WHY DO YOU THINK WE ARE HERE? WHY DO WE EXIST?

[Dubious]

I think it's a symptom of disease in many to over imagine their worth which unlikely would ever happen without the artificially invoked methodology of applied metaphysics. It is this which most often creates these distortions; theism, though not usually recognized as a form of metaphysics, is only one example of it. Without all these conjugated reasons we invest in ourselves the feeling is we are worth nothing which is rarely acceptable to any consciousness which demands value in existence.

[Greta]

WRT may mean with respect to

WRT to is a typo

mush is must

fo is of

So what is SOLIPSISM then?

When I first started on philosophy forums I simply Googled when I didn't know something, and still occasionally need to do so. The danger is that the answer raises further questions, and before you know it you've spent over an hour just delving.

Depending on the context, solipsism may mean self-focus at the expense of acknowledging others' interests to the belief that the self is the only thing that we can known for certain to exist, although I found the inconvenient aspect of that approach is all those many billions of other selves, both human and nonhuman.

[Greta]

... any consciousness which demands value in existence.

Those who need to know are clearly not happy. You don't question existence when you are happy with it. In that case life's purpose feels self-evident - a gift in which we can revel. When life sucks, one might reasonably wonder if there's a point to the suffering.

[Walker]

WRT may mean with respect to

WRT to is a typo

mush is must

fo is of

So what is SOLIPSISM then?

When I first started on philosophy forums I simply Googled when I didn't know something, and still occasionally need to do so. The danger is that the answer raises further questions, and before you know it you've spent over an hour just delving.

Depending on the context, solipsism may mean self-focus at the expense of acknowledging others' interests to the belief that the self is the only thing that we can known for certain to exist, although I found the inconvenient aspect of that approach is all those many billions of other selves, both human and nonhuman.

"Depending on the context, solipsism may mean ..."

Good grief. After such generous qualifiers, you could say anything.

Well, besides that, the billions is a rather large detail.

Ignoring it would have been too sloppy.
How do solipsists explain it?

[Nick_A]

Dubious

I think it's a symptom of disease in many to over imagine their worth which unlikely would ever happen without the artificially invoked methodology of applied metaphysics.

You must be aware of instances where people have acquired everything the world can offer but are compelled to suicide. Why? Is it the influence of the essence of religion or that the depth of human being requires a quality of meaning the world doesn’t offer? On earth a person can become unhappy both because they have nothing or they have everything the world can offer. Solomon in Ecclesiastes 2 describes how he acquired everything but still found it meaningless.

It is this which most often creates these distortions; theism, though not usually recognized as a form of metaphysics, is only one example of it. Without all these conjugated reasons we invest in ourselves the feeling is we are worth nothing which is rarely acceptable to any consciousness which demands value in existence.

If a person admits they cannot play the piano and are nothing in relation to the skills of a pianist is this bad or just a statement of fact?

The question of the thread is why we exist. Suppose humanity serves one purpose with the potential to serve a higher purpose as well. If a person realizes this they would sense their nothingness in relation to conscious human potential.

The idea here is that Man on earth serves the same universal purpose as does all organic life on earth. We transform substances through the workings of our bodily functions. This is what we objectively do. In this way animal man serves as a cosmic necessity. But all the great traditions initiating with a conscious source suggest that Man is capable of more than the purpose of animal Man transforming substances on earth. Man has the potential to serve a conscious purpose as well. This purpose serves to consciously connect higher and lower consciousness. Conscious Man would receive from above and give to below. Conscious Man lives a vertical reality connecting above and below within the quality of the moment while animal man only struggles with the duality taking place within earthly animal existence as a slave to natural laws normal for any creature of reaction.

It is one thing if society says you are nothing in accordance with its standards. It is meaningless. It is quite another to recognize your nothingness in relation to your conscious potential and your egoistic slavery which prevents you from opening to it. This is a necessary beginning for inner growth.

[Greta]

So what is SOLIPSISM then?

When I first started on philosophy forums I simply Googled when I didn't know something, and still occasionally need to do so. The danger is that the answer raises further questions, and before you know it you've spent over an hour just delving.

Depending on the context, solipsism may mean self-focus at the expense of acknowledging others' interests to the belief that the self is the only thing that we can known for certain to exist, although I found the inconvenient aspect of that approach is all those many billions of other selves, both human and nonhuman.

