Struggle for Meaning
The purpose of life becomes obvious. Perpetuate life. Make more lives before you die. And even with our consciousness, we kid ourselves if we think that we are in control of this biological prerogative. One thing I deeply enjoy about talking with X is that we'll lick into deeper topics in the same line of conversation as light joking, which is how we got to talking about whether animals enjoy sex (citing of course that only humans and dolphins have recreational sex). The idea coming back to what is it that drives animals to sexual interaction with one another? Pleasure. Because there is no over-arching knowledge in their animal minds of this need to procreate, just the base physical urge to get it on with another animal. And so pregnancy happens and the species is perpetuated. How often, though, is that also the case with human interaction? Ovulation heightens sexual desire and weakens dedication to contraception, and how good at planning children are we really? Not very. So life begets life, and humans are more like dumb animals than we want to believe.
So what the hell is this consciousness good for? Convincing ourselves of our own free will and power of choice seems to be where it churns the most. The power to make ourselves miserably unhappy is more like it.
So what the hell is this consciousness good for? Convincing ourselves of our own free will and power of choice seems to be where it churns the most. The power to make ourselves miserably unhappy is more like it.