What is the Meaning of life?

Answer 1

The philosophical question "What is the pirpose or 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

42...hitchhikers guide to the universe the literal-minded and those unfamiliar with terms like "base thirteen," this is a number system in which the number 10 is equivalent to our more familiar decimal 13. A base-13 number 42, therefore, is the same as four 13s plus 2, or decimal 54. So "six by nine" (six times nine) or decimal 54 is, in base 13, 42. For the mystically inclined, 42 in base 13 is the same as 110110 in binary (base 2). This could mean almost anything, and many Adams fans have spent untold hours discovering all of the places where the number "42" pops up. For example, there are many mentions of the number in the Book of Revelation. Others have made a game of finding 42s, such as these:

* The angle at which light reflects off of water to create a rainbow is 42 degrees.
* Two physical constants in the universe are the speed of light and thediameter of a proton. It takes light 10 to the minus 42nd power seconds to cross the diameter of a proton.
* The sum of the ordinal alphabetic positions of the initials (SPG) for Stan (P.) Gibilisco, an oft-published science and technology writer, is equal to 42 (S=19, P=16, G=7).
* A barrel holds 42 gallons.

Oh yes...and to have as much fun as you can

Answer 4

To find a way of being in this world that reaches beyond the boundaries of the self in a positive way so as to become an integral part of the shared journey.

We are through others. Focus on death and negativity, and life becomes vile, while engaging in life through positive and creative actions and ideas one can transcend the mental and emotional restrictions borne from doubts and become a positive force for all.

What we demand for ourselves, we should grant to others. In this way our claims gain merit and meaning. The irony is that once you focus on the value of others and contribute to their lives positively, our own life finds direction.

The enemy is our subjective isolation and self absorbed struggle against ourselves and would be allies. We tend to become angry and frustrated at our incapacity to generate a life satisfying our expectations and battle to figure out where to put the blame. Externalising or internalising guilt begins the spiral of defeat.

Decide who and what and how you want to be. Stop bolstering the views of why this is not possible and start from inception with a believe that this is not only achievable, but inevitable. Eventually, step by step, your life will follow the course set by yourself.

Answer 5

The meaning of life...life is a paradox. If your into philosophy, i strongly suggest you read the alchemist. It is a good start on what the meaning to your own personal life is. If you ask the meaning of life in general... that my friend, is something i can but ask with you.

The alchemist at a glance; Well it has lots of deep meaning, it tells of how each and everyone one of us have what the author calls "personal legonds" that we each must realise THEN forfill. At the end of it, it all becomes clear to you. I really cant go into detail because it would be a big spoil to those who want to read it. If you jsut posted this question for fun then...

Answer 6

Does there HAVE to be a meaning?
You are born debt free, should see and experience as much of this beautiful Earth as you can in your lifetime, and die with the piece of mind that the human body is the most complex machine on the planet, loved ones should always be reminded of how special they are, work should always be rewarded, and no matter how great you think you are....nature is better.
Enjoy the moment, and breathe.....it's free.

Answer 7

Life is the opposite of death. Our life here on earth is having a reason. Life is beautiful most of the time and other times we are still living. Take life at your fullest and make the best of it and than you don't have to ask question about life any more, because you will understand..............

Answer 8

As this is a human Question ...it must be that it is sought after a human answer...life... is that what we human are... a "micro-cosmic" unit of action that seeks to love God (the "macro-Cosmos) ; eternal nature as substance; wherein the love we give to God is the same love that God has for God's- self...that we seek to change the world to the Kingdom of God on Earth...which can only be the establishment of a socialist society of Municipal-state run economic enterprises that are based in the rule of law that serves an egalitarian society and a IWW- style worker's Republic that maintains democratic rights and duties.

Answer 9

In a sense that's like asking a mouse the intended purpose of the building it lives in. Which makes it a question that wastes time; sort of like a language error that leads you way off track.

In another sense you could mean "what should we be thinking, feeling, and doing?"

It's funny, the more a person uses her will to gain control over her thoughts, feelings, and actions toward the accomplishment of ethical goals, the more this question dissolves.

Answer 10

It is different for all people. Ask a mother and her reply will be "children". A wife will respond - "husband". Children will respond totally different. For them it could be 'parents' or 'home' or 'school' or their most favored 'sport'.
We never live for self. We all live for 'other(s)". Take out that "other(s)" from our life and it becomes meaningless.
The moment you remove the "other(s)" from your life, you feel that you have no urge to live any longer.
We live for others. Others, who may be our family members, friends or just a simple per give meaning to our life. What we give to others is perfectly reciprocated.

Answer 11

We start as Gods.
We evolve from there to stages of all life forms known and unknown to the human eye. In the middle we are memory makers and eventually ending as ROCKS. The ultimate life form which fire, oxigen, cold and dizziness effect us as perfection and nothing else! The end?