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What is the meaning of life?
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Phew, this site gets a bit depressing at times with kind of clinical answers, no offence.
The 'meaning of life' is the question that arises in our beings maybe because we live in the void of a post-christian world. I'm not a christian, I just think that christianity provided the west with the answer to that question, now that it's more or less dying out we are left with the big q. I also think that the question arises so pervasively in humans by virtue of the type of network you're left with after tons of evolution which create a fine attributional social brain (ie we're always looking for meaning in things, unlike monkeys/other apes, for example) coupled with really a high level of general intelligence. We look for meaning at lots of levels, can compare levels (e.g. I need to get up early today to work well, to earn money for my holiday which is next month) and this gives us the capacity to simply jump up to the top step: well, what gives all THAT meaning? I'm not saying there isn't one, just explaining why the question seems to come to everyone's head. As a bunch, I think no human has yet put in the work or started it off properly to work out what it may be. I have degrees in philosophy and psychology, nearly ODed on christianity, and can say most definitely that I didn't find the final answers there. I think a good starting point would be physics and astronomy (cosmogony/cosmogeny/cosmology)-man, get to know these, they are pure religion :-) I would also recommend the following films very highly which inspire and pose questions which frame the overall question more clearly:
Vanilla Sky, Solaris, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
There are various interpretations even of the question, which I guess can be reposed as 'Why should we be alive?' Some of the answers put so far :'because our ancestors existed' only looks at a partial interpretation of even the question.An excellent approach to any such question can take its starting point from the 'Four Why's' of top evolutionary biologist Nico Tinbergen. In asking 'why' in evolution, he said you could ask why in all of the four following ways:
1. Function: What are we for? We need to know more about the Universe to answer this. There may be a zillion Universes.
2. Evolution 'how did we evolve?' Christianity/Judaism got it wrong, for example ("special act of God about 6000 years ago), and of course total error flows from that.
3.Development: how did we humans come about as a feature of this stage of the development of the Universe. The great big cold void of the universe, remember, has popped up from itself some beings that are part of it that are also aware of it.
4. Causation or control. What are the factors eliciting and controlling it? Did something kick us off? (e.g. did something/someone kick the big bang into action?) Did something kick that/it off?
So we see that there's a ton of stuff to answer before we start putting out any slick (but meaningless) one liners. Richard Dawkins mentions the 'anaesthetic of familiarity': we get so used to life because of continued repetition of the same things that we get put to sleep and forget just how TOTALLY MENTAL IT ALL IS! Something, not nothing exists. We're a bunch of little sentient conscious intelligent beings on a lump of rock. As David Ames says in 'Vanilla Sky': WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON??????'
The meaning of life (in the human sense) on a generic level is, of course, procreation. But humans are much more complicated that that right? Life is a voyage of discovery where we must all find our own meaning. For some it�s marriage, kids, house in the �burbs. For others it�s finding enough food and water to survive another day. I haven�t found my meaning yet. But while I wait for the most elusive of answers, I try to remember how lucky I am in the things I have, and do my best to enjoy the celebration that is life to its fullest. Remember my friends � the grass is always greener!
The aim of life is some way of living, as flexible and gentle as human nature; so that ambition may stoop to kindness, and philosophy to condor and humor. Neither prosperity nor empire nor heaven can be worth winning at the price of a virulent temper, bloody hands, an anguished spirit, and a vain hatred of the rest of the world.
people ask why are we here and why do we reproduce,i think the answer is that the question is not why but ''who'', we are here and still here because of who we are we are not told to reproduce we just do it because it's what we do, it's who we are. life is something that happend many years ago that we will never understand or know the meaning of, and at the end of the day do we really wanna know what the meaning of life is?!?! like they say what u don't know can't hurt u!
Sismitch, can you explain to me the reasons you have for believing that to be the case? If it is the case, why did God put us here, if he loved us, instead of just putting us in Heaven. And what if we fail the test? (we are only human after all) - he sends us to a pit of unimaginable pain and suffering for ever and ever? Do you want to spend the rest of your existence for eternity with such a guy?
If he did put us on earth as a test, why didn't he tell us more about himself, and about the meaning of our lives, in some way that was even slightly easy to be sure of? Most of those he created can find no reason for their existence, and those that think they do have such different views that most of them must be wrong. In fact, the evidence of his existence and of him having given us a life plan is so obscure that I would feel by this alone I do not believe that such a being exists.
If he did put us on earth as a test, why didn't he tell us more about himself, and about the meaning of our lives, in some way that was even slightly easy to be sure of? Most of those he created can find no reason for their existence, and those that think they do have such different views that most of them must be wrong. In fact, the evidence of his existence and of him having given us a life plan is so obscure that I would feel by this alone I do not believe that such a being exists.
