What is the meaning of life the universe and all that is everything? (besides 42)?

Question

It cannot be 42. That is obvious.

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

Actually 42 is the answer to the great question of life, the universe, and everything, not necessarily the meaning, if you see my point. As to the meaning of life, I don't think there is one; life's just this thing that happens..!

Answer 3

The word "meaning" requires a rational plan or design or action. We can't ask natural processes such as evolution the meaning of anything. Evolution does not mean for you to live or die or procreate or pass on your genes or anything else. It would be like asking a raincloud what it meant by producing a raindrop.

We can only ask such a question of the creator of everything, i.e. God. Therefore, I know for sure that answer #1 is wrong ("The meaning to life is whatever you choose it to be."). We cannot invent our own reason for existing.

Those who reject God cannot rationally believe that their lives have meaning or purpose but what they do is to invent something pleasant sounding ("make a difference in the world") and then deceive themselves into believing their invention is their purpose.

If and only if God exists, can there be real purpose and real meaning.

Answer 4

too broad a question. But the meaning of your life in particular is to wake up, penetrate the third (and possibly fourth) state of consciousness and move on to another plane of existence. Look above me. I'll bet there's a lot of lame answers from atheists who say there is no point. You ever read Aesops Fables? The fox and the grapes. The grapes were too high for the fox so he said they must be sour. Just like with atheists. they're too lazy to think for themselves about the mysteries of their existence so they say there is no point to anything.

Once you wake up, the whole picture changes.

Answer 5

All life forms on this planet are ion their way to becoming human ,are human ,and some are moving on towards becoming a divine beings.The next higher evolutionary kind om above ours is the kingdom of souls.We occultists see life as an endless journey towards be coming all that they can become in this world cycle but we all are making our way forward and the world is awaiting for one of the most amazing things such as never seen before.

Answer 6

The meaning of our lives is to pass on our genes, bascially we were created from that same method and its our job to pass on our own

As for the universe its all one big accident and their isnt a meaning because all of this happened by chance. Gloomy i know but dont be scared of the truth just accept and move on and have a rave.

Answer 7

The meaning of your life is that it is completely arbitrary and pointless in the grand scheme of the universe.

(Wouldn't you rather 42?)

Answer 8

The meaning to life is whatever you choose it to be.

Answer 9

Why