What is the meaning of life?

Question

This is the ultimate question!

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
...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)

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

this is a question that is often asked, and rarely replied to the way intended. NO one can really KNOW the meaning of life then can only submise although procreation is a given in order to maintain the human race. As for the meaning of individual lifes it is impssible to tell, yet some people try so hard to prove that they have a meaning or purpose instead of just enjoying the time that they have.

Answer 4

Greetings:
This is the Ultimate answer.
Definition:
1. existence in physical world: the quality that makes living animals and plants different from dead organisms and inorganic matter. Its functions include the ability to take in food, adapt to the environment, grow, and reproduce.

2. living individual: a living being, especially a person, often used when referring to the number of people killed in an accident or a war ( usually used in the plural )
Two hundred lives were lost in the crash.

3. living things considered together: a group of living things, usually of a particular kind
She was an expert on plant life in the Amazon.

4. whole time somebody is alive: the entire period during which somebody is, has been, or will yet be alive
All my life I've wanted to learn to fly.

5. time when something functions: the period during which something continues to function
Cheap batteries usually have short lives.

6. part of somebody's life: a particular aspect of somebody's life
social life

7. human activity: human existence or activity in general
real life

8. way in which somebody lives: the character or conditions of somebody's existence
Most people in this city lead hard lives.

9. characteristic way of living: a way of living that is characteristic of a particular place or group
country life

10. vitality: animation and vitality, or something that produces animation or vitality
We liked him because he was so full of life.

11. chance in game playing: in various games, a chance to be unsuccessful without being put out of a game ( usually plural )

12. life imprisonment: a sentence of life imprisonment ( informal )

13. biography: an account of somebody's life, usually in writing, but sometimes in other media such as film, video, or radio
He was the author of "The Life of Aristotle."

14. artist's subject: something real used as a subject by an artist, especially human models, who are often nude
She always insisted on painting from life.

[ Old English līf< Germanic]

bring somebody or something to life

1. to make somebody or something live

2. to make somebody or something more lively or excited

come to life to begin to be interesting, lively, or exciting
The streets really come to life at night.

get a life to do something to improve your situation or change your lifestyle for the better (slang)

take somebody's or your life to kill somebody or yourself.

Did it help?

Answer 5

The ultimate question is why are you bothering? What a total waste of time! Why not start living instead of posing unanswerable questions?

Answer 6

There is no one meaning. Life is about creating a meaning. Most people choose to do this by believing in a higher being, finding others to love, having and raising children, having fun holidays.

Answer 7

The ultimate question, you are right!
Uh, to help other people live their lives to the full.
As human beings it is our jobs to help each other in every way we can.
We need to do something to be remembered for!

Answer 8

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Answer 9

Life. What is the Purpose of Life? Life....Life....Life. People have so many opinions on this. But here is mine:

Life is not just breathing and spending your days. It is not waiting for death. Life is not about regret.
Life is about living. And when I say living I do not mean just breathing and walking and talking. I mean living.


I mean yelling across a mountain top just to hear words echo back to you.
I mean spreading your arms, getting bare feet, and dancing in the rain.
I mean sitting at a horizon and watching a sunset and letting all your days worries just dive away with that sun.
I mean singing at the top of your lungs without worrying if you sound good or bad.
I mean just running at full speed just 'cause.
I mean giving a destitute even a penny just to see a smile on their face.
I mean putting a big inspirational grin from your heart on your face even through moments of depression.
I mean putting a smile on those faces that are filled with sadness or wet with tears.

So, my friend, what is life? Life is simply living. But living for this world. There is so much sadness, melancholy, hate, sorrow, pain, and agony in this world. It wouldn't hurt to just get up in the morning and put a smile on your face. And think....that today...today...I'll live for this world. Today I'll dance in the rain just 'cause. Today I'll sing in a crowd just 'cause. Today I'll say hello to everyone I see just 'cause. Just 'cause there is enough sadness in this world...and maybe, just maybe, if I can put a smile on my face and cheer someone else up...AKA live for this world....maybe, just maybe, There will be some...a little bit of less sadness and melancholy in this world. Maybe...Just Maybe.

There you go, that's my opinion. Life is living for this world and without a reason. Just living for this world....just 'cause. Just cause you want to lessen that sadness that weighs this world down.

Answer 10

The meaning of life is to procreate the species the same as for any other animal

Answer 11

To seek the meaning of life