First of all, those are two completely different questions. What happens (presumably you mean after death?) doesn't necessarily have anything to do with why we are here.

It could be that nothing happens after death, but there is still some grand purpose to existence. Or it could be that there's an afterlife, but the universe itself is meaningless.

As to what do I really know? The answer is, of course, nothing. No-one can really know anything about what happens outside of our existence and anyone who tells you they do is either lying or delusional.

However we can make an educated guess (and not even a "so called" one, a real one based on centuries learning about the universe we inhabit) Every time we make a new discovery, it has turned out to have a natural explanation. As we learn more, the "god of the gaps" has grown smaller and smaller, to the point where we know that even if there is some mystical force underlying the universe, it has no measurable effect on it.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Physicist-Sean-Carroll-refutes-supernatural-beliefs

If our consciousness really does continue after our physical bodies die, there has to be a mechanism for it, and there is zero evidence of any such mechanism.

It could be that we simply lack the tools or the understanding to detect this, but there isn't even anything leading us to ask the question (e.g. an unexplained phenomena that would prompt us to investigate a hypothesis that might lead to a theory).

As to why we are here? From a scientific point of view, there's no evidence to suggest there is a reason to anything. The universe just is. From a philosophical point of view, I've always liked Carl Sagan's idea that "we are a way for the cosmos to know itself".

TL;DR We really know nothing, but it's pretty unlikely that anything happens after death or that there is a reason we are here.

Cash Cab. When Discovery had shows worth watching.

Well, yeah, magnets don't repel against anything except magnets.

Unless there's some physics-shattering discovery some day, there will never be something compact that just repels against the surface of random ground. And no matter how much power you have, it definitely won't be able to repel against water.

At most, perhaps some day after our grandkids are dead there could be super powerful little jets that can force enough air downward in a tiny space to support the weight of a person, but human extinction will probably occur first, and static levitation is impossible.

(They use gigantic machines to generate a magnetic force to levitate a tiny frog, but that kind of force will never be compact nor support any meaningful mass.)

http://videosift.com/video/Diamagnetic-Levitation

A steam roller crushing stuff. Who would have thunk?

National Geographic gone the way of Discovery and or the History channel. Playing to the lowest common denominator it seems

Hardly a good metaphor for what happened, given the investigations into the incident. Newt sort of fixes the analogy, but I don't think he took it far enough.

It's not like it was an illicit deal with a shady prostitute, but more of a wedding to a supposed good person. We thought everything was above board and that our significant other was true and faithful. While, in reality they were shagging every person they could behind our back.

One day we go to donate blood, only to find out we have HIV. In the aftermath of this discovery, it becomes apparent of our spouse's perfidy and the fact that they have HIV from their careless affairs. We find out they weren't wearing proper protection. Now we have to live with their mess.

Fallout 1 was a technically antiquated VGA (that's right, 640x480, 256 colours) post-apocalyptic turn-based tactical RPG where you could not control you team mates during combat. It was a bit buggy (and so was F2). It was Mad Max, without cars.

And yet.

Fallout is arguably the best world-building work in the history of video games. People are probably going to dispute that, but most other games are built on pre-existing lore or works, or do not have that scope*. Fallout built its world pretty much from scratch, conflating a pre-war 1950's, golden-era, overly-optimistic world-view with the bleak desolation of the nuclear holocaust that ensued (to clarify for those who really know nothing about Fallout: in this universe a nuclear war happened in the 50s**. all that's left is from that era). Beside its content which was plentiful in and of itself, this created a contrasted, yet highly coherent and mature world (and by mature I don't just mean killing friendly NPC, I mean doing Morally Very Bad Things that don't necessarily result in graphic scenes). An open world that you could roam freely, be surprised by a new discovery that you made, and at the same time find these discoveries to fit perfectly with the game's logic. In most large games you just access new areas or are carried by the story, in Fallout you would go "Holy shit I'm in the middle of a city populated by centenarian ghouls!", shortly followed by "ho, of course it's full of ghouls, that's perfectly normal". There are not many games that have this mix of unexpected/logical and dark/humorous content.

Fallout 2 had the same ho-my-God-how-could-they-get-away-with-it VGA engine (so next to zero evolution there), but quadrupled the world map (with a minimum overlap with the one from F1) and brought it fifty or so years forward, expanding the world greatly (there are now rival quasi-city-states, and your action may influence their future), while also building on the first one: some antagonists 'classes' from F1 have now grown their own identity and became NPC, and some characters are still around -- a young character you saved in F1 went back to her settlement, became its leader, built it into a town, and is now in the process of expanding it into a new state...So Fallout 2 is basically the same game, except they did that one important thing: push the game world's boundaries even more. You could never guess what next city would be like, but you could bet it would have some crazy shit in it, and yet somehow still make sense.

