The Meaning Of Life

[Plaything48]

I know everyone loves to give inputs on this topic, so I'll get the ball rolling.

Man does not live by bread alone, nor by know-how, children safety or sex. People everywhere spend as much time as they can afford on activities, that in the struggle to survive and reproduce, seem pointless. In all cultures people tell jokes and recite poetry. They joke, laugh, and tease. They sing and dance, and decorate surfaces. They perform rituals. They wonder about the causes of fortune and misfortune, and hold beliefs about the supernatural that contradict everything else they know aboout the world. They concoct theories of the universe and their place within it.

Now as if that weren't enough of a puzzle, it seems the more biologically frivolous and vain the activity, the more people exhalt it. Art, literature, music, wit, religion, and philosophy are thought to be not just pleasurable, but noble. They are the mind's best work, what makes life worth living. We pursue the trivial and futile and experience them as sublime. Members of our species do mad things like taking vows of celibacy, living for their music, selling their blood to buy cinema tickets, and going to graduate school. To many of you, it may seem immoral to ask why we pursue the trivial and futile, but it is in essence vital for understanding the meaning of our lives, and our psyche.

[Impenitent]

and then someone kicks the anthill...

and when you look deeply into the abyss, it looks back into you...
Nietzsche

[Highwayman]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Plaything48,)


Man does not live by bread alone, nor by know-how, children safety or sex. People everywhere spend as much time as they can afford on activities, that in the struggle to survive and reproduce, seem pointless. [ ]

Now as if that weren't enough of a puzzle, it seems the more biologically frivolous and vain the activity, the more people exhalt it. Art, literature, music, wit, religion, and philosophy are thought to be not just pleasurable, but noble. They are the mind's best work, what makes life worth living. We pursue the trivial and futile and experience them as sublime.[ ] <hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>


My personal subjective POV is that intelligence grew out of rationality and logic as an extremely viable survival trait- only it overachieved on the humble "best surival" objective, to the extent that "boredom" became a contra-survival indicator.

Hence the invention of all the noble pursuits by man to survive the contra-survival boredom and associated depression. "Noble" in the sense that it is actually pro-survival specifically targetting our unique rational intelligent mentality.

[white rice]

We have too much time on our hands. This forces us to think of events that have yet to occur or find purpose in things that have already happened. The search for the meaning of life supposedly helps us cope with that free time and make sense of the time that we use to work. But knowing such an answer also means that you have to accept it in order for it to really matter.

Intelligence is a gift and a curse. Some would think of it as a cruel joke. I think the best advice for those who want to explore the meaning of life is to attack it on all fronts and not just the mental by being stationary while reading the thoughts of another person who was listless and rife with thought.

Look at life. Breathe life. Put thought to application. Maybe then will it be easier to accept.

[Pooeypants]

Just watch Monty Python's The Meaning of Life and it'll all be clear as mud...

Don't forget, the answer is 42.

[Suburbanite]

I think it strange that there has to be meaning.

[Fjord Redd]

Personally, i don't know how one would begin to answer this question from a non-religious base. Defining the meaning of life seems to depend on something greater than life. Take away a god, or a higher purpose, and i cannot see any difference in "meaning" between people and rocks. The both just exist in the world.

Suburban seems to be on the right track in that if one has no religion, what is the purpose of even asking the question "what is the meaning of life."

[Man Against Time]

Because not feeling like you have a reason to even get up in the morning makes it difficult to find a reason to do more difficult things. Why should I go to work if it doesnt matter?

I think the reason varies for each person. The commonality between all people, however, is to discover and perfect and live who you were before society gave you masks and costumes. Examine your unconditioned self, the part of you that is underneath all the contingent parts given by culture, the part that cant use your languages to express itself and probably does not relate one bit to the values society has built and peddled.

[caspian88]

There is no meaning of life.

The purpose of your life is to continue the species. There is no meaning or purpose in life itself.

[delFoolio]

I don't exactly know what the meaning of life is but if there was no meaning then i know i would not be alive for i would have killed myself a long time ago.
I think the meaning of life goes along lines of having respect for the Earth, the people who care about you, and of course yourself. But when I give it though why its is worth living I can never come up with a real concrete answer. Maybe we live for love...or the lust for power, or maybe the never ending quest of trying to make things right again like they should be.......of course we all might be living to find out why we are living and after we obtian that concrete then we can actually begin to really live.

I do not know, but I'm sure I will find out.

[zorgasm]

Here's a thought: The meaning of life is the search and quest for our own personal reasons for being.

yay? nay?

[riska]

I think that when we were created each and everyone of us was given certain purpose or thing we need to accomplish in this life ...as each person interacts and events coinside life as we know it exists........

