The meaning of life?

Question

If love is all that we all want , if we can not live with out love , if love is necesary for our well being, if love can make giants fall to their knees, if people who don´t feel loved commite suicide or live unhappy. Is it possible then that love 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

'What is "Giving meaning" to life' may be the question, but that is not the question you are asking.

Things have both intentional meaning and semantic meaning.

In this popular question the purpose (in this case of intention) is what is meant.

What is the purpose of life?
Which may be what is the purpose of my life, or what is the purpose of the collective of humanity in life?
Of the collective I conclude that reproduction is the chief purpose.
Of individuals I conclude that it varies from individual as to purpose; but we have some of us several purposes in life, yet the most common is establishing social spheres and families and communities, and states, but with the ultimate purpose of mass producing (all of this on the basis of Love of course).

What is the metaphysical nature of life?
This is more likely the intended meaning of "what is the meaning of life," for hard core philosophers, at least in my opinion. But I do not have a short answer to this, neither have I studied it in sufficient detail to be clear enough anyway.

And lastly the third way that I can think of that this question could be taken is as:
What is the meaning of the word "life"
I believe semantically it should be able to be broken down into two parts, unless perhaps it is a prime meaning which can not further be broken down; in any case such a definition would be by convention and not have to do with the metaphysical meaning or nature. Perhaps "life" = "nature" + "essence": if anyone has a more accurate definition please let me know, as I do research in linguistic morphology.

Although there are always limits to what we know, we don't know what the limits are, so we should always press on expanding the frontiers of knowledge.

Answer 3

Love is the meaning of life, I have no doubt. It is impossible to live fully without love. You may get hurt but you will have lived. Love and infatuation are separate principles all together often misinterpreted as the same idea. Ever hear the story of the Nazi general who commited suicide because he refused to blow up the Eiffel Tower? Or how fighting ceases on Christmas Day? That is the power of love, it drives people to do the unthinkable.

Answer 4

No one knows what love is or means as a symbol. As a symbol it only represents a set of values and behavioral traits that various cultures equate as desirable. In the end it is really only an idea representing the idea of perfection which is truly unattainable. It is also equated with unending pleasure and bliss as well as the highest self sacrificing moral value. It could be said that culture demands that this is the meaning of life and that all must strive to attain it. It can also be said that this meaning is an impossibility thus creating the enormous misery existing in the human pursuit of this meaning/love.

Answer 5

Not necessarily...
I don't feel loved, i've never felt loved, and i'm quite successful and satisfied with my life, and will soon achieve the level of happiness and internal bliss i've always wanted...
Love is important for most people, but i've learned to live without it...so, thanks for trying, but it isn't the ONLY meaning of life...
But it is for some people...I think each person has his or her own meaning of life, and love's a good one, so keep loving until you die...lol...

Answer 6

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Answer 7

The need that our human nature demands we fill is that of worth.
We have to know that our life is worthy of living it.

The most common way we get worth is through the eyes of others. If others praise us, then we must have worth (or so we think). With this way, we're always having to perform or do something praiseworthy.

When we were children, we had worth simply through the relationship of love with our parents. We didn't have to do anything to earn it.

I think our ability to see and apprehend the ideal of love is a glimpse of the relationship that God would have with us.

The Christian idea is that God created us and offers to make us into his sons and daughters bringing us into a communion of love with Him. And to have our worth simply through that relationship.

Answer 8

Love gives life meaning

God is love

Answer 9

i dont think so. i think the meaning of life, simply put, is to live. Meaning itself isn't a good or bad thing, but love is both.
love is the best and the worst thing IN this life. it is part of it.

Answer 10

It is certainly one possible meaning. It is ultimately our individual choices about the scope of meaning in the Universe that decides meaning. There is no one meaning of life. There is only life, and meaning.

Answer 11

Yes, God is Love.