What is the meaning of life.?

Question

Seriously, what is the meaning for our lives? What is the point? Is there a calling that we all must discover?

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

that is a good question, and one that i myself have pondered on many a good time. i think i have come to the conclusion. the meaning of life is what we make it. i have been an at home mom for a year now, and before that, i had a really great paying job with crappy hours, and was never able to see my son since the first week of his life. at this point, i only have 10 cents in my pocket, and am the happiest i have ever been. (to a certain point). i would like to have the financial freedom to buy everything and anything for my son, however, that would mean sacrificing the precious time that i have been spending with him. there are many times when he absolutely drives me nuts, but i would not have it any other way. so i think that if you spend some time alone to yourself, and look deep inside, you will find the meaning that you are looking for. i can assure you that it is right at the tips of your fingers. do not look to far, for the answer is right in front of you. Good Luck.

Answer 4

The meaning of life is nothing.


We are a very complex bacteria, think about it. If scientist are correct and we did come from a bacteria thats all we are. I think we are just like mold on bread. We don't look at the mold on the bread indivisually we just see a peice of ******* mold. Well mold is a form of bacteria, not as complex as us. When you are flying to Miami, you see trees and green and the ocean and beauty but when you get into Miami you see gross factories and smog and it ******* smells. Well when you where in the plan did you see a guy get into his car and go to work? No you just saw a big diseas and complex bacteria thinking we are indivusal but we are not. If you never came to earth and saw us you wouldnt look at an indavisual. You would see a bacteria that is trying to survive, at the same time creating distruction. We are nothing, we think we are something special, but we are simple bacteria and a very complex form. There is no meaning to life, we have no meaning. We just have a goal, keep on having babies to keep our kind alive. think outside the box.

Answer 5

You know what man, good question, and If I don't find out soon, what the meaning of ME being here, NOT THE WORLD. Then I need to leave for good, and have a nice grave sleep. Because who want to be here for no reason.

Answer 6

From what I have seen with my eyes, all of us are presented with
challenges specifically designed for us. I don't know if we are supposed to learn from this or we are just being monitored or if its a test to see if we qualify for a better deal.

Answer 7

Why do you even worry about it. Enjoy it while ya have it. I never go to a resturant and say, I wonder why this food tastes so good, just eat the food and enjoy.

Answer 8

Life is a gift. A one time oppotunity. Live it to the fullest and do what you can. Beyond that I can't help you...

Answer 9

the meaning of life is to lead the best life possible, contributing to society as best as you can to keep us all going. not everyone's contributions are good, but it all happens for a reason. then...you die and the ones still living can reep the benefits of the road we paved for them...

Answer 10

this question can not be answered by any "other" person..until this question gets matured and important enough for you to really seek for its answer anywhere and everywhere you wont get even a trace of the answer although it would be lying in front of you..

Answer 11

the meaning of life is a cherry cheesecake on a nice day