Another let's play...

[Dervisher]

a game, where we must come up with a reasonable purpose of being alive.

Of course there are some rules, and this is to help characterize how I look at the world and to make the game more difficult for you optimists out there.

Rules:
1) Friends/Social interaction cannot be a purpose.
Friends are a physical, emotional, and material bond (think of sharing object, etc) that ends up not being worth the amount that you invest. The only thing that you receive is reassurance that one person MAY have your back at the end of the day. This is not true most of the times, and you'd be surprised how many times they've likely looked down on you.
(This is obviously arguable, but optimists can't PROVE that this view is wrong.)

2) Family cannot be a purpose.

The reason I say this is because you were forced into the world by two animals having a chemical attraction which makes them humpidy hump. sometimes it's one sided, sometimes it's mutual. In the end you are created, and born. This is instantly a benefit and a deficit to your future. You will find limitations based on your family, parents, home, environment, schooling. This will limit what you are capable of doing in the future, and will eventually give you an invisible road block to freedom (in learning, living, and much more.)
obviously as you grow you can expand your horizons, but you will be permanently scarred in some way from how you grew up in those environments.

3) Eating and sleeping cannot be a purpose.
Do I really need to explain? It's a basic function that even mindless organisms manage to do.

4) A hobby cannot be a purpose.
A hobby is something you do to waste the large amounts of time you sometimes will have in life. This is made so you do not go insane, like me.
Hobbies are similar to medicine where if there is an ailment, it will eventually have to be forced upon you or you will become a mindless flesh-bag. People get hobbies not entirely because they enjoy them, but because they can't handle the mental cess-pool they delve into if they do not have that hobby. While sure, most optimistic people think hobbies are done because they're enjoyed. That's just the silver lining of the fact that hobbies are done to shoo away the problems in our life by distracting us.

5) Because [insert religion/myth/commonly known belief/scientific reason] for being here.
If you drop the big G word (God) or B-word (Big Bang, anyone?) not only are you cheating in the game by using something nobody can confirm or deny, you're cheating yourself of some mind exercise by not thinking something up for yourself for once. Think outside the box brothers and sisters. Life isn't always going to be explained, and when you search for answers you'll eventually have to find them within yourself.

6) Self-Understanding

I've understood what I am for a while. I've understood our purpose in this universe. I've understood what I am capable of in life, and what objects are in my way for achieving these things. I understand some of my future success will be from what I earn, and I understand a lot of it will be based on circumstance and luck. I understand that one day I will be a potential mate for possibly more than one female, I also understand that I am a big turn off to many other females. I understand that one day, if I choose, I can be a contributor to the gene pool in society. I understand that one day I may or may not find a spiritual understanding of myself. I also understand that when I think I may know something, in reality i'm simply limited to what i've grown up with and what I learned from others. My ignorance and naivety limit my knowledge to what it is, due to what I have been raised with and how it affected my mind and body as a whole.

With all of this being said, congratulations. You are 50% of the people who managed to read through all of that, to play a simple game.

So here's your question (Yes, I realize I wrote this at the very beginning.):

What is the purpose of being alive?


*edit*: Well i'll be. I made a thread in the completely wrong area. This is hilarious.

[Verità]

Hi there,

I've moved this thread into Religion, Spirituality, Science and Philosophy, as it seems it would be a better place for this thread.

[dr2005]

What is the purpose of being alive?

Assuming you're looking for something broader than man's role in the ecosystem and food chain (and we are intrinsically linked to both, ladies and gentlemen), the purpose of life is for me fairly simple - it's one long journey of exploration. For whatever reason, we are on this planet with a capacity for acquiring knowledge and self-improvement, as well as a higher-than-average level of curiosity. That underpins our entire system of learning, communication and social activity. As such, I believe the purpose of life is simply to facilitate our collective exploration of our world, and the wider Universe, and to direct or shape it as we see fit. That exploration and shaping may have no wider purpose in itself - nor, for that matter, may the entire Universe - but I like to think that following that kind of approach to life is enough for one span.

So, that's my two cents to start the ball rolling.

[Kyeto-X]

Reason for being alive?

To live :P

In all seriousness, I think we live to experience life to for the prospect of leaving an effect on the world. Whether or not it is a positive or negative is up to you

[TheNumber42]

Inherently? None. We are absolutely meaningless, insignificant, worthless creatures.

In practice though, everyone is free to apply their own meaning to their live (or the lives of others). There is no inherent or set meaning or value to life, but people make up their own all the time. None of those meanings are any more or less correct than the others.