Do you think there's a point to your existence??

[R-e-n-n-a-t]

As Carl Sagan once said, "We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself." Our purpose is to exist, explore and gain knowledge as a species, in my opinion.

I like carl sagan, too. This train of thought echo's earkhart tolle. I think it's kind of a strange concept. Tolle thinks the universe is playing games with form to get to know itself better. It kind of makes sense since evolution makes such small subtle changes that it would give one a chance to know the very subtleties of oneself.

But it's weird to think that the Cosmos want to get to know itself- a little anthropomorphic?

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If you want to get really precise, sadness and happiness shunt you down certain paths because of the biological need to pass on your genetics. In the modern age, we know that people can live their entire lives without multiplying, and that's great. However, the cause of emotion is the drive to spread genes and to survive and fit in long enough to do so, since without that, your genes would be removed from the world and thus demonstrate natural selection.

So let's say that the drive of emotions is the need to pass on one's genetic info. Why is there that need? To me that need would suggest there is a point to reproducing, which suggests that there is meaning to life.

There's no "need" for anything. We exist because it occurs. For example, could a species that did not replicate exist? No? That's why the only existing species replicate.
Why are there species at all? Because (and this is hard to explain, so think really hard please) the randomness itself causes certain substances with the capacity to bond (amino acids) to meld as an act of randomness, a simple accidental infusion of energy from a comet impact or similar event. Looking about a billion years later in the timeline, simple bacteria have formed. They're not even alive in fact at this point, merely merged. Replication occurs when possible for no reason; we simply see it because it was possible, and of course all organisms we see must have had the capacity to replicate or we wouldn't see it. Only the intelligent things survived, not because replication had a point, but because they had the means to replicate which is the only reason the species 'continued'.

Untold legions of species died for every single one that "lived", simply because death is not inherently worse than life, but because life seems to be the point, because we only see 'living' things. Gack this is hard to understand unless you already get it. Think about it for a long, long time, and always keep in mind as you ponder that nothing inherently had to be the 'point' of anything. That's the best I can explain it.

There is no such thing as life or unlife. We are essentially just complex enough reactions that we have attempted to attach meaning to our continued state of existance.

Why live then?
Because I'm scared of dying, and like living, and I wouldn't wish to inflict death upon anyone else. That's only because that's how it must have been for the species to continue, pointlessly, only because it could.