do we have what it takes to understand the meaning of life?

Question

whatever it is you think on this, tell me why you think it

and as a side issue; is it relevant to have this understanding or is it more about the questions than the answers?

psyengine, what you write is completely irrelevant, pretencious drivel. why not spare a few sparks of what brain activity
you might have trapped in your big toe to blubber out a bit of honest opinion rather than pasting off whatever the porridge in your skull had a spasmed and offending its rightful author's intensions by displacing it in such an amazingly arbitrary fashion.

you don't need to identify any purpose for an understanding for human essence' to have meaning in your life, and rationalist philosophy doesn't help the bulk of society and only a tiny proportion of people that have meaning in lives would even care about it, many of those that did would disagree we need our senses to appreciate life, we don't need to ignore them to find meaning in anything. Empirical philosophy is simply too changeable and narrow to really be relevant as an answer.

SLUTTT, whereas the masons would agree with you i'd find immense distress if I was forced to agree with you. Even the search alone for me allows me to scrutinise my life, prioritising my values & asessing my worth to my environment.
Have you ever asked yourself 'am I worth the air I breathe? I exist, I consume but what do I give back?' May of us do care about the answer to that, whether we answer it selfishly, religiously or otherwise but to answer it you must first have thought about what is meaningful for you. Accepting that there is no real point to morality or the consequences for abusing social norms if I can get away with it, to me that's distressing, whereas now I can enjoy being who I have turned out to be because of the questions I have asked myself and it doesn't matter what's in the future, I am happy in myself now.
So it seems we've arrived at the same point you and I, abeit through slightly different means.

Answer 1

I am currently reading a book called "Man's Search for Meaning" by a psyciatrist who spent years in a concentration camp and lost both of his parents, his brother, and his young wife during the Halocoust. I haven't finished it yet, but I personally hope that I will get some answers from it because I feel that my life lacks any meaning and purpose since the death of the one person who mattered more to me than anyone else in this world - my young daughter. Everyday I struggle with the question, what REASON is their for life? What purpose? I think that if you don't have any concrete goals, activities, or relationships, life can sure seem to be very meaningless and pointless. Like, WHY do I have to wake up every day? Why?

Answer 2

We seem to have what it takes to understand meanings of life.

Many books have been written, people have their opinions.
But none actually answer the question in an absolute sense.

Why do you suspect there is 'the meaning?'

Unless you are religious in some way, a god would then be the meaning i guess.

If you search out 'the meaning' and there isn't 'one' but many, then the question and the answers will be mere fabrications.

A blade of grass pushes through tarmac.
What can we learn from that?

Life and us is not divided, separate, exclusive or different.

Therefore one could suppose that we do have what it takes to realise the significance to being alive.

Answer 3

We have what it takes to understand the meaning of life in two ways actually. We can ponder the questions that life throws at us and come up with answers in a trial and error kind of way, or we can just live the meaning of our life as it is without question. Now since we all, more or less, live our lives as described above, there is some relevance in understanding why we live. Yet it is not life threatening if someone doesn't understand the meaning of life, ways and means to survive weigh heavier in that sense.

Personally I've noticed that living life goes smoother without question. Though for me the meaning of life can be brought back to the word improvement, on a personal level but also as a part of humanity and of life in general. When there no longer is room for improvement this will result in death and on the level of a species it will come down to extinction. Then again while you live, you're niether dead nor extinct and there is always something to improve on.

Answer 4

Please can you comment on this paragraph?

A pathless country of the Pierides I traverse, where no other foot has ever trod. I love to approach virgin springs an there to drink; I love to pluck new flowers, and to seek an illustrious chaplet for my head from fields whence before this the Muses have crowned the brows of none: first because my teachings is of high matters, and I proceed to set free the mind from the close knots of superstition; next because the subject is do dark and the verses I write so clear, touching every part with the Muses’ grace. For even this seems not to be out of place; but as with children, when physicians try to administer rank wormwood, they first touch the rim of the cups all about with the sweet yellow fluid of honey, that unthinking childhood may be deluded as far as the lips, and meanwhile that they may drink up the bitter juice of wormwood, and though beguiled not betrayed, but rather by such a means be restored and regain health

Answer 5

The meaning for life is in identifying the purpose for an understanding for human essence that surpass's rationalist philosophy, but does not rest solely on empirical philosophy.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/li_terms.htm

'This finitude of the End consists in the circumstance, that, in the process of realising it, the material, which is employed as a means, is only externally subsumed under it and made conformable to it. But, as a matter of fact, the object is the notion implicitly: and thus when the notion, in the shape of End, is realised in the object, we have but the manifestation of the inner nature of the object itself. Objectivity is thus, as it were, only a covering under which the notion lies concealed. Within the range of the finite we can never see or experience that the End has been really secured. The consummation of the infinite End, therefore, consists merely in removing the illusion which makes it seem yet unaccomplished. The Good, the absolutely Good, is eternally accomplishing itself in the world: and the result is that it need not wait upon us, but is already by implication, as well as in full actuality, accomplished. This is the illusion under which we live. It alone supplies at the same time the actualising force on which the interest in the world reposes.

