What do you think is the true meaning of life?

Answer 1

Life has no set meaning. Meaning is an idea that has been created by the human mind. Therefore, it changes shape depending on the individual.

Take any other animal species. Animals live simply to reproduce and keep the species as a whole going, and so for any other species, there is no meaning to life other than that. Humans are different only because we are intelligent and complex enough to question things. Some of us have come to believe that there must be some special point to life. Taking things from a very scientific point of view, there is no special point; we exist because life has evolved in this way, plain and simple. The meaning is just something we made up because we think life is too profound and significant to just exist by random chance.

But just because the meaning is not set out for us doesn't imply that there can't be any. It just means we have to decide for ourselves what the meaning is. Therefore it is too general a question to ask "What is the meaning of life?" because the meaning is different for everyone. For one person it could be to have a successful family, for another to change the world in some way, or for another just to be happy. None of those choices is the meaning for everyone. It all depends on what is important to you.

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.

So the bottom line is, we only have a temporary meaning to life, to reduce pain and increase pleasure, other than that everything is lost to oblivion.


To be or not to be? "To be" is temporary and "not to be" is inevitable.....

Answer 3

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 4

It's when you've found your obsession, what really drives your curiosity and energy and drive. What makes you know why you are alive. For 10 years I spent night and day looking for how gravity works in the universe and examined every subject from the atom to super string theory on my own time. I am not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination and looked at math as just a language that I did not need to understand as long as I understood the principle behind the formula. You never allow any roadblock to deter you in your quest. That is the meaning and purpose to life.

Answer 5

Life is where the life is.

Life is like dynamic flux, everchanging unlike stagnant water.

Ongoing learning is one feature of life that is vibrant.
Without this vibrant nature of life it becomes stale like stagnant water in a pond.
Such life becomes dull and life loses its life, at least to a great extent.

Life should be linked to learning.
Since in learning there is life.
Ever changing, slowly evolving, the meaning of life.

If you catch the meaning of life, the meaning is lost and becomes incomprehensible.
It you do not catch the meaning of life, and live life in a good way, with required care and intelligence, then you get the meaning of life.

Learning what ? it does not matter.
As long as life is dynamic and vibrant with learning through out the life, it keeps the life young, fresh and juvenile.

Well, i think i gave an answer that is too philosophical.
Indeed .. this is a question posted in the "Philosophy" section.

Answer 6

I think each individual defines meaning for their own life. Some may well say their life has no meaning. Others may find meaning in family. Then there are those without family. Some may be in the throws of starvation and despair and find meaning in getting through one more day.

Answer 7

You have to figure that out for yourself.

Of course whether we were created by a supernatural being or tiny cell, it can depend. But for me, the meaning of life is to simply be someone that is worth something. For example having a skill and being a good part of a community, raising a family, and just living are really the important things in life.

Answer 8

Life – it has a meaning and loving purpose - you just have to find your purpose and live it.

I believe every person is here for a definite purpose. Each person is special and valuable; that refers to me, you, your family, friends, in fact everybody! There is a loving plan for each of our lives here on earth and there is no such thing as coincidence. I don't believe that anything in life happens by chance and that every aspect of our lives points to something deeper.

You need to decide now to live for God rather than for yourself. You spend your life on Earth preparing yourself (as best you can) for death. I don't see death as a scary, negative experience, but birth into a bliss filled eternal life with God. I believe that this is something you have to consciously choose or not during your life on earth.

The meaning of life is for us to discover that we are true children of an infinitely loving God, to find out what our responsibilities are to our Creator, and to fulfill those responsibilities. Each of us is called to affirm, accept and develop the talents God has given us.

Answer 9

Life has no meaning per se. It is an event of being. If you want to know why you're here, I like to think we're all here to keep the Earth good, to determine if we've made this a better place for our being here, and to think about, and try to do something about keeping this a place where we can enjoy being alive.

Answer 10

Life just is. It has no intrinsic, or built in meaning of it's own.

All the meaning that life will ever have is the meaning that you give to it.

Looks like its up to you.

Love and blessings Don