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SneezingPenis
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Life: accomplished?
#4788394 - 10/11/05 06:04 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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is it happiness? contentment? knowledge? spiritual progression? satisfaction? If you took man A, who was happy all his life, good fortune came his way, had ups and downs, but the majority of his life, he was happy, would you consider man A to have accomplished life? what if man A was hitler?
would we consider ourselves to be our own measuring stick of what accomplishing life is? has life finally been accomplished once you lay on your deathbed looking back on your existence? or do you believe that you are constantly accomplishing life, just by having brain function? is that the point? to just accomplish this goal which we ourselves have subconsciously created?
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dblaney
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I would say that the accomplishment is the journey. We don't necessarily have any sort of thing we have to do to be accomplished, in fact one need not even eat or drink (granted they would die).
But just live moment to moment, and that is the accomplishment.
-------------------- "What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?" "Belief is a beautiful armor But makes for the heaviest sword" - John Mayer Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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daimyo
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Accomplishment is whatever point you make it.
For me there is no point of accomplishment in sight. I have already accomplished my original life goals, but have come to find new ones. There is no reason for me to believe that once I achieve my next set I will feel any more accomplished. Just another check on the list.
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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
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SneezingPenis
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Re: Life: accomplished? [Re: dblaney]
#4788447 - 10/11/05 06:15 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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but what do you mean by living? just brain function? would a comatose person be considered accomplishing their life? or do you mean in the sense of acknowledging and being aware of your perceptions?
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SneezingPenis
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Re: Life: accomplished? [Re: daimyo]
#4788456 - 10/11/05 06:18 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
daimyo said: Accomplishment is whatever point you make it.
For me there is no point of accomplishment in sight. I have already accomplished my original life goals, but have come to find new ones. There is no reason for me to believe that once I achieve my next set I will feel any more accomplished. Just another check on the list.
im referring to a general, overall accomplishment of life. A point where you can tell yourself that you have accomplished the meaning of life, even if you dont know what the meaning of life is, you understand that you have fulfilled its requirements, even if the requirements be unknown to you.
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psychomime
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biologically (and i would say objectively) you have accomplished life when you have reproduced. anything further than this is, i believe, superfluous and subjective. this doesn't detract from one's own path by any means, it merely highlights the personal nature of following a path. one assigns meaning in ones own way.
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dblaney
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Yeah, I suppose brain function would qualify as 'living' in my book, as would being comatose, although that's an interesting question.
This may border on the spiritual side, but I wonder what happens to the Self when the body is comatose. Perhaps the person is dreaming in the coma state? Interesting question...
-------------------- "What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?" "Belief is a beautiful armor But makes for the heaviest sword" - John Mayer Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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dblaney
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Re: Life: accomplished? [Re: psychomime]
#4788480 - 10/11/05 06:24 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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you have accomplished life when you have reproduced. anything further than this...merely highlights the personal nature of following a path
I think that the idea of reproduction is a personal path as well. I hope to have kids myself, but it is a personal choice. Just because we, as humans, have the ability to reproduce doesn't necessarily mean that we must do so. Of course, if NO ONE did so, we would become extinct.
-------------------- "What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?" "Belief is a beautiful armor But makes for the heaviest sword" - John Mayer Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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SneezingPenis
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Re: Life: accomplished? [Re: psychomime]
#4788494 - 10/11/05 06:28 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
psychomime said: biologically (and i would say objectively) you have accomplished life when you have reproduced. anything further than this is, i believe, superfluous and subjective. this doesn't detract from one's own path by any means, it merely highlights the personal nature of following a path. one assigns meaning in ones own way.
(in all sincerity) could you explain how reproduction is accomplishing life in the sense we are talking about? I understand that biologically, that would be the answer, but in this context, i dont see how reproduction is accomplishing life.
is one baby enough to accomplish life? 14 babies? what about stillborns, or crib deaths? is just merely the act of fertilizing an egg life accomplished? or is life accomplished when you get grandchildren? (some parents think so, so you may be onto something here).
