What's the purpose 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

I know the answer to this question, and yes, humans do have a purpose. However it's a logical fallacy to think that philosophy, religion or spirituality can provide the answer. This question can only be answered definitively by science.

All other attempts are mere opinions, many of which border on the rediculous! Once you read what I provided below, you will realize that.

THE ANSWER IS...not just yet. Please review the next few sentences for more background information...

As life evolved on the earth, natural selection allowed better and more intelligent life forms to come into existence, eventually leading to mankind. What most people don't realize, though, is that there is another side to this equation.

It has to do with the inherent opportunities there are/were in nature and the environment which offered the "niche" for a particular species to evolve into. For example, there was this prehistoric aquatic mammal which learned to dive down and catch fish to eat.
As it evolved over the centuries, its legs got smaller and smaller until it no longer had legs. During that same passage of time, its eyes grew larger and larger so that it could still see as it dived deeper and deeper into the deep dark ocean searching for food. See, what was happening was that the beast was evolving in order to refine its ability to survive in a particular ecological niche which was part of the complex natural environment offered on the face of the earth.

As the many and varied species of creatures expanded and evolved across the horizon, they did so as a way to capitalize on as many of the available ecological niches as possible. That is the other side of the equation. If an ecological niche does not exist, it is impossible for a creature to evolve in a direction that would need that non-existing niche.

NOW FOR THE ANSWER:
OUR PURPOSE IS, WAS AND WILL ALWAYS BE TO FILL THE HIGHEST AND BEST ECOLOGICAL NICHE THE EARTH HAS TO OFFER.

Another interesting side note is that we did not evolve simply & casually into this position of control and dominance over the world around us. Homosapiens competed with many other non homosapiens humans (such as the Neanderthals) for about a million years in a fight for survival. Bestowed upon the winning species would be the glittering prize...final control of this incredible ecological niche, and defacto control of the entire planet eventually.

This situation, which most people naively take for granted, has only been the case for about a hundred thousand years...when the last of the Neanderthals died out as a result of the smothering effects caused by the more well bred homosapiens.

BTW, it has been more recently discovered, due to our advanced technology, that there was very little in-breeding (if any) between the many species of people who shared our ecological niche over those million years. This means that the other species truly did just die out, they did not get absorbed by interbreeding their kind into the singularity of humanity which is represented by us today.

Once people realize what I've just told you, they will then be able to see why it's a logical fallacy to try and answer this question with philosophy, religion or spirituality.

However, you can pick up from here and ask questions like, "Do we have any resposibilities and / or obligations due to this powerful PURPOSE we've acquired in nature?" These are the types of questions which belong to philosophy, et al.

Answer 3

Purpose of life is a life of purpose.

If you need help figuring out your purpose in life, there are resources that can help you. For instance go to The One Question that has free articles and exercises for finding your purpose in life. There's even an online test you can take. http://www.theonequestion.com

Answer 4

I believe that the best thing to do with your life is to help and greaten that of others. Help those in need, bring happiness into those who need it. We are here for each other, and you can help others, or you can devalue them for personal gain. People can suffer and its you that can help them, they might feel that there is no one out there for them, or that cares and if you see a person like that show them that they are wrong, show them that you are one of the people in the world that goes against the flow of the stream.

without others life would seem to be a void with no one there, and to some it can feel that way.

I see that the belief in god can help and bring some out of their shallows, but I've come to see that Religion has been used in the past of history to explain things, but now most things can be explained, we know why it rains, why the sun and moon come and go. ULTIMATELY religion can be a thing to live by, to learn by, but there are those who take it literal. Also religion was just used as a power force too and still surely can be. I also see that it may offer what I said people should do when they see others in need, because this allows people to become open within a group of people. But I say there are other ways besides religion; for the 1/2 of posts that simply just say, to get closer to god

one must experience the lows and pain to know the feel of good; to have something to contrast with, and I see that those who suffer the worst can only greater apreciate the ups in life, where others may not see what they have is great, but to another it could mean the world

Answer 5

Purpose is an intellectual concept that assumes that there is a reason capable of being expressed for why something is created. If I have learned anything over my life time it is that 'God moves in mysterious ways'. I do not believe it is possible for us to know why life exists.

Answer 6

God only knows!!! But I believe that we all have a different purpose and it's up to us to find out what that is. I think there are people that never find out and those people are the drug addicts and massive depressants! God gave all of us something we are good at and i think that's where our purpose of life comes from. Find out what talents you have and things you are interested in and see what you could do from that. Good Luck!!

Answer 7

Check the following link and discover your life purpose in about 20 minutes

Answer 8

On 60 minutes interview, Tom Brady (3 time Super Bowl winning quarterback) said, "There's gotta be more than this."
We all know there is more than eating, drinking and being merry and then we die.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16

"Behold, I make all things new." Revelation 21:5

Answer 9

Well ,
if you knew what your purpose to life was you would work for and you would think that it would just happen so not knowing is the only way to have a purpose.

Answer 10

This is a serious question? The purpose of life is to LIVE; to LEARN.

What's Life? A MAGAZINE!

Answer 11

Well, I have often pondered that question. I sometimes ask myself, what would happen if I died, or took my own life? It's then I can see who actually loves me and cares about me. And I also see what God has in store for my life, and all the great things I have to live for.

One woman's opinion.