What is the meaning of life?

Question

what is the meaning of life?

Answer 1

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 (see life extension)
...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 (see utopia)
...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 (see Buddhism)

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 (see existentialism)
...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 (see nihilism)
...life may actually not exist, or may be illusory (see solipsism or nihilism)
...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 (see nonconformism)
...to make life as difficult as possible for others (i.e. to compete)

Answer 2

A man once approached Buddha, and asked, "What is the meaning of life?"

Buddha, without hesitation, smiled and gave the man a flower.

What did that mean? For every person, this is interpreted differently, as is life. Don't worry about what the meaning of life is to others, rather find out what it means to yourself, because in the end, that is much more gratifying.

best of luck =]

Answer 3

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Answer 4

This question has been repeated several times in the past.Life is the span of time between birth and death.There is no meaning for tihs period callled life.No where it is written clearly the meaning of life.It is you ,who have to give meaning to life.Those people who had given meaning to life had brecome great like M.K.Gandhi,Hellen Keller,Florence Nightingale etc.

Answer 5

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Answer 6

God, what a cliche - Asking ' what is the meaning of life' in the philosophy section - Well.... I dont know- and thats as good a answer as voltaire, russell, hume, plato ever came up with. Hope this helps.

Answer 7

Why you want meaning for life it will be the better if you live a meaning full life.Don't waste time to know the meaning spent time to live meaning fully and let others live

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

Most important question in life. The purpose of life is to reconnect with our Creator also known as Krishna, Allah, Jehovah, Vishnu, etc.(One God many names) This material world is called Maya (illusion) and is temporary and full of misery. Only one fourth of the souls come here. The rest are enjoying blissful loving relationships with God in the eternal Kingdom, where there is no suffering. We left due to envy of His position. He gives us free will so we fall here when we choose not to cooperate there. We endeavor to be happy here but happiness never comes as long as we are disconnected from Him. (hard struggle for materil existence) We are not this material body or mind, we are eternal spirit souls who are meant for loving God but if we don't, we will suffer because it is not our natural position to be separate from Him. We are actually never separate but separate in consciousness if we choose to be. The highest goal of human life is to reconnect with God and at the end of life think of Him and return Home to the Eternal World. It is not so easy because we have so many material attachments, so we have to practice how to do that. Chanting the Mana Mantra is the quickest means of attain God and true happiness. for information go to harekrishnatemple.com Read Bhagavad Gita As it is by Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada- tells how.

Answer 10

To answer questions for people on Yahoo Answers.

Seriously check past questions, so many people have asked this before, and i've answered this question 5 times now!!

the meaning of life is "to live and learn" once you've learnt all there is to learn we'll go to a better place, we can't learn it all in one lifetime so we keep getting re-incarnated. lessons we learn in one life we don't make the same mistakes next time around!!!

That's my idea in a nutshell...

Answer 11

All the people on earth which living their life in different ways - that it is.