"Depending on the context, solipsism may mean ..."

Good grief. After such generous qualifiers, you could say anything.

Well, besides that, the billions is a rather large detail.

Ignoring it would have been too sloppy.
How do solipsists explain it?

You're a rock fan. Don't you remember Robert Plant's observation: "'Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings"?

The word's meaning is context sensitive and the definition I provided in the first instance is adequate and roughly accords with dictionaries.

[Greta]

The idea here is that Man on earth serves the same universal purpose as does all organic life on earth. We transform substances through the workings of our bodily functions. This is what we objectively do. In this way animal man serves as a cosmic necessity. But all the great traditions initiating with a conscious source suggest that Man is capable of more than the purpose of animal Man transforming substances on earth. Man has the potential to serve a conscious purpose as well. This purpose serves to consciously connect higher and lower consciousness. Conscious Man would receive from above and give to below. Conscious Man lives a vertical reality connecting above and below within the quality of the moment while animal man only struggles with the duality taking place within earthly animal existence as a slave to natural laws normal for any creature of reaction.

It is one thing if society says you are nothing in accordance with its standards. It is meaningless. It is quite another to recognize your nothingness in relation to your conscious potential and your egoistic slavery which prevents you from opening to it. This is a necessary beginning for inner growth.

Humans have already moved far from what you posit. We have a space program and that is utterly essential if any aspect whatsoever of Earth life is survive in any way, shape or form into the future (barring speculative metaphysics, about which we must logically remain agnostic). Without the space program we can be the wisest and most wonderful Buddhalike characters and simply die out very quickly by Earth standards (noting that the planet is approaching old age - 4.6b years old with MUCH less than a billion years left of habitability - do the math).

So, even discounting cognitive advances in themselves, humans appear to be on track to fulfil at least one of their important special potentials.

As for acquired wisdom, I suspect that the people of this planet are in for the absolute mother of hard rides this century, with numerous catastrophes far beyond anything seen in modern history. Whomever is left over when the dust settles (probably mostly billionaires and their support) will hopefully be much chastened and wiser for the extremity of the experience. The only worry is how quickly people forgot the lessons of Hitler, Mao and Stalin suggests that significant gains tend to be temporary, eventually settling to very modest advancement. Such is the potted and uneven story of human advancement and growth (inner and outer).

We can't rely on theism either. After all, it was given its chance for a thousand years or more and religions routinely abused their power. So it's a limited "cure" at best, useful for and needed by some, but not others.

I don't think we can "rely" on any one thing. Diverse and pluralist global societies need a range of approaches to suit different kinds of people, just as we tend to do vocationally (we don't hire illiterate tough guys to perform admin work any more than we hire tiny, "princess" women to do bricklaying).

So there is no one meaning. I always disliked the pat answer "you create your own meaning", which is true up to a point but incomplete. In truth, our individual meanings tend to be very similar to those of many others of similar tendencies. We are part of great movements, great "tribes", but are often unaware of these impersonal metaphysical connections to our "unknown peers", but those connections are nonetheless real.

To a fair extent our meanings are foisted upon us and shaped by circumstance.

[Dubious]

... any consciousness which demands value in existence.

Those who need to know are clearly not happy. You don't question existence when you are happy with it. In that case life's purpose feels self-evident - a gift in which we can revel. When life sucks, one might reasonably wonder if there's a point to the suffering.

I don't agree. It's not implied in my post which strives for a very different view. What you write may apply to one's personal consciousness but not the age-old perennial search for meaning contained within the very matrix of consciousness.

[Greta]

... any consciousness which demands value in existence.

Those who need to know are clearly not happy. You don't question existence when you are happy with it. In that case life's purpose feels self-evident - a gift in which we can revel. When life sucks, one might reasonably wonder if there's a point to the suffering.

I don't agree. It's not implied in my post which strives for a very different view. What you write may apply to one's personal consciousness but not the age-old perennial search for meaning contained within the very matrix of consciousness.

It was too broad brush but I stand by the general principle. Curiosity brings people to wonder how it all works and why certain things happen, but an overall "what's the point?" seems less related to curiosity than dissatisfaction. If life is wonderful, how much does it need an ultimate point?