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psychomime
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Quote:
(in all sincerity) could you explain how reproduction is accomplishing life in the sense we are talking about? I understand that biologically, that would be the answer, but in this context, i dont see how reproduction is accomplishing life.
is one baby enough to accomplish life? 14 babies? what about stillborns, or crib deaths? is just merely the act of fertilizing an egg life accomplished? or is life accomplished when you get grandchildren? (some parents think so, so you may be onto something here).
"accomplishing life" in some spiritual or emotional sense is, to me, superfluous. passing on your genetic material successfully is the mission of every organism on the planet. so to "accomplish life" one must successfully reproduce. by successfully I mean having your children live to sexual maturity at which point it is up to them to "accomplish life". I know I'm looking at it from a materialist POV but spirituality/emotions are too subjective to find a real answer while biologically the answer is as plain as day. why cloud that with emotional/spiritual attachment?
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SneezingPenis
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Re: Life: accomplished? [Re: psychomime]
#4789072 - 10/11/05 08:23 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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so in your estimation, people who are completely unable to reproduce are destined to never accomplish life? imagine someone taking a cheek scraping from a woman who had her uterus removed, then cloning someone from that cheek scraping and as her and husband gaze lovingly at the petri dish they smile and say "we accomplished life"......
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psychomime
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Quote:
psilocyberin said: so in your estimation, people who are completely unable to reproduce are destined to never accomplish life?
yes. biologically anyway. although that person, in helping a close relative (who would share a majority of their genes) to survive to reproduce, would still be able to accomplish life.
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imagine someone taking a cheek scraping from a woman who had her uterus removed, then cloning someone from that cheek scraping and as her and husband gaze lovingly at the petri dish they smile and say "we accomplished life"......
what a beautiful image.
IMO this is the only objective way to look at accomplishing life. any spiritual/emotional goal is completely subjective. accomplishing life in the sense you're talking about can be anything one wants it to be. it is defined by personal values which will never be the same for everyone. passing on ones genes is the one goal that is constant for all life. whether one acknowledges it or not, this is the measure of success in life. money, fame, personal happiness any cultural or societal yardsticks of success mean nothing in the long term. if your genes are still around in 10 000 years then you and your descendants have accomplished life.
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OldWoodSpecter
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Quote:
psilocyberin said: is it happiness? contentment? knowledge? spiritual progression? satisfaction? If you took man A, who was happy all his life, good fortune came his way, had ups and downs, but the majority of his life, he was happy, would you consider man A to have accomplished life? what if man A was hitler?
would we consider ourselves to be our own measuring stick of what accomplishing life is? has life finally been accomplished once you lay on your deathbed looking back on your existence? or do you believe that you are constantly accomplishing life, just by having brain function? is that the point? to just accomplish this goal which we ourselves have subconsciously created?
I think there are two ways one can live life. One is playing the role of a human being, meaning dealing with human emotions, making family and being vunerable to pain. Of course this way is not all pain, it has great pleasures, happyness, love etc.
The second way is rising above the human experience, being more than that which your emotional being would dictate. Perhapse it is not "above" or "more", but just uninvolved. It brings peace, and it feels like being a kid and playing
Which way is a greater acomplishment depends on the nature of the universe and human beings in general. If life as a human is an incarnation of an above-human spirit, then It would be preferable to live the human experience as a human with all its risks, pains and happyness, because if a spirit wanted to live like a free spirit, then it would not come to live as a human being. It came to live as a human to learn from a genuine human experience and struggle.
But if a human being is just that, then I guess both ways are fine, or perhapse a mixture of best of both worlds
In first case, a great acomplishment would be to learn something through your human experience, become stronger, more wise etc.
In second case, an acomplishment would be how pleasant your life was for you and for others around you.
