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

merely the absence of death.

but to tell you the truth, the meaning of life is different for other people. each of us has a unique answer.only YOU know the answer to your question, because along with the definition of life, comes your view on how life should be, the reason for your existence, and what makes you feel alive.

but if you would ask me, the meaning of MY life is...

- loving
- being loved in return
- showing to everybody what i have to offer to the world, not the other way around (what the world has to offer me)
- helping others
- establishing meaningful relationships
- influencing others

it is not about how you walk into the room and make a great impact, like letting others notice your prescence, but the most important is when you leave the room and make them wish that you were still there.

Answer 4

There are two very different understandings of "meaning of life". One understanding is that it refers to questions such as "what was I meant to do here on earth?" or "what mission was I given to do here?". These questions require a Creator/God. So the answer is to seek God.

The other understanding of "meaning of life" is often evidenced when someone says that you have to create or make your own meaning. The question they are answering is "what will help us get through life in the face of the terrible pointlessness of our existence?" The answer here is a set of psychological techniques. For example, keep busy so you won't think about such things. Or do something praiseworthy so you'll gain good feelings about yourself.

Quite often there are those who refer to evolution for meaning, i.e. reproduction, passing on DNA, survival, etc. But certainly these are biological necessities like eating or drinking and not purposes from which anyone could derive meaning.

Answer 5

Technically speaking, life on Earth is concerned about plant, animal and human life. To maintain life on our planet we humans must ensure that the two resources are properly looked after together with the others, such as air, water.

As for meaning and purpose of human life and living, we should treat all fellow human beings with respect, regardless of race, culture, religion, etc. We must strive to maintain harmony and peace among all peoples, otherwise great and continuous wars will just, inevitably bring about total destruction and extinction of the human race. It would be a waste after the millenia of efffort expended by our ancestors in civilization building.
One's feeling or perception of life will change according to one's fortunes. When you are wealthy and endowed with all things available and enjoyable, you say that life is 'meaningful'. What if you are unfortunate enough to be struck by natural disasters a few times and lose your homes and loved ones? For most individuals life is one long, constant struggle and survival from the cradle to the grave--- in the way one has to handle one's education, career, health, relationships, etc and all the accompanying problems.
Life has therefore different meanings to various people at different stages of their lives.

Answer 6

To experience new things. To understand that there is NO meaning of life and just live your life the best you can.

Answer 7

Life is defined by every single distinct individual, cell , organism, etc. that is known and unknown exist to collaborate with one another to assure that another specie survives. This system is Dependant on death. Therefore, Life means to die in order Life to continue exist.

If nothing never dies, than any thing doesn't live.
Q: What is the meaning of death??

Answer 8

Life is what you make it..simply said, the meaning of life is what you make life out to be

Answer 9

The thrill of picking out belly lint. If you're an outie you are out of luck and your life has no meaning.

Answer 10

Life,
existence in physical world:
It is the way everyone wants!

Answer 11

Easy

Life is the Meaning itself.