In the course of its process the Idea creates that illusion, by setting an antithesis to confront it; and its action consists in getting rid of the illusion which it has created. Only out of this error does the truth arise. In this fact lies the reconciliation with error and with finitude. Error or other-being, when superseded, is still a necessary dynamic element of truth: for truth can only be where it makes itself its own result.'

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/slobject.htm#SL212n

Answer 6

I have myself, and this is what it takes to understand the meaning of my life. It is ironic that I find the meaning of my life as I try to know - who am I? And when I constantly try to be what I am, or have myself. This, I – my transcendental self, my life and my world are not two entirely separate things in essence, I just know them to be distinctly different.

There are variations all around us. We find things characteristically different from other things. This is in fact the way we know anything at all. But upon a closer inspection, we find that variations are transient and all differences are gradual, and that things can become other things: a tiny seed germinates into a little stem that then becomes a tree. The reality of the things is quite independent of our observation, what we observe is what we can observe and not all what is there to be observed. Number one for from example becomes number two before it becomes number three, and all the number that follow one contain one in themselves as their characteristic - one hundred is in fact ninety-nine plus one. The smallest amount and the greatest number are both unobservable. Similarly all things in the world contain one or the other thing in them as there characteristic: bread has grain in it and fruit has taste and aromatic qualities ingrained to make them what they are.

If I am distinct and definitively limited then I can define myself, my life and the world I live in. But I am not. I am in life as a tree is in a garden. A tree would or I our view cannot ask – what is a tree? And what is the meaning of a life of a tree? But a tree does have the answer. A tree is the answer to its own existence and what a tree does is the answer to its meanings. For a tree it is not relevant to know that answers to all these questions because quite simply the tree is the answer. How would an answer know that it is an answer? This would be yet another question at the heart of the answers.

What am I? I am myself and that is it. This question cannot be answered I any better way. What is the meaning of my life? Life can be everything for everyone but for me it is purpose, a dream that I have a mission that I want to accomplish or a passionate that is burning in my heart. These are the things that are relevant and through them the entire life.

Answer 7

I think we loose the capacity to understand the meaning of life when we get responsibilities.
Look at any kids you know. Always happy and carefree. Laugh at the drop of a hat and it's always at something innocent. They also laugh at things that we don't find funny anymore like someone tripping and falling over.
Life isn't supposed to be this hard. Sure it's got to have challenges and problems but where is the laughter ?

As my favourite comedian (Tommy Tiernan) once said-

"do you know that feeling where your a running down a hill that's a bit too steep for ya? You could fall over at any time, but you can't stop laughing? it would be nice to live life like that wouldn't it? Instead of walking backwards up the other way "

Answer 8

Well this depends on what your meaning of life is. Every person asked will have to give you a different definition as each individual has a different perception of life. Yes, there are those that believe that one meaning must be found and then all people must be taught this - but why. We all think different , we all have different questions that need answering - eventually in the future we might have evolved enough that we might be able to answer this question - once we have truly "global" view - though I doubt that it would still answer individual's quest for their own personal meaning.

Answer 9

The meaning of life for animals is to eat, to sleep, to procreate and to defend.
Sadly, nowadays most Human being also have a life with no higher meaning than of those of animals. The difference is that they are sophisticate animals: eat on a plate, sleep in a hotel, defend with bombs, kill the unborn if they don't want them, etc.
The meaning of Human life is to enquire about the soul, the Supreme Soul, how to get out of this material world and go to spiritual world - where the souls, ourselves, belong.
Please, read books by Swami Prabhupada, you will be ecstatic to know how many people like you asked the same question and therefore got extremely happy by finding the answer by the grace of Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

Answer 10

To me life is just there for you to live it. I don't really understand what other people meaning of their life but as long as i know mine i'm ok with everything as for others i think they need to find out themselves because if we tell them, then they will take our word for it and not what they think so understand your own meaning of life. =D