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)
2007-12-15 02:19:59
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answer #1
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answered by Jayaraman 7
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You Sure Look Like You Could Hear The Meaning. Still Stuck In The Hippie Days, Huh?
2007-12-14 12:52:02
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answer #2
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answered by ? 5
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42
2007-12-14 11:13:35
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answer #3
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answered by Peter K 3
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"Climb the Highest Mountain," Mark Prophet;
"Men in White Apparel," Ann Ree Colton;
"The Reincarnation of Edgar Cayce?", Free and Wilcock, http://www.divinecosmos.com
cordially,
j.
2007-12-14 20:19:04
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answer #4
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answered by j153e 7
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The meaning of life is to live, learn what one may , to live in such a way as to give little or no cause for complaint , to be a humble servant of The Most High God and to pass beyond the veil of death to live forever in Heaven .
Happy & safe holidays ! :0)
2007-12-14 11:20:55
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answer #5
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answered by Anonymous
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The meaning of life is a total mystery. Each person thinks they know, but does a animal know!! Does a plant know!! nope its a total mystery.
2007-12-14 11:12:45
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answer #6
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answered by hotvw1914cc 6
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LIFE IS A GAME PLAY HARD OR GO HOME DUST TO DUST MAKE THE MOST OF IT WHILE YOU CAN
2007-12-14 11:24:54
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answer #7
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answered by Anonymous
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Why does there have to be a meaning?
2007-12-14 11:11:04
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answer #8
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answered by Jaaames 2
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You might want to examine your own life. Your life has been meaningful to .......
2007-12-14 11:11:06
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answer #9
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answered by timberline06450 3
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god has different reasons for each of us to live: to teach others a lesson, to make us do something important, to serve the country, to express something, etc.
2007-12-14 11:10:02
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answer #10
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answered by Anonymous
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sex
she who has the most material when they die wins,
ice cream,
dunn no.
2007-12-14 11:56:43
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answer #11
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answered by Terryc 4
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