Philosophy Now Forum

Setting aside "42" which is the answer to Life, the universe and Everything...The reason we are here is because the Earth needs plastic and it can't make it itself.

why not?

-Imp

To reproduce and continue the species.

Alien Experiment wrote:Setting aside "42" which is the answer to Life, the universe and Everything...The reason we are here is because the Earth needs plastic and it can't make it itself.

That's George Carlin - from around 3 minutes into the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rld0KDcan_w

In truth, the Earth did make plastic itself because we are part of the Earth. Humanity is something that the Earth is doing a lot of on its surface at the moment. My guess is that we humans are currently functioning like an emerging reproductive system, without our space program the result of a general need of life to spread its stuff around as much as it can. We call it "exploration".

From another perspective, our lofty concepts of exploration and discovery could simply be seen as a reflexive impulse to spread out and replicate. Life is like King Midas, where the non living matter it touches is turned into itself. Whatever, there is logical reason for universal optimism about the universe given that it was once chaotic and fiendishly hot and pressurised, and now it capable of growing complex places with sentient life like the Earth.

Alien Experiment wrote:Setting aside "42" which is the answer to Life, the universe and Everything...The reason we are here is because the Earth needs plastic and it can't make it itself.

The earth doesn't need plastic. The oceans and landfills are loaded up with that crap. Why don't you take that stuff back to the planet you're from?

PhilX

thedoc wrote:To reproduce and continue the species.

So you're here to populate the world with more thedocs? We're doomed.

surreptitious57 wrote:
There is no philosophical reason as to why we are here we just are

Philosophy is what we do after we discover that we are here, not before. Therefore there is no philosophical reason for us to be here, that is to be determined after the fact.

There is no philosophical reason for us to be here before or after the fact because it makes no difference either way
As our existence is as a result of randomness that can be explained by physics without invoking any philosophy at all

The most urgent question is: How do we build a raft?
I hear plastic is not great for spacecraft.

...because having been produced here, we haven't yet managed to live anywhere else and it's unlikely we ever will...or perhaps the last humans of planet Earth will go extinct on Mars that being as far as we got. After all, Mars is just around the corner compared to what's next.

Perhaps we "come" here (to the physical planet Earth) to live out one form of intoxication or another. There seems to be so many forms of it. What does one choose for their intoxication? Religion, power, madness, struggle, love? What stories do they tell themselves and others to justify it? Are you a happy drunk or a sour drunk?

Lacewing wrote:Perhaps we "come" here (to the physical planet Earth) to live out one form of intoxication or another. There seems to be so many forms of it. What does one choose for their intoxication? Religion, power, madness, struggle, love? What stories do they tell themselves and others to justify it? Are you a happy drunk or a sour drunk?

Would plain drunk suffice?

Welcome back.

PhilX

Lacewing wrote:Perhaps we "come" here (to the physical planet Earth) to live out one form of intoxication or another. There seems to be so many forms of it. What does one choose for their intoxication? Religion, power, madness, struggle, love? What stories do they tell themselves and others to justify it? Are you a happy drunk or a sour drunk?

Do you know the distinction between soaring intoxication and drunken inebriation?

Henry Miller relates an incident of when he deliberately intoxicated himself with water, to the extent that he was highly aware, animated, and verbose to an assembled party that he was throwing in a bar, having just been paid that afternoon.

Although he didn't say it, I recognize that he was intoxicated on energy and not H2O, quite distinct from the inebriation of chemicals, as he didn't touch a drop during the outing. Or maybe he did say it. It was so long ago.

In fact elsewhere, he wrote one of the most lyrical stream-of-consciousness passages ever to grace the language.

Lacewing wrote:Perhaps we "come" here (to the physical planet Earth)

What brings you back to planet Earth? I feared you were gone for ever.