I listen to all these complaints about rudeness and intemperateness, and the opinion that I come to is that there is no polite way of asking somebody: have you considered the possibility that your entire life has been devoted to a delusion? But that’s a good question to ask. Of course we should ask that question and of course it’s going to offend people. Tough. Daniel C Dennett
What is the meaning of life? ... Are we architects of our own fate, or is life just a series of random accidents? Is our existence just a freak of Nature or are we here for a reason? Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman: Are We Here For a Reason? Discovery 2015
Did we humans also turn ourselves into a domestic species? ibid.
Life may not have one unifying purpose, but that shouldn't stop us all searching for it. ibid.
There is no argument about the meaning of life, because it has no meaning. All Quiet on the Western Front 1979 starring Richard Thomas & Ernest Borgnine & Donald Pleasence & Ian Holm & Patricia Neal & Paul Mark Elliott & Dai Bradley & Matthew Evans & George Winter & Dominic Jephcott et al, director Delbert Mann, hero
Life is about suffering – don’t you know that? A Bittersweet Life 2005 starring Lee Byung-hun & Kim Yeong-cheol & Shin Min-ah & Hwang Jung-min & Kim Roi-ha & Jin Goo & Kee Ki-young & Oh Dal-su & Kim Hae-hon & Eric Mun& Jeon Gook-hwan et al, director Kim Jee-woon, villain to hero
There is no solace above or below. Only us. Small, solitary, striving, battling one another. I pray to myself for myself. House of Cards US s1e13: Chapter 13, Frank in church, Netflix 2013
I belong to the group of scientists who do not subscribe to the conventional religion but nevertheless deny that the universe is a purposeless accident. Through my scientific work I have come to believe more and more strongly that the physical universe is put together with an ingenuity so astonishing that I cannot accept it merely as a brute fact. There must, it seems to me, be a deeper level of explanation. Whether one wishes to call that deeper level God is a matter of taste and definition. Furthermore, I have come to the point of view that mind – i.e. conscious awareness of the world – is not a meaningless and incidental quirk of nature, but an absolutely fundamental facet of reality. That is not to say that we are the purpose for which the universe exists. Far from it. I do, however, believe that we human beings are built into the scheme of things in a very basic way. Paul Davies, The Mind of God, 1992 p16
If this film has a point, it’s about fairness and tolerance, and however grudgingly, helping the less fortunate. Alan Bennett’s Diaries, BBC 2020
Out in the margins of societies there was a growing anger and a total disillusion with the system because it offered hundreds of thousands of people nothing and gave their lives no purpose or meaning. Adam Curtis, Can’t Get You Out of My Head VI Are We a Pigeon? Or Are We Dancer? ***** BBC 2021
‘The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something we make, and could just as easily make differently.’ ibid. David Graeber
First of all, although men have a common destiny, each individual also has to work out his own personal salvation for himself in fear and trembling. We can help one another to find the meaning of life no doubt. But in the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for ‘finding himself’. If he persists in shifting his responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence. You cannot tell me who I am and I cannot tell you who you are. If you do not know your own identity, who is going to identify you? Thomas Merton
I’ve looked for the meaning of life in different corners of the world. Storyville: Expedition to the End of the World, philosopher/scientist, BBC 2013
Makes you think. Makes you think about the people in your life … What’s life about? Gotti: The Rise and Fall of a Real Life Media Don 1996 starring Armand Assante & William Forsythe & Anthony Quinn & Vincent Pastore & Frank Vincent & Richard C Sarafian & Dominic Chianese & Raymond Serra & Tony Sirico et al, director Robert Harmon
It’s just words, boy. To keep us a little warmer in the night, to make us feel like we’ve got a purpose. Game of Thrones s2e6: The Old Gods and the New, Guide
The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly – that is what each of us is here for. Oscar Wilde
Is it worth the squeeze? … Everything we’re doing, is it worth it? Top Boy s3e7: The Squeeze, Duschane to Sully, Netflix 2022
So at the finish you must reconcile yourself to failure. The Outfit 2022 starring Mark Rylance & Johnny Flynn & Zoey Deutch & Dylan O’Brien & Simon Russell Beale & Nikki Amuka-Bird et al, director Graham Moore
Life is nothing but a huge spiral of pain. Dark s1e9: Everything is Now, Noah, Netflix 2017
Philip K Dick’s belief that we were living in digitally created artificial world sounded like madness in 1977. But then in 1999 The Matrix introduced Simulation Theory to the world. A Glitch in the Matrix, 2021
If there’s that many fake realities and only one base reality, what are the chances that you happen to be in base reality? ibid. Alex Levine
The most influential statistics-based look at Simulation Theory was a 2023 article by Oxford professor Nick Bostrum. It was entitled, Are You Living in a Computer Simulation? ibid.
Philip K Dick might have been surprised to learn how common ‘memories of a distant present’ would become in the 21st century.’ ibid.
What do we want to create if not another simulation? ibid.