What is the meaning of life?

Question

dictionary.com says the meaning of life is...the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.

Answer 1

The question "what is the meaning of life?" means different things to different people. The vagueness of the query is inherent in the word "meaning", which opens the question to many interpretations, such as: "What is the origin of life?", "What is the nature of life (and of the universe in which we live)?", "What is the significance of life?", "What is valuable in life?", and "What is the purpose of, or in, (one's) life?". These questions have resulted in a wide range of competing answers and arguments, from scientific theories, to philosophical, theological, and spiritual explanations.

Popular beliefs

"What is the meaning of life?" is a question many people ask themselves at some point during their lives, most in the context "What is the purpose of life?" Here are some of the many potential answers to this perplexing question:

Survival and temporal success

* ...to accumulate wealth and increase social status
* ...to advance natural human evolution, or to contribute to the gene pool of the human race
* ...to advance technological evolution, or to actively develop the future human
* ...to compete or co-operate with others
* ...to destroy others who harm you, or to practice nonviolence and nonresistance
* ...to die having succeeded in your purpose
* ...to gain and exercise power
* ...to leave a legacy, such as a work of art or a book
* ...to live
* ...to produce offspring through sexual reproduction or asexual reproduction
* ...to protect one's family
* ...to pursue a dream, vision, or destiny
* ...to seek freedom, either physically, mentally or financially
* ...to seek happiness and flourish, experience pleasure or celebrate
* ...to survive, including the pursuit of immortality through scientific means (see life extension)

Wisdom and knowledge

* ...to be without question, or to keep asking questions
* ...to expand one's perception of the world
* ...to explore, to expand beyond our frontiers
* ...to learn from one's own and others' mistakes
* ...to seek truth, knowledge, understanding, or wisdom
* ...to try to discover and understand the meaning of life
* ...to understand creation

Ethical

* ...to achieve a supernatural connection within the natural context
* ...to achieve enlightenment and inner peace
* ...to achieve rebirth in the Pure Land
* ...to become like God, or God-like
* ...to be rewarded for your deeds
* ...to experience existence from an infinite number of perspectives in order to expand the consciousness of all there is (i.e. God)
* ...to express compassion
* ...to follow the "Golden Rule"
* ...to give and receive love
* ...to live in a way that you don't harm yourself and don't harm your environment
* ...to work for justice and freedom

Religious and spiritual

* ...to be a filter of creation between heaven and hell
* ...to die and become a martyr
* ...to live in peace with each other, and in harmony with our natural environment (see utopia)
* ...to produce useful structure in the universe over and above consumption (see net creativity)
* ...to protect humanity, or more generally the environment
* ...to reach Heaven in the afterlife
* ...to seek and acquire virtue, to live a virtuous life
* ...to serve others, or do good deeds
* ...to turn fear into joy at a constant rate achieving on literal and metaphorical levels: immortality, enlightenment and atonement
* ...to understand and follow the "Word of God"
* ...to worship, serve, or achieve union with God
* ...to disprove the existence of a or all all gods

Other

* ...to achieve self-actualisation
* ...to contribute to collective meaning ("we" or "us") without having individual meaning ("I" or "me")
* ...to find a purpose, a "reason" for living that hopefully raises the quality of one's experience of life, or even life in general
* ...to live, and enjoy the passage of time
* ...to have fun
* ...to participate in the inevitable increase in entropy of the universe
* ...to make the conformists' lives miserable (see non-conformism)
* ...to participate in the chain of events which has led from the creation of the universe until its possible end (either freely chosen or determined, this is a subject widely debated amongst philosophers)
* ...to relate, connect, or achieve unity with others
* ...to resolve all problems that one faces, or to ignore them and attempt to fully continue life without them, or to detach oneself from all problems faced (see Buddhism)
* ...to seek and find beauty
* ...as there is no intrinsic meaning to life, to each individual, the "meaning of life" is whatever he/she decides it is. In that sense, every point above is potentially valid.
* ...an answer to the question "What is the meaning of life?" is that it is just simply being able to ask the question, "What is the meaning of life?" (see Sri Sri Ravi Shankar below)
* ...a combination of any of the above.

No purpose, and therefore...

* ...to simply live until one dies (there is no universal or celestial purpose)
* ...just a series of events
* ...just nature taking its course
* ...the wheel of time keeps on turning
* ...the cycle of life
* ...whatever you see you see, as in "projection makes perception"
* ...there is no purpose or meaning whatsoever (see nihilism)
* ...who cares?

Answer 2

80% of humanity, the religious folks, don't need to ask the meaning of life, the church tells them....the supernatural explanation. But the rest of us can't swallow religious dogma, because there's no evidence. Nobody can prove that there life after death, that people are tortured or rewarded after life or that there's invisible spirits running around.

I've come to two conclusions recently:

1. Life has no meaning
2. Life has a million meanings.

First, there's a certainty that death and annihilation awaits not only you, but the Earth in general. It's an astonomical certainty that our sun will supernova and leave the earth a burnt crisp, not to mention all the other extinction level events around the corner.

