I know the meaning of life. What do you think?

Question

The meaning of life is the pursuit of happiness. Within our lives, individually, we seek nothing else other than pleasure and happiness (short-term or long-term) to keep us going. We do not live to go to work, class, or whatever. These are means of attaining some sort of happiness. Example: If I don't go to work, I will not have a roof to live under--hence, happiness will be hard to attain (for most people). So, what motivates us is the short-term happiness we seek (i.e. I have a hot date tonight!) or long-term (i.e. I want to find love, I want to see my sibling succeed). Everything else, whatever it is, is a means to this end. Whatever happiness is to the individual is up to them, but the only reason we live is to experience this--not to toil, experience sadness, or to reproduce.

What do you folks think? Agreeing is a viable option, but feel free to expound!

Answer 1

What you say is true, but not especially deep. It is an idea that has been developed many times. It is a good enough idea to repay spending some time thinking about, though. Concentrate on the apparent counterexamples, e.g. altruism and self-sacrifice. Say a Salvation Army worker stands in the cold for hours collecting money for charity. The worker suffers and others reap the benefits. You may say it makes the worker happy to help others, but why would that be so? In this case, it is the happiness that needs explaining, not the sacrifice. And you cannot simply say it makes him happy to be unhappy or you have defined your term out of existence. Say a soldier gives up his life in an effort to save his buddies or to serve his country. His sacrifice does not obviously contribute to his short- or long-term happiness. You may say it makes him happy to save his buddies, but, being dead, he does not know whether he saved them or not. Say a soldier advances over open ground against an entrenched enemy and in the teeth of whithering fire and into virtually certain death, as Pickett's division did at Gettysburg. From first step to fatal wound, it is about the most horrifying experience you could undertake. Try to develop your theory to account for such anomalies. I think you will find it leads you to the concept of self-image. But you can't stop there; if conformity to a particular self-image is such a powerful motivating factor that some people will die for it, what does that tell us about ourselves?

By the way, I think the expression "meaning of life" has no meaning. You might as well ask what is the meaning of tires or toaster ovens. Your theory is really one of human (or, more generally, animal) motivation. Your dog does what makes him happy, too.

Answer 2

The meaning of evolution is the pursuit of happiness. Well some more thoughts here that I want to add are these. A philosopher can be there to promote the social ways of a group. But I want to hear from people that can answer expanded questions in a form like 'What is life' and 'how is it formed'. Then the meanings etc.or arguments can be more useful to a wider group of followers. Be careful verbal diarrhea can hide the secrets of life.

Answer 3

Seeking pleasure does not bring happiness - proved by intense pleasure seekers around the world who self-destruct. I believe "happiness" or "pleasure" cannot be a satisfactory answer for what we know about our complex brain design. The answer would be in the author of humanity. My own belief is that we are a genetic crop and we will be harvested for something way beyond our comprehension. From what I can tell, we are much more than just what we can be measured physically - that our energy/spirit matters (pun intended). Gravity sentences us to this planet, for example, your body and mine will decay in less than one hundred years - maybe what remains floats up or out or whatever - but it isn't where our hubble telescope knows the whereabouts of. Seems we're stuck here with something infinately serious to deal with. I believe that life and other beings are outside what we see of this universe. That evil was sentenced to planet Earth purposefully unable to reach outside it. Our purpose is to overcome evil and those that do enter into that victory will eventually be resurrected/harvested into existence beyond evil.

Answer 4

Yes, happiness is the purpose and its pursuit is all life is about. Happiness is a state of balanced mind so that it is peaceful and satiated. However, it is not possible to attain this state of mind on a continuing long-lasting basis. Hence we have to continuously strive for a dynamic balance. There is this oscillation of balance and imbalance happening continually. So we keep making adjustments to bring the balance back every time there is the imbalance. This process of achieving a dynamic balance of mind is what our life is all about.

Answer 5

And then what ? If it just about "managing" to repeat the effective perpetuation of our species, like the other animals and beings do (with much less fuss !), well, nothing to say. But sadly enough, even managing to do this is found to be so tough, that we call it even "chasing/seeking" happiness !
Pursuit of that 'happiness' which stays with us irrespective of what happens in the situation 'outside' us is the 'real' happiness !

Answer 6

You seem to think that the meaning of life is related in some way to an emotional state of human beings.

What makes you think we're that important?

Even if life has some sort of meaning, there's absolutely no reason to think that this meaning has anything to do with the emotional state of an insignificant species on an insignificant planet.

Look at it this way: when we're gone, will life suddenly lose whatever meaning it has? Of course not. We're not the repositories of anything relevant to life on the universal scale. Why should we be?

Answer 7

What is 'long-term happiness'?

That's just another phrase for the deferral of happiness, postponing immediate pleasures for greater future immediate pleasures. But how do you postpone a pleasure without denying life? How is the human animal so willing to contradict his meaning-- who submits to work for the future.

Well there has to be something else that man serves, because he often accepts torture, restriction and pain against his would-be nature. That desire is for ability. To be capable of acting in x,y,z ways. To take care of the list of conditions needed to secure this ability. The ability to choose extravagant methods (but always prefering to withold full displays) to commodify happpiness in doses that satisfy the hunger for ever greater accessibility. It's parasitic on itself. Man is a tool to its growth.

Answer 8

sure i imagine that existence for repeat offenders is solid.I mean reason maximum of those murders may were prevented if the killers might want to have stayed in reformatory. i can relate to the victims households. My chum replaced into killed in 1997 and they haven't any leads.An i recognize now and again the jury shall we them off yet come on if the guy or female killed more effective than once you recognize hes going to do it again.

Answer 9

I agree with you. I do wish to add this though:
True happiness can only be found through God
(In other words, true happiness can only be achieved if you also attain a spiritual happiness)

Answer 10

Hmmm..the meaning of life?

A question everyone asks....

What comes into your head when you think that could be...Are we supposed to accomplish something??

Is this a test for god to see how long we can survive in the world without destroying it?

Are we his guinea pigs, so then when we all die out he can start all over again and make humans more perfect?

The questions could keep coming, but no answers appear, we will never know but perhaps we have to wait till we die to know the truth.

(Yeah i also agree with what you said.)