what would be the point of almost everything?

flobadob | 01:16 Sun 04th Mar 2012 | Society & Culture

90 Answers

We are pretty sure that there is no intelligent, if any, life in our solar system.
I'm not saying that there is or isn't other life out there, but what I am
wondering is what would be the point of our solar system and everything
in it if we weren't here to realise it?

speaking style...

Is it wrong to be keeping my options open?

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ummmm

Maybe we are.....we are still young :-)

Buenchico

Why should anything have a reason (other than the laws of physics and biochemistry) behind it?

jno

there are an awful lot of solar sytems out there, maybe billions just in the Milky Way - and hundreds of billions of Milky Ways. So there may be others out there capable of appreciating it.

But the universe doesn't really care whether you appreciate it or not. Google, on the other hand, cares about you very much and wants to know everything about you. I'm nost sure which is the more unsettling.

flobadob

Question Author

But if there was no other life and earth was blasted out of existence tomorrow would it not be tree falling in the woods type scenario?

Buenchico

Your question, Flobadob, refers only to our solar system, which comprises less than one billionth of the universe.

Simple probability suggests that there are billions of other life-bearing planets in the universe, and that many of them will have life-forms which are vastly more developed than us. i.e. someone on such a planet would see us in the same way that we see a single-celled micro-organism or, at the most, a bacterium.

Thousands of types of bacteria probably cease to exist on this planet every year. In terms of the universe as a whole, if a species called mankind also happened to die out, it would have no greater significance.

wildwood

What is the point of getting up in the morning when you only go back to bed again at night?

Every organism depends on others to sustain life, so each one has a purpose, or there would be no life on this planet.

shoota

Half past six.

snags

flob... off topic but if you're interested in three QOTSA tracks: 'live from the basement', Maida Vale Studios, email me: [email protected]

jomifl

By 'point' what do you mean?

LazyGun

Others have already said it, but there does nit need to be "a point" to life, or the cosmos. The laws of physics and biochemistry and biology have shaped our exostence.

It is very likely, given the sheer vastness of the universe, that it is teeming with life - just not very close to us, astronomicaly speaking.

The point to your life comes down to what you wish to make of it - seeing design and purpose in the universe because it is difficult or discomfiting to see anything else is what informs religious belief.

boxtops

who says we are pretty sure there is nothing else out there? It may not look like us or sound like us - but it's only recently that a far-away planet was identified which could support life like ours. It would be more amazing if it was ONLY Earth which is populated.

NOX

Of course it would be a tree falling scenario flob, but that doesn't matter because we are no more or less important than anything else in the whole galaxy. The galaxy was not created so we could have an opinion on it, we just happen to be here, so not very much matters anywhere in the really big scheme of things, but in our little world with all our self importance what colour our next car will be seems really important. Quaint, aint it?

boxtops

If there's no point, I won't dust any more - now there is one pointless exercise.

naomi24

Your question makes you sound quite religious flob. Some of those think the stars and planets were made just for us, whereas in fact we are just one miniscule part of the whole.

boxtops

I agree, naomi - and nobody knows how or why the whole thing came to be, in the first place.