what would be the point of almost everything?

[flobadob]

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?

[keyplus90]

Naomi - I do not need to take my own advice as I am always 100% sure that after my each and every post you would post something to oppose me. And that is usually enough to gives me satisfaction that I am doing something right.

[naomi24]

Keyplus, evidence indeed that you're too easily satisfied. ;o)

[atalanta]

The whole point is that there is NO point.
This is the only way of looking at things, and can be called the existentialist viewpoint. ( Search "Jean-Paul Sartre") Existentialism states that everything is meaningless, pointless and simply a cosmic accident or coincidence, but that you are free to impose on your existence any "point" you wish. So you can be a Christian Existentialist, a Buddhist Existentialist or an atheist existentialist.

[jomifl]

Keyplus, Are you going to tell us what the question to the answers is?

[Graham-W]

What's always puzzled me is when Aliens have great knowledge and the power to cross light years to get here, whenever they beam someone aboard their ship, examine them and then release, it's always an idiot they do it to.

[mibn2cweus]

//...what would be the point of our solar system and everything in it if we weren't here to realise it?//

The 'point' is that we are here to realise it . . . and I for one find that remarkable.

[Zacs-Master]

Well turned around mibn

[mibn2cweus]

Cheers, Zacs.

[jomifl]

Flob, you are being just a tad anthropocentric. It's all that religion you have been subjected to, it has undermined your powers of reason.

[seadogg]

When humans evolved, they became a species capable of introspective thought and your point, flobadob, highlights their biggest dilemma since this happens.
Happily, our culture has found wonderful distractions to undermine this capacity so in time the problem will cease to exist. Marx was on to this with his "opiate of the masses".

[Zacs-Master]

Wonderful distractions like answerbank and then somebody asks a question like this! Years of therapy down the drain.

[askyourgran]

lol @Graham-W.

[seadogg]

We are the hopeless cases Zacs-M

[Zacs-Master]

Wibble

[flobadob]

I wasn't asking this from a religious viewpoint at all. What it is, is that I have been watching Wonders of the Solar System/Universe which I have Sky+'d and all I'm seeing are these worlds which do not harbour any intelligent life, if any. Yes, I accept that within the universe, there probably is other life, it stands to reason and we are the proof that it is possible.

All I was really thinking about was all the planets and the moons of the planets with all there different environments, and we are the only ones that we know of who are aware of them. My question simply was wondering about the scenario were all these things are occuring and hypothesising that no one was aware of it. Then what would be the point of it all?

[Clanad]

At the present time, there are about 115 factors that are absolute requirements for life... any life to exist (much less advanced life). Many of those eliminate nearly 95% of any locations in our known universe. An example; life could have only arisen in a spiral arm galaxy. Only 5% of known galaxies are spiral arm with an appropriately sized central a bulge that is neither too large nor too small relative to the disk.

Nearly 60% are elliptical galaxies which cannot support life for a large variety of reasons.
Sure... that still leaves a bunch, but life isn't ubiquitous as most suppose... in fact it can only be extremely rare...

[mibn2cweus]

. . . yet no less rare than a life form that has evolved with the intelligence, acquired the knowledge and developed the ability to reason essential to set aside their book of preconceptions long enough to assemble and point a telescope to the stars which provided the raw materials for sentient, cognizant, rational beings to emerge upon the scene of an otherwise sterile, pointless universe.

[naomi24]

Flob, to assume there’s a point assumes a designer who had a point in mind when he/she/it designed it all. If the universe had no designer, then there is no point. Nature doesn’t ‘think’.

Clanad, that’s supposition and assumes we know all there is to know about life, but we don’t. We’re intellectual infants – and we still have much to learn.

[Clanad]

No, Naomi... it isn'tsupposition. There are sound, scientifically proven reasons why life must be quite rare. For example... the latest discovered planet was toutred to be in the habitable zone distance from it's star... only problem was that it was a twin star system. The radiation and gravitational forces experienced in such a system are known to be prohibitive of any life support system...

[flobadob]

In fairness Prof. Cox did say in one of the programmes that there will only ever be a specific period in all the history of the universe when life will be able to exist. I think it was a period of a few hundred million years. Obviously that period is now.

But naomi, I'm not saying anything about a designer, what I am saying is that if all the stuff that happened in the universe was never witnessed by a lifeform, then what was the point of it happening? What would be the point of lifeless planets, with lifeless moons, in lifeless solar systems, in lifeless galaxies, in lifeless universes, in lifeless minds?