-------------------- I descend upon your earth from the skies I command your very souls you unbelievers Bring before me what is mine
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incubaby_421
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hitlers life was probably very accomplished in his own mind, if you think about it, its everyone else who thinks he was wrong.
-------------------- "yet the more i dig, the more i consume, the more i unfold... the less protected i feel. i am the spit on the hair of the son of an electron, swimming around the nucleus of a cell inside the sperm of a killer bee, and my purpose is as nebulous as why weve been bestowed with the capacity to give a shit" Brandon Boyd
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daimyo
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Hitler accomplished more in his life than a large majority of people will.
psilocyberin, what do you consider accomplishment of life?
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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
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SneezingPenis
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Re: Life: accomplished? [Re: daimyo]
#4796466 - 10/13/05 12:57 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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well...tonight, i sat at the bar, and had this very conversation with a couple of bar buddies. We all agreed that the goal to be fulfilled towards accomplishing life would be proprietary to the individual. I then told them all about the passing on your genes answer. Some people agreed, and I on some level agree with that. All your parents want (seemingly) is for you to be stable enough to reproduce, and that first glimpse of their grandchild releases a sigh from deep within their being as if life had been accomplished, that they no longer need worry about mortality, because they will live vicariously through their childrens children and acheive (in a way) immortality. but i disagree in some ways with it, because i ask myself "is that it?" , is the big fucking point to existence merely to bring another into this realm of existence? is all other activities simply superflous in regards to accomplishing LIFE as some have said here? sure the answer, with respect to all of humanity/society, is to reproduce, especially in regards to biological and genetic POVs, but in a philosophical sense, there has to be more? right? tonight, one person said "i dont think i will ever accomplish life, i hope i dont, because accomplishing something means the end of it, the end of change and progression", which then lead her to the deathbed scenario, where life can only be seen as accomplished, moments before (or during, since not everyone gets the hollywood ending) you die as you look back on your life.
I asked a second question to everyone, "have you ever asked yourself 'have i accomplished life?'", and all but one said NO. I never had either until this thread.
my answer is: if you have to ask yourself this question, then you havent accomplished life.
I dont think i am alone in the personal (secret) belief that I am to do something great, some would use the phrase "destined to be great". Maybe the feeling is innate in humans, but i feel it all the time, as if something outside of myself knows this. probably, in the end of my life, i will die a nameless, faceless heap of cells like 99.9% of the rest of the world, yet now that I have asked this question to myself, i wonder if the greatness i sense within me, isnt just acheiving the satisfaction of KNOWING that you have accomplished life, regardless if anyone else knows or cares.
***on a side note, i have yet to ask this question to anyone over the age of 35, i would really like to hear some answers to this question from people like your parents, anyone in the autumn of their life, senile nursing home patients, whatever. Tomorrow i will call my mom and ask her "mom, do you feel like you have accomplished life?" and i am very interested in how she will answer.***
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daimyo
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Quote:
psilocyberin said: i disagree in some ways with it, because i ask myself "is that it?" , is the big fucking point to existence merely to bring another into this realm of existence? is all other activities simply superflous in regards to accomplishing LIFE as some have said here? sure the answer, with respect to all of humanity/society, is to reproduce, especially in regards to biological and genetic POVs, but in a philosophical sense, there has to be more? right?
Nope. Wanting there to be more does not necessarily make it so.
However, in all honesty, there is no way to know if there is a point/reason beyond simply existing. Even reproduction is no longer as necessary as it once was. As it stands now there is no species to challenge our dominance. There is enough people that even if half decide not to procreate our species will keep on surviving. We are certainly not producing to better the species either. We now rely on technology and medicine to that for us. It's sad really.
Quote:
psilocyberin said: ***on a side note, i have yet to ask this question to anyone over the age of 35, i would really like to hear some answers to this question from people like your parents, anyone in the autumn of their life, senile nursing home patients, whatever.
