as humans, are always perceiving the world as one thing or another and try to make sense out of everything. when we are searching for meaning behind the universe, we often miss that the universe might not need to have a meaning. there may not be any meaning to it at all. and actually, it makes sense that the universe has no meaning to it. the only reason we try to find meaning behind the universe is because we are a curious people who want to be able to understand everything we can. we are always interpreting the world around us based on our built up experiences from our past. take written language, for example. all the text in this is interpreted by our brains and we see meaning in it. but in reality, it is just a bunch of scribbles. it has no other meaning besides what we give it.

Topics: philosophy
+3
Share:

Showing single comment thread. View the full conversation.

  • Get Real

    • 0
    Jan 22 2012: True!
    But then, how can a mass of lowlives be controlled and managed by some interesant morons, who can not agree that "God did something with no meaning"?
    Until humanity wakes up from such dilusional concepts - no one will be able to agree with you my friend.
    Keep trying though :-)
    Good luck!
    • thumb

      Alex Percival

      • 0
      Jan 22 2012: i agree with you compleatl. however, the opinions of the ignorernt arent importent when talking about this :P if we were worried that people would not accept things like evolution then it wouldent of developed.

      • David Grammer

        • +3
        Jan 24 2012: I do wonder how many lists of "ignorant people" you I and would show up on. Ignorance is often more in the eye of the beholder than in any sort of objective rationale. You and I think denying evolution is "ignorant". Someone else will believe that our refusal to accept the supremacy of their deity is "ignorant". I'm not sure that either point of view is particularly helpful. I have no problem with people believing in "intelligent design" if it makes them happy. What I object to is the insistence that everyone else believe in it, too. I think we need to develop an intellectual tolerance for the views of others as long as they are not attempting to infringe on the rights of others. At the end of the day, the value of an idea lies in how well it helps you to cope with life. I'm not suggesting that every point of view on every subject carries equal weight, but I am suggesting that a little tolerance, a little humility and a lot less name calling might be of more value in reaching a rapprochement which allows all of us to live together a bit more harmoniously than we currently do.
        • thumb

          Alex Percival

          • 0
          Jan 28 2012: i also agree with what you are saying. but when i say "the opinions of the ignorent arent importet when talking about this" i mean that someone who has little knowledge of the subject should not try to propose were sothing is true or not based on their own opinion, because they are not compleatly knowledgeable of the subject. however, their opinions should still be respected. wether it is compleatly incorrect or not. but also, the future of the human race will depend on what decisions we make in our time, wether it be another 1000 years of beleiving in religous text to be historicly and literaly accuret, or progress towards deep space travel.

Showing single comment thread. View the full conversation.