That's why many people don't like Fallout 3. It is not in itself a bad game, but comparatively, it's kind of coasting. Also it's too damn easy.

I'm sorry, I got carried away, you were asking if you should play the previous ones? No, you 'should' not. But you could, and for F1 & F2 you would certainly not lose your time if you know what you're getting into. And if you don't, at least go and watch their intro on Youtube, they'll give you the feel of the world.

* Possible contenders in terms of "original video game world": Elder Scrolls (vast, but less original), Deus ex (not as large), Bioshock (same), Final Fantasy (original and vast, but not as complex). Any other idea?
** Technically not the 1950s, but in practice the 50s + a bunch of high tech gizmo.

Ho-lee shit. Every time I lift up the porcelain top off a toilet I think of the discovery of the ark scene... and the whole time I thought I was being silly, but really I had subconsciously identified the folly recording! lol!!!

Oh yeah man, radio hasn't been any kind of positive force for music for decades.

When I first came to NZ, I was really excited to discover they had rock radio stations here! In Ireland, anything not pop was all but extinct. And then I realised they played same songs all the damn time.

For me, I discover almost all my new music through word of mouth, or via Spotify discovery, and occasionally the Sift.

That is the great advance with smartphones/mobile data for me. I can drive around and hear new music or a tailored playlist.

To the religious, we are alone and we are it, and many are quite happy to drive nothing other than a stake through further human accomplishment by putting limits on those who would try. I think the discovery that we're alone would make that worse, but that's nothing to worry about because you can't prove that.... otherwise we'd have proof God doesn't exist. (Merry Christmas!)

There's another alternative that sits so uncomfortably with me, and that's if light speed is the limit and there's no circumventing it. The reason it doesn't sit well with me is that it means effectively intelligent life will always exist in isolation, the only hope being that civilisations pick up ancient transmissions from other civilisations. It is inevitable in my mind that there is life out there of some kind, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they'll be tangible to us. I feel like that would be a tragedy beyond shakespeare.. inevitable cosmic loneliness.

I think more likely, given the experience of life on Earth, the number of intelligences with the power to either traverse or communicate across interstellar distances is probably stupidly, stupidly small -- to the point that for all intents and purposes, we're pretty much it.

Between the discovery that we're not alone and the discovery that we are alone, I feel the second would be a much more profound driver of human accomplishment than the first.

Typical Discovery over dramatized garbage

I wouldn't keep beating this horse bloody if yours hadn't died HUNDREDS of years prior.

We're NOT talking about philosophy. This is NOT a perspective based on convictions alone. We are talking about TEST-ABLE SCI-ENCE...

This is the world (universe, perhaps multiverse) which engineers towards space discovery, sustainability of planetary bodies and their varied biology, geology, chemistry, and all of the sciences explainable through the holiest of holy languages -- MATHEMATICS -- based on innovation and implementation through repeatable testing.

Your beliefs do NOT contribute to that, though they do contribute elsewhere -- the realms of philosophy and mythology. I guess we call that religion. But not science.

In this life, we are concerned with temporal discovery and how to engineer with such discoveries. We're not concerned about the afterlife in THIS life. We are concerned with science, especially because it has a track record of proven results which we all benefit from.

It doesn't matter what you believe or once believed, there is a rigorous process for scientific knowledge; including a peer review process. All humans have emotional pain, but that shouldn't hold us back in the dark ages before reason.

My cousin lived in the belt buckle of the Bible Belt.

I said to him once -- I don't know what to say to someone who says that transitional fossils are missing.

He laughed and laughed. "All fossils are transitional."

Boy, did that light up my brain. Ever since, when I read a general science article on the discovery of a new fossil, I think my beloved cousin (now gone) as they say that the fossil record has been changed to reflect the new information.

Evolution isn't disproved by the change, of course.

All fossils are transitional.

(I miss you, Gaylan.)

Hey robbersdog49, thanks for the level headed reply. I'll address your comments in a few pieces here:

The origin of life and Darwinian evolution are two entirely different things. Regardless of how you believe the first life came about we do know from the fossil record and evidence about the way the environment and climate changed on earth in those early millennia that the first life was simple single cell organisms.

