what REALLY 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

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

There is a built in assumption in your question, namely that life has "meaning".

From a philosophical perspective, rather than, say, an emotive or personal quest for "fulfillment", it is necessary to first address this aspect of your question.

A consequence of sentience is that reflections on "meaning" or "purpose" will always come up, but these are intractable matters within the realms of pure philosophy. The involvment of spirituality and the existence or otherwise of God will inevitably become involved in discussions, and eventually it all comes back to personal belief.

My own opinion is that the facility to perceive beauty is not an evolutionary derived trait. In fact, I would contend that it is an ability that is counter-survival, involving as it does a portion of our mental processes that contribute nothing to staying alive.
Do not confuse this with awe or amazement, which are useful perceptions to have, when dealing with ambient environmental factors. That an Antarctic scene can appear beautiful is a simple illustration of this argument.

I believe that the beauty is perceived to enhance the joy of living, and that evolution is not involved with this faculty.

This leaves only one alternative as to how we come to have this ability, and having concluded therefore that God exists, I can only suggest that the REAL meaning of life is to look out for one another, enjoy yourself as much as possible, and take care of our common home.

Answer 4

I've thought about this ever since I was a young lad (on and off of course) and ultimately it comes down (for me) to one, basic sentence.

Sounds really wierd, but it makes total sense for me. I've heard a few ideas so far that make sense in one way or another:

biologically, to keep our gene-pool alive
emotionally, to fulfil yourself to your greatest potential and your life to the most potential you can.
spiritually, to become enlightened in whatever way you see fit
etc

So, is life nothing more than a subjective ideal? What meaning can we have for life? This question has been asked for thousands of years, so why then is there no "concrete" answer that society in general conforms to?

Therefore, this is my belief, and I stand by it:

To find your own meaning to life.

Hope that helps in some way.

Toodles

Answer 5

Life. Really.

Answer 6

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Answer 7

Meaning is the same as worth and worth requires purpose. Things that have no purpose have no worth. Real purpose requires God by the very definition of the word "purpose".

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

I think that God put our need for meaning into our human nature to point us to seek Him. It's an invitation that can be refused or accepted.

Christians believe that God wants us to seek Him by obeying His command to love our neighbors for where love is, there God is also.

Answer 8

Noah's Ark. You know the story of the Noah's Ark, where the creatures were saved by Noah from the flood? Life is like the Ark, we are the Ark, the creatures are our DNA.

Answer 9

Is the fantastic chance to see. taste smell breath all of the incredible that nature provide us & enjoy the marvelous feelings that we are capable to grab.Besides, if have the the chance to recognize the possibility to help persons that need
your attention, then you will be plenty of joy

Answer 10

To do the best one can with what one has. In other words, to reach ones true potential.

Answer 11

Life is about chance and facing people. How we face people, How we use the chance.