What is the meaning of life?

Question

Are we here just to suffer?
If we just here to live at the expense of killing other critters?

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

Watch the movie Monty Python- The meaning of life.


We are all part of one populous...each with with power to love hate, fight, go to war, make peace, be great be an asshole, etc.

My Personal feeling is what you decide to do with yourself perhaps is part of your meaning or at least may help you discover it. If we were all the same nobody would be different, so we all probably have our own view of our meaning for being here.

That's a deep question and my answer is only an opinion :-).

Answer 3

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Answer 4

It's not all suffering, it's what you make of it. If you have a positive outlook things will look better than if you didn't and vice versa.

Killing other stuff...hard not to even if you're a vegan - you have to count eating as killing something - even a plant counts to some folks.

Answer 5

living it enjoy it for what it is if we knew why we were alive then maybe it has no meaning because you know to damn much. enjoy life forget the meaning and maybe then it will answer why your alive.
Killing creatures well if you think that is the only aspect then you aspire to the virus theroy.(hence matrix) but then i ask you what does a virus do in the end it feeds other organisms that feed of them.
Suffering is a state of mind you suffer because you dwell on pain. pain is apart of all existantce it is how you deal with it that determines its strength on you. " If a lion loses it's tooth it still eats because it has another" ones ability to adapt to it's enviroment and use it's adversity to it's advantage makes one the king of his/ her jungle

Answer 6

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Answer 7

Your question, "are we here just to suffer" is asking about purpose. There can be no purpose of life unless there is a God.

“Unless you assume a God, the question of life’s purpose is meaningless.” –Bertrand Russell

When people say that we make our own meaning, they aren't talking about real meaning or real purpose. They are talking about ways to make us feel good about ourselves by doing something praiseworthy. As examples, "contribute something positive to the lives of others and society", "Cause a minimum of harm to others" and "to learn and keep learning as much...." . These are just words that are aimed at boosting our egos.

Answer 8

the pursuit of happiness and good will. I would say if you are living a life of suffering and killing...than maybe you aren't getting very far in life.

Answer 9

It means different things to different people. We all have our own personal purpose for being here. No one person can tell you what the meaning of life is in general - because it's different for everyone!

Answer 10

Your thoughts and action are a reflection of inner core ... confusion ..anger or harmony. Youth and raging hormones go together.. patience ....you will grow out of it. Age is irrelevent.
Do you see life as a companion or an aggresser.
Do you see a jungle or a butiful forest

Answer 11

The meaning of life is to live for no reason.