what is life?

Answer 1

"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

Who said life is fair? Who said life is unfair? I would rather experience life wondering if I am a failure than to try and fail and KNOWING that I am a failure. Life is full analogys to coax us through the process. I have enough character and I do not wish to be stronger. It is better to not have loved than to love and feel the excruciating pain that subceeds. Is that a word? Why can't we know our purpose? Why is hindsight 20/20? If tomorrow never comes then where does the future go?

Answer 3

Life is the characteristic state of organisms and individual cells. Properties common to the known organisms found on Earth (plants, animals, fungi, protists and bacteria) are that they are carbon-and-water-based, are cellular with complex organization, undergo metabolism, possess a capacity to grow, respond to stimuli, reproduce and, through natural selection, adapt in succeeding generations.

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.

Answer 4

It is what you have not started and can end with or without your knowledge. A struggle to existance between this birth and death. A time given to you to contribute something to the world. A span put to test through good and evil.

Life is a beautifull experience. Its what you carve and make out of yourself. Its precious...do not let it go waste!

Answer 5

Life is a place/time where human being have a short time on earth. We should live happily and without regret even though it is full of ups and downs.

Answer 6

Please visit some orphanges or Home for old.Talk to them for a hour. Then Come back home and sit in a place and compare what is given to you and to them by God.? so help people who is need: You will have a happiness on the minute you help them:
Gaining that kind of happiness is life:

Answer 7

life is about living in your utmost ways. it is not just about breathing. it is how you are breathing. life is the outcome of all the decisions that you make. you are the one making your life so do not hesitate to think on what's best for you after all you are answerable for whatever is happening to your life. life is'nt just about existing but for a cause.

Answer 8

see life according to me is a precious moment and u have to enjoy each second of it in good way and serve others.in life u will experience good things as well as bad things so,try to adjust with every one.

Answer 9

Life is a mixture of sorrows and happiness.

Answer 10

believe it or not. it is simply a test to determine what your afterlife will be and or consist of. you are what you eat and you live how you'll experience after-life. peaceful or violent, light or dark, yin or yang, hot or cold. your memories are etched and so into others. we always leaves traces of ourselves somewhere in someway. it is how you will be remembered but also what you thought of yourself.

Answer 11

The experiences right from birth to death is life..!!!!!!!!!. It could be varying between persons