»Wise cracks aside...«

Ok...all the stupid jokes aside...ask yourself this, and ask it SERIOUSLY. 0 or 1. Is your life a 0 or a 1? What is the value of NOTHING? 0. What is the value of SOMETHING? 1. Does YOUR life have any value? If so, select 1. If not, select 0. I'm assuming that most of you would select 1, using the quintessential human strength/weakness as an excuse (hope of something to come). Some of you may choose 1, and know that your life has had meaning, but they are few and far between....fewer and farther than most think. Some of you may see the most predictable answer: 0. For the few brave enough to select 0, congratulations on your admittance of defeat. You should be in the military, as you suggest that a "prophet" answer questions pertaining to miracles and matters of hope.

But your life is nothing in comparrison to the 6 billion other lives that live throughout this world...right? So...what is the value of those other lives? What is the value of mankind? 0 or 1? Is mankind worth ANYTHING?

A mother has a child. The child grows to middle age...an age of understanding. All throughout the childhood of this new person, his/her mind was trained to be open-minded; to give new ideas a chance, however perposturous they may be. At middle age, understanding that all things that are self evident may be proven false at any time, given sufficient proof, do you believe that any of the choices that that person makes (the choice to believe truth over fiction, the choice to love, the choice to make lots of money, the choice to raise a big family, the choice to love the rest of humanity like one's own child, or other common choices that lead typically lead to "success") have anything to do with the value of humanity?

A single person's value is not that of the race of humanity. As I have said previously, there are very few people born that can claim that they're life has meaning. Of course everyone learns lessons, learns how to live they're own lives...but what of humanity? If a human learns all of the lessons of life, learns how to love, learns to be successful, learns to achieve absolute happiness...what good does it do to the rest of humanity? What is the value of humanity? 0/1. Zero over one.

Why do we have children? In the hopes of success for our children, regardless of our own successes/failures. What good do our own successes/failures do to our children? Perhaps some guidance, nothing more. Never will our children (or any other member of the human race) realize the signifigance of SIGNIFIGANCE when it is presented! It is human nature. The value of the human race.

"Why Mr. Anderson, Why? Why? Why do you do it? Why? Why get up? Why do you fight it? Do you believe you're fighting for something? For more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? Is it freedom, or truth, perhaps peace? Could it be for love? Illusions, Mr. Anderson. Vaguries of perception. Temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence without meaning or purpose, and all of them as artificial as the matrix itself."

The human race is selfish. Not in the form of self indulgent selfishness, either. Selfish in the form of incapability to see past the self. What is the value of something that cannot see past itself? The answer is as inevitible as the battle that ends the movie. Hope as much as you like.

~some dweeb

i think u have a wrong perspective. what is value? why do we need value. the very concept of value is based on judgement. who will judge a human? other humans? can a human judge another? if this is impossible, then what abt judging the human race? who can do that? if u say, some higher being/creator, i dont think we matter in the least to such a being, so 'value' is irrelevant.

it is being, or purpose which is important, not some nonexistant value. i dont know how to convey this, so i will post a conversation between ged and ogion from 'wizard of earthsea'. ogion means exactly what i mean to say, but even he is vague. this maybe because the nature of our lives cannot be reduced to words or (ridiculous, isnt it?) numbers.

Quote:

Ogion said presently, striding along. "What is that herb by the path?" "Strawflower." "And that?" "I don't know." "Fourfoil, they call it." Ogion had halted, the coppershod foot of his staff near the little weed, so Ged looked closely at the plant, and plucked a dry seedpod from it, and finally asked, since Ogion said nothing more, "What is its use, Master?" "None I know of." Ged kept the seedpod a while as they went on, then tossed it away. "When you know the fourfoil in all its seasons root and leaf and flower, by sight and scent and seed, then you may learn its true name, knowing its being: which is more than its use. What, after all, is the use of you? or of myself? Is Gont Mountain useful, or the Open Sea?"

well?