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)
2007-12-11 11:17:43
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answer #1
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answered by Jayaraman 7
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You need to get in training. So, try these exercises. Run down an escalator that is going up. Or fill a leaky bucket. That will give you a taste of what's in store. Not that you need one. You can already tell how frustrating a particular situation is becoming. Here's how to avoid exasperation. Quit while you are ahead. And if you can't do that - quit while you are behind. Just quit. If something is supposed to happen, it will. It is one thing to give fate a gentle nudge and another to drag it in a direction it does not want to go.
zxooxz zxooxz zxooxz
2007-12-12 06:58:57
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answer #2
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answered by Oh My God! 6
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Imho, you'd do well to read "Climb the Highest Mountain," Mark Prophet, and "Men in White Apparel," Ann Ree Colton; these two books give a great deal of reliable, intuitive information.
In a phrase, the meaning of life: Learning to love God completely, love colleague as Self, love as Christ Jesus, Truth, loves, and ascend in the Light of God as have Enoch, Elijah, Jesus, and many saints.
Lighter reads which are profound if one resonates with them:
"Expecting Adam," Martha Beck, Ph.D.;
"The Reincarnation of Edgar Cayce?", Free and WIlcock, http://www.divinecosmos.com
"The Great Divorce," C. S. Lewis (novella);
"Life before Life," Jim Tucker, M.D.;
"The Master of Lucid Dreams," Dr. Olga Kharitidi.
cordially,
j.
2007-12-11 19:50:27
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answer #3
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answered by j153e 7
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Well, according to Douglas Adams, it's 42, but the way I see it it's more of the idea that we are a domino effect. What we do is make an impact on others lives. In turn, they make a difference on other peoples lives, so on and so forth. I'm not sure there's complete meaning, but I feel as if you just need to live and impact.
2007-12-11 19:21:44
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answer #4
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answered by Anonymous
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The only real meaning of life is what you make it with your actions, beliefs, behaviors, desires, creativity and the other wonderful, and not so wonderful, things that make us human. We strive to give meaning and connection to everything which happens in our lives because we have a difficult time realizing that the inherent chaos of life lends to having no control over what is happening around us. Humans relish control, control strips chaos which we fear.
There is no meaning to life, it simply is, you make the meaning in the living of it.
2007-12-11 19:47:37
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answer #5
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answered by inkgddss 5
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For me, the meaning of life is to search for the meaning of life.
2007-12-11 19:21:44
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answer #6
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answered by Gregor Samsa 2
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To make it quick and simple?
Well I believe that life is an adventure made for us to learn.
2007-12-11 20:16:44
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answer #7
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answered by Sunburst113 2
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Life just is. It has no intrinsic, or built in meaning of it's own.
All the meaning that life will ever have is the meaning that you give to it.
Looks like its up to you.
Love and blessings Don
2007-12-11 19:40:24
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answer #8
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answered by Anonymous
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to make life enjoyable 4 u and others
2007-12-11 19:17:45
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answer #9
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answered by Abira 4
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hm... good question maybe to enjoy it i dnt no thats a hard question to answer i guess and it id evry one opinion
2007-12-11 19:22:18
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answer #10
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answered by chickiez10 1
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Nobody really truly knows.
2007-12-11 19:30:55
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answer #11
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answered by birdtennis 4
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