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

We are all thrust into this world by no choice of our own. We are then forced to make it through this world until we expire and return to where we came from... which is basically the material or atoms that the universe is composed of. So given this "chance" to experience life as a highly evolved "form" of universal material, I believe the meaning is to just "go with the flow" of existing as a manifested life form in this circle of life. On this journey our senses are continually evolving towards our total enhancement of our experience. So the meaning should be to exist as everything with life does...as a simple flower..... which sprouts from a seed, is nurtured by the sun and rain, grows, blooms, withers, and dies. This cycle is part of the evolution to higher and higher states of being or existence. It may take us trillions of years to evolve to a state where the cycle is no longer needed and physical form is obsolete...we may then reach the highest stage of our evolution which is a return to nothingness. Look at life as an evolving from nothing which we have been thrust into, its evolution from the simple ameoba, to dinosaurs, to humankind, and to the next levels which are unknown, then a return to nothingness. So life is a universal evolution of change. Lifes meaning is something to ponder. It is the great unknown. Don't worry, just be happy.

Answer 3

There is no meaning to life as it is not a pose, question and / or statement, so in that context you can give an individual meaning to your life not not to life as a whole.

Whats the point of life now that's a hard one!

Answer 4

Nobody know the meaning of life. Even the the holy books are silents about it. It means that God has created us to find out the meaning of the life. So we trying the find out whether life is meaningful or meaningless.

Answer 5

Life is just a chance to grow a soul. Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death. The personal life deeply lived always expands into truths beyond itself.

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

Answer 6

The meaning and purpose of life is simple. To leave your little corner of the world a little bit better for you having been there.

Answer 7

42

Answer 8

life is a continuous tests... we have to pass them all to become wiser in all ways...and then to go to "heaven" or whatever one wants to call it....
life is joy and happiness at times and great hardship at other times. it's like a wave with it's ups and downs..
never be discouraged as there will always be a good time after a bad one. just like the weather sun will shine after a storm...
have a great day....

Answer 9

The meaning of life is what we search for when we have a full belly, a roof over our heads, and there's nothing good on television

Answer 10

We life to help each other and we life to LOVE

Answer 11

life

life [līf]
(plural lives [līvz])
n
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 to make somebody or something live 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 (informal)
go for your lifeAustralia to do something with the greatest effort possible (informal)
take somebody's or your life to kill somebody or yourself. See Synonyms at kill

The Life of Samuel Johnson, a biography (1791) by Scottish writer James Boswell.
Generally considered the finest biography in the English language, it is a rounded, revealing, and respectful portrait of one of the great scholars of the day. But its greatness also derives from its vivid descriptions of contemporary society and the candid revelations of its author.