Hacker News Reader

Comment by randomsearch | Hacker News Reader

Life only has meaning when viewed through the collective: our purpose is to help others, make great things and self actualise (learn, develop). Life isn’t about me or you, it’s about us. Make plans that go beyond your lifetime - with the intention of “handing off” to a suitable person, or at least leaving a description of what you’d like to see next so that someone else can pick that up. There are so many problems to solve, ideas to explore, others to help, people to inspire. The really difficulty lies in choosing one thing to work on at a time.

View on HN

> Make plans that go beyond your lifetime

If you cannot find a meaning in one lifetime, adding a finite number of (other people’s) lifetimes will still be meaningless. (It can make the ending of your own less relevant but I’d say that’s a different issue.)

No, it won’t still be meaningless; it is not a different issue, and that’s exactly the point.

I think grasping this is a fundamental step towards escaping a very egocentric view of life.

Even if by “escaping a very egocentric view of life” you mean that one’s life is meaningless but other people’s lives are not you don’t need to go “beyond your lifetime”.

If whatever you can do for today’s people is not enough to have a “meaning” how is doing things for future people different in that respect?

(Again, there is a practical difference in delaying the meaning beyond the time of death. It’s a common trait in religions for a reason, I guess.)

Going beyond your lifetime is a useful mental exercise for those that trapped in an egocentric viewpoint.

Realising that the world will continue to turn when we’re not there - just as it was turning before us - is definitely a good exercise.

Whether this idea helps to find a meaning in life or not is debatable. If imaginary people from the distant future can give meaning to one’s life also should actual people from the present/near future, at least to some extent. Otherwise we’re fooling ourselves until the end.

> Life only has meaning when viewed through the collective...

This may be true for ants. But I've never seen how this can be an absolute truth for humans for two reasons:

1. If one life is truly meaningless (0), how does multiplying it produce meaning (0 * 8 billion = 0)?

2. If you found yourself to be the last person on the planet, would you A) realize you have no meaning and die, B) create art and put a little more beauty into the universe? Given those choices, does option A or B have more inherent "meaning"?

In hypothetical (2) I’d spend my time working towards the best collective outcome. The most obvious way to do so would be to explain how I ended up there and how it might have been avoided, and other points of wisdom gained from the experience. I’d record those in the best way possible for the benefit of other people or beings.

As for (1): obviously yes it does produce meaning. Otherwise I wouldn’t have said it. I don’t know why meaning should obey the formula you give.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com