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I'd just like to hear everyone's input.

2007-05-12 08:31:02 · 20 answers · asked by monomo810 2 in Arts & Humanities Philosophy

20 answers

The philosophical question "What is the meaning of life?" means different things to different people. The vagueness of the query is inherent in the word "meaning", which opens the question to many interpretations, such as: "What is the origin of life?", "What is the nature of life (and of the universe in which we live)?", "What is the significance of life?", "What is valuable in life?", and "What is the purpose of, or in, (one's) life?". These questions have resulted in a wide range of competing answers and arguments, from scientific theories, to philosophical, theological, and spiritual explanations.

These questions are separate from the scientific issue of the boundary between things with life and inanimate objects.
Popular beliefs
"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. The responses are shown to overlap in many ways but may be grouped into the following categories:

Survival and temporal success
...to live every day like it is your last and to do your best at everything that comes before you
...to be always satisfied
...to live, go to school, work, and die
...to participate in natural human evolution, or to contribute to the gene pool of the human race
...to advance technological evolution, or to actively develop the future of intelligent life
...to compete or co-operate with others
...to destroy others who harm you, or to practice nonviolence and nonresistance
...to gain and exercise power
...to leave a legacy, such as a work of art or a book
...to eat
...to prepare for death
...to spend life in the pursuit of happiness, maybe not to obtain it, but to pursue it relentlessly.
...to produce offspring through sexual reproduction (alike to participating in evolution)
...to protect and preserve one's kin, clan, or tribe (akin to participating in evolution)
...to seek freedom, either physically, mentally or financially
...to observe the ultimate fate of humanity to the furthest possible extent
...to seek happiness and flourish, experience pleasure or celebrate
...to survive, including the pursuit of immortality through scientific means
...to attempt to have many sexual conquests (as in Arthur Schopenhauer's will to procreate)
...to find and take over all free space in this "game" called life
...to seek and find beauty
...to kill or be killed
...No point. Since having a point is a condition of living human consciousness. Animals do not need a point to live or exist. It is more of an affliction of consciousness that there are such things as points, a negative side to evolutionary development for lack of better words.

Wisdom and knowledge
...to master and know everything
...to be without questions, 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 understand and be mindful of creation or the cosmos
...to lead the world towards a desired situation
...to satisfy the natural curiosity felt by humans about life

Ethical
...to express compassion
...to follow the "Golden Rule"
...to give and receive love
...to work for justice and freedom
...to live in peace with yourself and each other, and in harmony with our natural environment
...to protect humanity, or more generally the environment
...to serve others, or do good deeds

Religious and spiritual
...to find perfect love and a complete expression of one's humanness in a relationship with God
...to achieve a supernatural connection within the natural context
...to achieve enlightenment and inner peace
...to become like God, or divine
...to glorify God
...to experience personal justice (i.e. to be rewarded for goodness)
...to experience existence from an infinite number of perspectives in order to expand the consciousness of all there is (i.e. to seek objectivity)
...to be a filter of creation between heaven and hell
...to produce useful structure in the universe over and above consumption (see net creativity)
...to reach Heaven in the afterlife
...to seek and acquire virtue, to live a virtuous life
...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 discover who you are
...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

Philosophical
...to give life meaning
...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 know the meaning of life
...to achieve self-actualisation
...all possible meanings have some validity
...life in itself has no meaning, for its purpose is an opportunity to create that meaning, therefore:
...to die
...to simply live until one dies (there is no universal or celestial purpose)
...nature taking its course (the wheel of time keeps on turning)
...whatever you see you see, as in "projection makes perception"
...there is no purpose or meaning whatsoever
...life may actually not exist, or may be illusory )
...to contemplate "the meaning of the end of life"

Other
...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 participate in the inevitable increase in entropy of the universe
...to make conformists' lives miserable
...to make life as difficult as possible for others (i.e. to compete)

2007-05-20 06:01:26 · answer #1 · answered by Jayaraman 7 · 2 0

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.....

2007-05-12 18:17:18 · answer #2 · answered by Its not me Its u 7 · 0 0

The quintessential question of the existential man. What meaning, life? Life is a temporary condition for all in this material state. If that were the end, then in our cosmic universe, it would be meaningless. Meaning would have to be carried by a survivor.
If however life is transcendent of the material existence, then it's meaning would rest with us. What and who do you serve?

2007-05-20 12:11:18 · answer #3 · answered by Dr weasel 6 · 0 0

Serious Meanings:
1. Love
2. Freedom
3. Experience
4. Individuality
5. Family
6. Existence

Not-So-Serious Meanings:
1. Foccacia
2. Cable TV
3. Chocolate
4. Jazz
5. Halloween
6. Money
-------------------

Of course, being half Italian, my family is my meaning of life, and so is food. Art, music, and the experience of it all is what REALLY counts.

2007-05-19 11:09:39 · answer #4 · answered by Jessika 2 · 0 0

The meaning of life is different things to different people. You just have to find out what's the most important thing to you.
Do you remember that movie, They call me Bruce? They asked an old man before he died what the meaning of life is and his answer was , " Broads."

2007-05-13 00:30:35 · answer #5 · answered by MARK S 2 · 0 0

The meaning of life is to have a relation with God and His Son Jesus Christ and to try to help other people to find their way to God so that the world we live in could be a world in pease for everyone

2007-05-12 17:45:51 · answer #6 · answered by preacher 1 · 0 0

42

2007-05-12 15:33:47 · answer #7 · answered by magix151 7 · 0 0

We are here to create, or at least co-create a path that ultimately leads us back to our origins which have been forgotten by many. Once we have succeeded, or given up, or failed, the life is over. Perhaps at that time, those of us who did not find our way back to our origins are dropped into another maze of life to see if we can find our way through successfully without giving up.

2007-05-12 15:43:57 · answer #8 · answered by thebloglady 2 · 0 0

This meaning?
This meaning is that there is no meaning.
Plain and simple.
Life recycles the free energy at the surface of the earth. If there were no life, the energy would just sit there. Oh well.

2007-05-12 16:21:35 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

The meaning of life is to live your life for the Lord by giving your time to others and by helping others. To be content with what you have been blessed with. And to be an inspiration to others and to fulfill your destiny.

2007-05-20 00:39:16 · answer #10 · answered by Rhabdite 3 · 0 0

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. -

2007-05-13 06:48:56 · answer #11 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

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