Why are we here? Obviously to grow and develop. Quantity and quality. There it is: next question! Grow and develop in what way? Some here would say it involves a return to "The Source", although I doubt anyone quite knows what that means or entails. Some would say it's to become wise but many achieve that with age as they face The Reaper anyway (which runs side by side with the mellowing out process that naturally occurs when urges become more familiar and manageable and there's less energy available to do anything about them anyway).

How about greater societal wisdom? Well, we don't burn witches or sacrifice virgins any more but there'd not be a human alive who believes that humanity could not benefit with considerably more wisdom.

[Dubious]

You must be aware of instances where people have acquired everything the world can offer but are compelled to suicide. Why?

There can be any number of reasons. Health is one of the most important ones. Possibly to escape from a truly bad conscience. Not everything can be resolved by money. But I don't know of any millionaires or billionaires who got so bored with their wealth they decided to commit suicide because life was no-longer worth living.

The question of the thread is why we exist.

The question for me is why ask the question? The fact we're here should be enough. The answer may be derived scientifically - which is never good enough - since it doesn't explain the Purpose of it being the explanation we seek.

Since there is no answer to such questions, we keep asking as if there were an absolute statement of such somewhere out there. Never finding any we keep theorizing our own editions of Meaning & Purpose. It's become a philosophic sports field where each team tries to score against the other for the best reasons why we exist.

For me personally, the leading edge of that "WHY" is more prone to exist in music than in words...a kind of scripture in sound. It is then the mind ceases to think within its limited feeling-encrusted verbalizations and actually begins to feel what it seeks achieving escape velocity at the point where words fail. It's an expansion that can't verbalize the Why; you can only feel it. I don't need more than that.

[Greta]

You must be aware of instances where people have acquired everything the world can offer but are compelled to suicide. Why?

There can be any number of reasons. Health is one of the most important ones.

Yes, they will do themselves in due to the illegality of euthanasia and fear of long term incapacitation, suffering and being an imposition on those you hope to impose upon least. There have been a few high profile cases, such as the brilliant Terry Pratchett, who was afflicted with Alzheimer's and went to the Swiss Exit clinic. I understand that Robin Williams was suffering with Lewy bodies dementia. Two extremely funny and intelligent men who faced intimidating end of life decisions.

[Atla]

Why are we here? Obviously to grow and develop. Quantity and quality.

People should be grateful for this remarkable illusion. Few grow and develop to the point where it falls apart.

[TimeSeeker]

Why are we here? Obviously to grow and develop. Quantity and quality.

People should be grateful for this remarkable illusion. Few grow and develop to the point where it falls apart.

Fewer yet have the will to grow and develop past nihilism

Some despair - some recognise it for what it is. Freedom!

[Dubious]

Why are we here? Obviously to grow and develop.

It sound obvious enough but it's not nearly so straight-forward.

There are creatures existing now that have existed since the dinosaurs with hardly any change. There is no mandate to grow and develop for anything that's alive on planet earth (or probably anywhere) aside from adapting to the environment.

It's only a self-imposed edict for those who are aware enough to be disturbed and motivated by complexity...which does not include all of the human race.

There are some rare specimens of humanity left which if left alone would have remained virtually unchanged from what they were 5000 years ago.

There is no point to existence. It just IS and does what it can until it isn't and can no-longer.

At the root, I never noticed the slightest deviation from this somewhat Be-All and End-All paradigm ruling the planet and by extension, the universe.

All life is compromise in one form or another. That's the jist of it.

[Greta]

Why are we here? Obviously to grow and develop.

It sound obvious enough but it's not nearly so straight-forward.

There are creatures existing now that have existed since the dinosaurs with hardly any change. There is no mandate to grow and develop for anything that's alive on planet earth (or probably anywhere) aside from adapting to the environment.

It's only a self-imposed edict for those who are aware enough to be disturbed and motivated by complexity...which does not include all of the human race.

However, if you consider the biosphere as a whole from 3.[whatever] billion years ago up to today, the change is dramatic.

Note that there was nothing as impressive as dolphins, apes and crows ten million years ago.

"Grow and develop" is hardly an edict. What is the alternative? To stagnate and diminish?

There is no point to existence. It just IS and does what it can until it isn't and can no-longer.

Sure, everything is until it can't be. What of the journey from microbial Earth to complex and intelligent Earth is not to be considered in this equation? Are you so peeved with humanity that this amazing evolution Is not inspiring to you?