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
...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

Life is meaningless. Your existance has no purpose. That said, suicide would seem like a pretty big waste of time. Your going to die eventually anyways, so you might as well cram as much life into the time you get. Either way, Albert Camus's essay The Myth of Sisyphus is a good source for furthering your understanding of Absurdism, admitidly though it's a bit tricky to understand, so i've probably gotten this all wrong.. i mean.. even more right.

Answer 3

If there is no meaning of life, then nihilism is the only truth and nihilism naturally would lead to suicide, insanity or would lead to seeking God. That's why there are extremely few true nihilists.

Only if we are created beings can our lives have meaning. So all those who reject God have all the prerequisites to be nihilists but they are not because they are not honest with themselves. Truth becomes just a feeling. They live in a logically nonexistant world between rejecting God and rejecting nihilism. They live between the salt water and the sea sand. They are always seeking the FEELING of meaning but have no way to get to real meaning.

So seek God even if you don't know if God even exists.

Answer 4

Life is a parasite feeding off the human corpse. It travel ls from body to body nurturing itself and replicating. It has no meaning it simply is. Identical to the God it created or ( if you believe in God as the creator )identical to its creator. ) God said" I am what I am" Life says " I am mistletoe"

I am only half serious here and I could be less harsh. but sometimes I like blunt. and ambiguous.

Answer 5

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Answer 6

life has a different meaning for everyone, everyone was put on this earth for a different reason, everyone has there own purposse for b'ing here. Life is like a poem...that u have to write..

Answer 7

There is no "meaning" for life.

Any living organism fulfills a "life-cycle". No more, and no less.

We are all here to propagate our species. Trouble is... We're doing it too well...

Answer 8

this quest is the purpose of life.

the mind asks the question, it can never answer it.
find the One who asks the question.

hold the question until it's source is revealed.

no more questions, no need for answers.

Answer 9

that's a film by the monty python comedy troupe. it came out in 1983. it was a series of sketches that all loosely tied into each other. my favorite is the 'mr. creosote' sketch.

Answer 10

To reach enlightenment.

Answer 11

it's not the meaning that matters, its the search for our own definition of it.