I thoroughly enjoy talking to the elders. So much wisdom. Never thought of asking this question though. Have to start.
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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
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SneezingPenis
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Re: Life: accomplished? [Re: daimyo]
#4799843 - 10/13/05 05:36 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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So, I asked my mom today and she had a good answer. She said that in spite of accomplishment seeming like an end to something, that your life can appear to you to be accomplished at times. She gave the analogy: if you try to hit someone with a car and you do, you accomplished your task, if you tried to miss someone with your car and hit them, you failed. So basically she said at times you can feel as if you have accomplished a proper existence (IYO), but in retrospect you failed miserably. She said that she felt highly accomplished in certain aspects of her life such as happiness and raising me, yet felt that she had completely dropped the ball and failed to ever fulfill her goal of being an artist. Then , in retrospect, she said that maybe one day she will see that she had, at this very moment accomplished life, yet did no realize it until then.
As for the grandparent/breeding answer, i seem to think now that it isnt a sense of accomplishment that is felt, but more like a relief, as if you have passed the buck, and shirked all responsibility of doing/being something great, onto your grandchildren.
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absolute zero
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Quote:
psilocyberin said: i disagree in some ways with it, because i ask myself "is that it?" , is the big fucking point to existence merely to bring another into this realm of existence?
You disagree because you have a different view? or you disagree because you aren't comfortable with not having a purpose?
From a physical point of view, our continued existence and progress as a species relies on reproduction, but I don't think that's what you were looking at. Looking at the biological mechanism of reproduction seems to address our species as a whole, but you seemed to be focused on the individual.
To say one has "accomplished life" means that at a certain point, one went through the act of accomplishing. To accomplish something is to reach a previously set goal. So, maybe in some way, maybe what you're looking for is to define the goals of life. And this is the point in which I think views may differ over the topic.
If you are into religion, then your answer lies in the will of the force that created you. The "goals of life" that you should try to accomplish are those prescribed by your family deity(-ies). Action implies intention, therefore you should figure out the intentions your deity(-ies) had in creating you, as this is the "reason" or "purpose" you are alive.
As an atheist, I do not believe that there was a creative consciousness or entity who planned and created us and our world. Since I hold different beliefs, I see no pre-existing goals, I see no absolute truths. There was no original "intention" responsible for my existence. "The Meaning of Life" is an intangible (not a physical item). It is a concept created by human consciousness. I feel every individual must come to their own ideas on the topic. The goals have not already been set by some outside force, so it is the responsibility of each to determine and constantly re-define their goals for their life.
Its all a matter of perspective. If you're into the "there is intention behind my existence" point-of-view, you could say that your parents had (probably rather lewd) intentions when they were making to create you ...
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SneezingPenis
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"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." -Voltaire
I think this holds true on many levels. If there is no "Meaning of Life", why not atleast invent one? it would make the game a lot more fun!
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daimyo
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Inventing the meaning is the game. Realizing it is the "You Win" screen.
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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
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BlueCoyote
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Re: Life: accomplished? [Re: daimyo]
#4802378 - 10/14/05 02:58 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
daimyo said: Inventing the meaning is the game. Realizing it is the "You Win" screen.
No, it's the 'mission orders'-screen. If you live your meaning, at the end perhaps there is a "You win. Mission accomplished"-screen. And that's for every individual meaning. Those can lead to 'collective' meanings.
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daimyo
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Re: Life: accomplished? [Re: BlueCoyote]
#4805106 - 10/14/05 09:22 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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When I said realizing I meant as in accomplishing(e.g. - he realized his goals).
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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
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absolute zero
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Quote:
psilocyberin said: "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." -Voltaire
I think this holds true on many levels. If there is no "Meaning of Life", why not atleast invent one? it would make the game a lot more fun!
This is exactly what I'm proposing Its the responsibility of the individual to determine their purpose and meaning in life, because life has no intrinsic value of its own, it has value because humans invented concepts like value and applied that concept.
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