whats the meaning of life ?

Answer 1

hmm mankind asked the same question since he/she found him/herself on this earth planet. and yet and yes, no one has given him a correct answer. we are here, therefore we stay. don't ask, is the best answer i can give you. hope it helps.

Answer 2

Life actually does have an intrinsic meaning, but to get to it we're going to have to progress a little sideways. So bear with me...

Before we can talk about the meaning of life, I think it's productive to first ask the question, "What IS life?". This is a bit easier to answer, if not perfectly clear, because biologists obviously have to be able to explain what, exactly, the bio- part of their name refers to.

Biologists themselves often approach the question backwards. Instead of defining life as a whole, they instead consider the number of things that we generally consider to be 'alive' and figure out what qualities they all seem to have in common. This gives us a handful of properties that all living things we know of seem to have, including growth, reproduction, and the ability to make long-term adaptations to the environment.

Okay. So what does that MEAN? Again I think we need to break down our question with another one: "What IS meaning?" I'll take the same approach as the biologists on this one and consider examples. If a boulder fell on someone's house, and one observer asked another, "What does that mean?", what would acceptable answers be? I can think of a number of them ("It means that was a bad place to build a house"), and what they seem to have in common are that they describe greater implications and intent. Or in other words, given the event, process, or object, what will happen in the future, what led to it in the past, and what effects and intents does it have in the present?

So what does life do? It changes things. We know from the definition of life that it grows, consumes, spreads, alters its environment and alters the ways in which it does all these things. Having living things around means things are going to be different later, and probably were different before. Any time we imagine a place where nothing is ever different the only way that image works is to make it completely devoid of life. So that is something.

But it's not everything. Life doesn't produce just ANY change, but a certain flavour of it. Simply put, living things want to live. The changes living things make, generally speaking, either help them do so or kill them off. So life is not just about change, but change ideally for the better, even if practically it falls short sometimes.

This, then, must be the meaning of life. To change for the better.

Curiously enough, a quick survey of major philosophies, religions, and systems reveals that almost all of them seem to integrate this concept. Change for the better. There may be other important things, as some of the above systems would suggest, but to 'change for the better' is, at least, is the one thing implied by the very nature of the way things are. So do it!

Answer 3

I read a book that said the answer was 42 but I read another that indicates this was an approximation.

The other book said that life was a holistic system where every conceivable part, and the others, was interelated in an infinite dimensional plane, and whose only meaning is its existence.

So, deductively, I think life must equal 1, aproximately. Although I still have a pile of books to read through.

Yeh, LIFE, the Universe and Everything = 1, is my guess.

Answer 4

that's more like a personal question. no1 on here can answer that 2 ur satisfaction. some people think the meaning of life it worthless, some dont even think there is a meaning of life. is all depends on ur beliefs and just u. if u think life is meant for everyone 2 be happy and cherish one another then that's u. dont let any1 tell u different then what u want.

Answer 5

WARNING FOR THE RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL: I am answering this question from a perspective of resolute philosophical materialism.

The universe is. We human beings are. Life is. That's it. Our conscious minds are the result of billions of years of physical processes apparently unguided by any superior intelligence or will.

That's not a bad thing. Life and its meaning are what we make of it. Acts of kindness, courage, daring, cleverness, etc. are what give positive meaning to life. Mean-spiritedness, passivity, stupidity--not to mention industrial-strength evil of the Bin Ladin or Hitler variety--are what detract from meaning of our lives.

This is best and most accurately understood in the simplest of terms. As Bill and Ted said in their first movie (paraphrasing Confucius, Jesus of Nazareth, Socrates, the Buddha, Kant, and the other great moral teachers): let's be real excellent to each other.

Answer 6

42

Answer 7

Everyone has an answer. But there are different points of view. There is the materialist view, the atheist view, the religious view, man’s point of view and that of God’s. There are also levels of understanding. One who has not studied can only conjecture. The grade school pupil may know the simple answer, the college student knows much more but the Master Teacher who has completed his education, alone, knows all that the school can teach.

How far have you gone in your own studies? How deeply have you understood?

Answer 8

I think of humanity as a whole as the Universe perceiving itself and trying to understand itself. Therefore the purpose of humanity in its entirety is to grow intellectually and get closer to the truth.

And each of our individual lives are meant to help humanity continue in that quest in some way.

So I'd say more specifically, the meaning of life is to do at least one of these three:

1. Help advance knowledge for the human race (scientists, mathematicians, philosophers, etc)

2. Act as part of the support structure for the human race to function (entertainers, builders, mechanics, police, etc)

3. Help perpetuate the human race (moms and dads)

Answer 9

42

Answer 10

the meaning of life is death----its the only thing that every living creature experiences.

Most people go to Religion for the answer to this--and the basis in most modern religions fail if you never die.

Answer 11

Life just is, there is no meaning to life, no grand plan, no gods, no fate, no higher moral calling or other worldly plan. There is just us. That does not mean we should not have principles.