Second, the million things that give us meaning are the pleasurable experiences we can conjure up during the short period we are here on the earth, in the form of the relationships we have with our kids and other people, and the 'housekeeping' types of purposes. What i mean by that are the curing disease, ending hunger, improving literacy, reducing crime, preventing war, helping other kinds of things.

Answer 3

Life is the characteristic state of organisms. Properties common to terrestrial organisms (plants, animals, fungi, protists and bacteria) are that they are cellular, carbon-and-water-based with complex organization, having a metabolism, a capacity to grow, respond to stimuli, reproduce and—through natural selection—adapt.

An entity with the above properties is considered to be organic life. However, not every definition of life considers all of these properties to be essential. For example, the capacity for descent with modification is often taken as the only essential property of life. This definition notably includes viruses, which do not qualify under narrower definitions as they are acellular and do not metabolise. Broader definitions of life may also include theoretical non-carbon-based life and other alternative biology.

The entire Earth contains about 75 billion tons of biomass (life), which lives within various environments within the biosphere.

Life itself is a set of processes that are carried out by an organism causing it to survive.

In metaphysics an organism possesses life during the period between an organism's acquisition of a spirit, upon Fertilisation, until its spirit's terminal evacuation, upon death.

Answer 4

Yes I think that life for repeat offenders is good.I mean cause most of these murders could have been prevented if the killers would have stayed in jail. I can relate to the victims families. My friend was killed in 1997 and they have no leads.An I know sometimes the jury lets them off but come on if the guy or girl killed more than once you know hes going to do it again.

Answer 5

Medical school also taught me the same. Yet many years of extra study taught me that life is not only a great organism, but its made with a thing called a mind that controls all aspects of it. Life is full of many things (besiege our organs and DNA) that make it up. Life is full of emotions, each organ inside functions around the mind. You have the ability to control this life of yours thru that mind. I've found that one either pays to live or you die. You remember life is a memory and a higher power has control not you, not the doctor, not webster, e.t.c. Moment to moment not minutes.

Silver Birch

Answer 6

You have one whole life to find out..but it basically lies in GOD. Without your belief in God it is hard to understand why you are in the world, and where life is taking you and what you are here for. Once you have found him, everything will turn meaningful, and the hope is there. Your surroundings will be seen with a new perspective and you will find answers to your most pertinent questions.You have one whole life to find God, and when you have found him, you will either reject or embrace him..either way it will become clear as to why you actually asked the question.The answer can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. Someone up there loves you..and you are as precious to him. If u are searching you must know that the truth or the answer is very near
sammy

Answer 7

learn how to love your self and others.
to have dreams and folks to remember you when you past.
but the real answer is in math.
1=2plus xq=4=20+20 x40=300=
a small then million years later
we came we killed our other human folks.
we are the only mind that have control.
so what is life its is our self of state of mind
we chose what we want to be.
so you ask a question we want know untill we close our eyes.
funny we make the earth items but we foget we are only here for a short while.
we live in a little shell xq=earth and we eat other life to live.
so the earth spins and so does our time.
only god knows but we cant even see him.
so we want know untill god comes back upon the earth.

Answer 8

The meaning of life is one of those questions that can only be answered by the individual asking it.
It is a very personal thing and is a question along the lines of the statement;
Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.
However, I have found the following in my own life, perhaps it will help.
What is Life without Meaning??
What is life without Purpose??
What is life without fulfillment??
Existence.

Answer 9

For those who have read "The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy" the answer is 42, according to the computer Deep Thought.

Answer 10

Life means the spiritual energy that gives your body its life force. The body and mind are the coverings of the spirit soul, which is our real identity. The body is composed of gross material elements and the mind is composed of subtle material elements, but neither of these are alive. The spirit soul is the life in the body. When we become self-realized we understand our eternal, spiritual nature distinct from the temporary coverings of the body and mind.

Answer 11

As is often the case with dictionaries, they fail to include the whole of a thing, and limit their definition to the physical dimensions of the thing only.

Life is 1/3 physical, and 2/3 Esoteric, and yet this 1/3 is thought of as the whole of Man, and the whole of Mans experiencing of life. Those who believe that this 1/3 is all there is to life are those who are confined to the Left-Hemisphere of their brains for understanding.

The reason one is confined to the L-Hemisphere of the brain is due to a non-conscious fear of the unknown Esoteric realms within him/herself. His/her MIND [itself largely unknown in the West] maintains this delusional belief by selectively feeding thoughts to the L-Hemisphere that sustain this delusional belief.

For those fortunate enough to be born with holes in the screen that otherwise prevents ones psychic access to ones MIND realm and other Esoteric levels of consciousness, awareness of the whole of the human being is readily perceived... via vision by a more subtle body such as that of ones MIND realm.

Science would already be aware of this, save for the intense fear of the unknown that intellectuals in particular suffer from. As more individuals are born with elevated levels of consciousness, they will simply insist that Western civilization acknowledge the whole of Man.