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

Asking about the meaning of life is like asking why were here - a question to which, unfortunately, we can't answer "just to live it." The only way we can figure out why or what the meaning is, is to figure out how we got here. If you think a sentient being, like a god, put us here, than our meaning is to serve that god, for whatever purpose he/she put us here to complete. I'm figuring the only other option is evolution, in which our meaning can only be derived from figuring out what it is that we have above previous creatures. Whats interesting about the meaning of life in terms of evolution, however, is that, in such a chain, one's meaning would have to somehow to be tied into, or include, the perpetuation of life, i.e. the continuance of evolution. We have failed at that. Human invention, things as simple as glasses, have halted evolution in its tracks. Imagine animals, predators, which have poor eyesight. They do not see their prey well enough to hunt and gather enough food to live. They die. Imagine if we gave that animal an apparatus to enhance his vision, such that, he could hunt just as well as the others.... we have perpetuated the existence of genes that "don't work" or prevent an entire species from finding its meaning - which, I've asserted in terms of evolution, is to lead way to a greater organism.

Interesting discussion, I think.

The simple answer - the meaning of life is relative to how you think we got here... so, cynically, we'll never know... just live it.

Answer 3

The meaning of life is just living it and finding what the meaning of living is all about. Because we dont know for sure what our purpose is nobody told us. But that doesnt make our belief diminish. what u believe is your meaning for life.

Answer 4

Living, doing the best you can in every moment, every situation, every fork in the road has 2 possible paths, choose wisely. Think of family, friends, your loves your hates, you, being you, will touch countless lives in your lifetime, like ripples in a pond, you make a difference no matter how small no matter how large, such is the essence of living. The meaning is in how you live.

Answer 5

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Answer 6

Life isn't meaningful without creativity, adventure, learning, laughter, and joy. Is the deepest realities and inspires toward highest possibilities. Life is finding your fulfillment and happiness in oneself

Answer 7

To show others the love that Jesus shared when He was here on earth, and to spread the Good News so that all may be saved :)
It is an honour to live through the blood of Christ.
Praise Him :)

Answer 8

Life HAS no "meaning", nor should anyone expect it to! Life has a PURPOSE, which is simply to perpetuate itself, but to ask its meaning is like asking "what is the meaning of a cup?", or "what is the meaning of sausages?". It's a nonsensical question!

Answer 9

God growing... bringing Pure non-physical Love and physical Love together in the same sphere... your truest job is to bring Love to where Love seems not to be. All else is you (us) bringing comfort or discomfort into your Life. Love is God & that's all there is. All else is but an illusion.

Answer 10

Ah, The H2G2 answer. The proper answer is in God's Final Message to His Creations; that was what gave Marvin his final answer..



Sorry. I won't tell. You will have to read the series...

Answer 11

To Die.

We live to Die.