what is the meaning of life?

Answer 1

For such a question you will receive many answers; some wise, some earnest and some based on personal experience. The problem is determining which one?

My suggestion to you is that the word "life" and its evolution provides an excellent answer to your question.

The following are my words from my web site www.ucadia.com
See:
http://www.ucadia.com/gen_life_definition.htm


++Origin of the word "life"++

The word "life" and its historic meanings have existed in recorded culture for at least fifteen hundred years. The actual word "life" in English can be attributed to the word "lif" used in Old English and Old Saxon meaning- life, body.

The word is linked to the emergence of a religious and social philosophy of European Celtic mythology (around 550AD) that believed human beings possessed a special "quality of life", that vanishes at the point of death. This has often been described as the "essence of life", or the "fifth essence" after fire, water, earth and wind. "Losing" this essence has therefore been historically linked to human death for at least fifteen hundred years.

Prior to this period (550AD), there does not appear to be corresponding words in either Ancient Latin or Greek. This supports the argument that the word lif was created in both a social and religious (metaphysical) context.

++Extending the meaning of life to include “soul”++

It is no surprise then, that the word "lif " was quickly associated with another philosophical belief that all humans possess a special spirit called the "soul".

Philosophers (around 1350AD) speculated that this essence is derived from the presence of the "soul", which at the point of human death leaves the body. The belief of the soul leaving the body at death precedes the concept of the essence of life by at least one thousand years (around 600BC for the first writings on the concept of Soul).

Then around 1650, Renne Descartes published a historical work that for the first time provided a scientific basis for proving that human beings are aware and self aware. It was Descartes that wrote the now famous self aware proof of existence "I think, therefore I am."

++Understanding animals also have “life”++

In the past three to four hundred years, the historical usage of the word "life" has been extended to describe a wider quality which all plants and animals on Earth possess before a the state of death. Interestingly, this broadening of the definition of life has almost a direct correlation to the advancement of science into atomic and biologic areas. Everytime science has proven that more objects in the Universe share similar qualities to humans, the philosophical defintion of life has appeared to widen around ten to twenty years after the discovery.


In the last sixty years, a further attribute to what is "life", has been assigned being the quality of awareness. Therefore, almost all modern interpretations on the meaning of life includes as part of the definition of life a state of "awareness".

++The development of the word "life" and the awakening of humanity++

That humanity fifteen hundred years ago recognized a special quality of being human and classified it as lif is the beginning of an amazing journey that has as its destination-today. That Descartes linked the unique quality of being human "life" as being definable through awareness " I think etc." is equally important.

Since the emergence of the word "life" fifteen hundred years ago, we have seen the growth of the word, to mean that all things in the Universe possess this same special essence, which we can openly define as both awareness and life meaning the same thing.

Therefore, the words life and awareness, life and awareness of matter, life and the Universe are all wholly interchangeable. By the modern "evolved" definition of life- everything in the Universe is very much alive. Only levels of unique self awareness change. Awareness as a whole never dies, only grows.

The meaning of life then is both to truly appreciate the inter-connectedness between all things and that life itself is the most precious state of being human.

That we have reached this expanded definition of life now, at the beginning of the 21st century is a profound philosophical event as significant as any recent scientific discovery or cure for a disease. The awesome importance of humanity culturally permitting the expanded definition of life (that the Universe is alive) is not yet fully comprehended by 20th Century thinking philosophers or religious leaders. It has literally paved the way to the opening of understanding of what is awareness and Unique Collective Awareness.

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 - the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.
(Dictionary.com)

Now to be serious, I think the first difficulty is defining what life is. Does one mean physical or metaphysical existence? Does your life start when you are able to begin making decisions, or after that process has refined a bit, or at some particular point during one's 'life'?
My gut reaction is to that that the meaning of life is that there is no way to know absolutely what the meaning of life is. As a devout Christian, I may know what I'm supposed to do, but when it comes to the fundamental question of why God even bothered to create life in the first place, I still have no clue. I believe we live to be in communion with God and one another, to build communities, support one another, and promote life through protecting the lives of the persecuted and hungry, outcasts and the empty. But none of this really constitutes a "meaning" to life, only a process.
I really don't know.

Answer 4

In order to "answer" the question, it depends on who or what you ask.

If you were to ask a mosquito that question, its response would be to live for 3 days all while consuming blood and trying to mate before its death.

The simplest form of that answer for we civilized higher life forms on this planet is still the same as asking the most basic of creatures. We are born; we learn to survive; we make attempts at conceiving the next gerenation; and then we die.

Without procreation there is no life; therefore, the meaning of life is to procreate.

Answer 5

I don't think an individual has a good chance of guestimating the meaning of life for the entire human specie. However there are many smaller meanings which the individual can assign to him or herself. I find that one of the meanings of my life is to transcend, or to go above the accepted standards.

Answer 6

I wonder the same thing and i found it in god that he has a porpose everyone....!!! He showed me the meaning of life happiness is only for a while but he gave me joy forever something that no one cant take away no matter what i go through i still have joy and now i know that god has a porpose for and i have a porpose in my life.

Answer 7

Life it self is the answer. We do not need an answer on how our own life is lived on earth, only matters on we our self live life to the fullest with respect to moral values and how we value life.

Answer 8

Oh I know this one! My old biology teacher used to tell my class all the time.

- "The meaning of life is to reproduce!"

.

Answer 9

Catholics believe the meaning of human life is to know and love God.

With love in Christ.

Answer 10

What is the meaning of anything? Life, and everthing surounding it and involved in it is just a privalage.