In my study of the evidence from the fossil record, I found more evidence that contradicted the assertions of Darwinian evolution than confirmed it. The Cambrian explosion for example, where basically every type of animal body plan comes into existence at around the same time, contradicts the idea that these things happened gradually over long periods of time. In fact, a new theory was invented called "punctuated equilibrium" which says that the reason we aren't finding the transitional fossils is that the changes happen too quickly to be found in the fossil record. Instead of a theory based on the evidence, we have a theory to explain away the lack of evidence.

Evolution is the process which turned these very simple life forms into the complex forms you see all around you today. It's an ongoing process and the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.

The evidence for micro evolution is overwhelming. The reason we have hundreds of different breeds of dogs is because of micro evolution. Darwin discovered this and all the credit should go to him, but where the leap of faith took place was when he supposed that because we see changes within species, that therefore all life evolved from a common ancestor. This claim is not substantiated scientifically. You cannot see macro evolution taking place anywhere in the world, and you cannot find the transitional fossils to say it ever took place. You cannot test it in a laboratory, it is a historical claim based on weak circumstantial evidence.

Science doesn't know exactly how life first came about. It doesn't claim to. We know that it did because we're here, but how? Not sure. But that's not a problem, science doesn't claim to know everything. Science is a process we use to find out about the world around us. It's not a book with all the answers.

Science is all about what we don't know. It's a process of discovery, and you can't discover something you already know. Religious people like to show any gap in the knowledge of scientists as showing they are frauds, or know nothing and that this means their own views must be true. That's just a stupid logical fallacy. Just because no one else has the answer doesn't mean you can just claim your version must be correct.

Science not being able to tell us how life started has no effect on the validity of the statement 'God did it'.

The God of the gaps fallacy is simply a red herring in these conversations. I don't purport to say that because science can't explain something, that means God did it. Science is all about the principle of parsimony; what theory has the best explanatory power. I purport to say that the idea of a Creator has better explanatory power for what we see than the current scientific theories for origins, not because of what science cannot explain, but for what science has explained. I think the evidence we do understand, in physics, biology, cosmology and information theory overwhelmingly points to design for many good reasons that have nothing to do with the God of the gaps fallacy.

There is also it seems a point of pride for those who think the best position is to say "I don't know", and accusing anyone who thinks they do know as being wrong headed, arrogant, or whatever. It's a very curious position to take because there are plenty of things we can know. No one is going to take the position that if you say the answer to 2 + 2 is 4 and you deny that any other answer is valid, you are arrogant or using fallacious reasoning. Yet, it is arrogrant and fallacious to those who think that science is the sole arbitor of truth when someone who believes in God points to a Creator as the best explanation. They think that because they believe no one else could know the answer except through scientific discovery. You have to realize that is a faith based claim and not an evidence based claim. You think that way when you place your faith in science as what is going to give you the correct answers about how and why you are here. I like these quotes for Robert Jastrow, who was an Astronomer and physicist:

"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

"Scientists have no proof that life was not the result of an act of creation, but they are driven by the nature of their profession to seek explanations for the origin of life that lie within the boundaries of natural law."

As for the age of the earth, there's a huge amount of evidence which says it's about 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years old. That's plenty of time for evolution to take us from simple single cell life to the complex animals we've become today.

Have you ever studied the scientific proofs for both sides? There are some "clocks" which point that way, and there are other clocks that point the other way. The clocks that point to the old Earth have many flaws, and there are simply more evidences that point to a young Earth. That video I provided shows the evidences I am talking about.

The origin of life and Darwinian evolution are two entirely different things. Regardless of how you believe the first life came about we do know from the fossil record and evidence about the way the environment and climate changed on earth in those early millennia that the first life was simple single cell organisms.

Evolution is the process which turned these very simple life forms into the complex forms you see all around you today. It's an ongoing process and the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.

Science doesn't know exactly how life first came about. It doesn't claim to. We know that it did because we're here, but how? Not sure. But that's not a problem, science doesn't claim to know everything. Science is a process we use to find out about the world around us. It's not a book with all the answers.

Science is all about what we don't know. It's a process of discovery, and you can't discover something you already know. Religious people like to show any gap in the knowledge of scientists as showing they are frauds, or know nothing and that this means their own views must be true. That's just a stupid logical fallacy. Just because no one else has the answer doesn't mean you can just claim your version must be correct.

Science not being able to tell us how life started has no effect on the validity of the statement 'God did it'.

As for the age of the earth, there's a huge amount of evidence which says it's about 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years old. That's plenty of time for evolution to take us from simple single cell life to the complex animals we've become today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Earth