[Fjord Redd]

Even if we accomplish these things, riska, it does nothing to change the course of anything. If the entire human race were to be eliminated, do you think the universe would suddenly stop? No man, however great or small, has any lasting influence during his life.

It is true that each person has an affect on another and can therefore affect the course of society and how we act as humans, but it does nothing to cause permanent change.

Man Against, when I honestly look at the inner me, without any other notion, I cannot help but come to the conclusion that all the good deeds, the "inner feelings," or "gut instincts" are not a meaning or purpose. Your conclusion is right; if there is no greater purpose in life, why should i not kill myself, others, or do as i otherwise please? Again, meaning to life can only be found in a purpose greater than life, or even the universe.

For those who try to figure it all out, save your time.. perfect is not being perfect, without challenges we would cease to exist. Man when pushed far enough in HIS WORLD, he will bite back. The stronger are those that take the most abuse and do nothing, or are they the less brave? If you understood that there are no definate answers, and that things get done out of fear of losing what you feel you worked hard for, then you will understand why things happen today in this world.

[Contrarian]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Man Against Time,)
Because not feeling like you have a reason to even get up in the morning makes it difficult to find a reason to do more difficult things. Why should I go to work if it doesnt matter?<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>

I like the answer (granted to a somewhat different question) that Neo gave in the last Matrix movie: "Because I choose to." I doubt there is any meaning to life beyond what we assign to it.

C

[forecg]

For me:

The meaning of life is survival. We all know what survival is - it's "life" that I probably view differently than you do. By my way of thinking, life is anything that can perpetuate itself. That means ice crystals, trees, dogs, human bodies, companies, government programs, political parties, and the teachings of prophets like Jesus or Mohammed are all alive. Each gets its meaning by fighting to survive, and if it fails, it no longer has any meaning.

Movies and music may not seem like they have anything to do with survival, but only if you try to associate them with the wrong form of life: they don't struggle for survival as people, but as culture. Like any form of life, culture needs food in order to perpetuate itself. For plants, nutrients are food. For animals, plants and other animals are food. For culture, it's living human bodies.

But how can our bodies and our cultures both be alive at the same time? It's simple - we've got divided identities. I identify myself as a human being, so I eat and breath and sleep. I identify myself as a part of my family, so I love and defend them. I'm a part of a company, so I trade my labor to them for money. I'm a recreational pilot, so I fly for fun. I'm a member of a political party, so I vote for it and donate money to it. The identities go on and on, but they all share the common goal of survival.

True, my 'pilot' identity can't survive without flying, but doesn't that pose risks that threaten survival of my body? Yes, it does, but it also produces drugs that convince my body to go along with it. In the same way that we eat food by digesting it and making it a part of us, culture 'eats' us by convincing our bodies that things like listening to music are more essential to survival than just eating and making babies (it doesn't matter whether or not these things are true - just whether or not our bodies believe them).

Hundreds of different aspects of culture all compete for identity and survival within each person, simply because they can. The survival of these bits is what gives life meaning.

- Call me cynical and blow me off if it makes you happy, but this explaination of the meaning of life makes sense to me. I'm also open to constructive criticism.

[Bryan]

Life is "the organic phenomenon that distinguishes living organisms from nonliving ones"(http://www.onelook.com/?w=life&ls=a)

Meaning is a linguistic phenomenon, meaning only exists within communication.

[white rice]

Communication is limited by language which mostly inaccurate in its portrayal of one's thoughts and actions. Language is a bottleneck for the true feelings simmering within our subconscious. So how does one think and communicate without any form of language? Years of training or through illicit drugs, I guess...

[takes12no1]

I propose 2 meanings of life.

1)for the religous. We are here to learn and grow and become more godlike. At somepoint we will either progess to godhood and have our own world to populate with spirit children, or burn in hell for all eternity because we were not worthy of free agency.

2)for the non-religious. We are here to fight entropy. Life exists to organize energies and fight against the second law of thermodynamics. Eventually we have to get off this planet and figure out how to bring the universe back together. We will probably get close, only to have it collapse on itself due to an end-of-times terrorist network. Which means matter will collaps on itself and erase all history, then start over with another big bang when critical mass is reached.

I'm not sure which on I choose, but #1 seems to have a rosier future.

[atheist]

The meaning of life is, in itself, meaningless.

Well, that's what I always say and it's what I've come to accept.
The meaning of life comes from ones own interpretation of it, but i think that no matter how many times people interpret it or give life a reason, that reason (in the big picture) is meaningless.

There can be different layers in life (i.e. your meaning to society is working as a mailman, your meaning to your family is being the father/brother/son, your meaning to this club is being a member, etc.), but in general, life is meaningless and it has no definite purpose but simply to survive/exist (which I see as very meaningless).

...there's no meaning in life! Why not accept it and enjoy the rest of your existence eh? At least, until your brain shuts down.