The Meaning of Life

[Heuristic]

Frequently, the meaning of life for me varies in strong correlation to the amount of time since I last ate, drank, or had sex.

More seriously, what is the use of this question? If you had to ask yourself what career you should focus upon, would you ask this question? How about what to eat for dinner? How to get dinner? Who, or whether, to marry? To have a relationship with? To go home with?

I think what often prompts this question is frequently a sense of listlessness, or purposelessness... in other words, a sense of depression. "What is the meaning of life" seems often accompanied by "what is the use of any of this."

In other words, perhaps this is really more a psychological question than a philosophical one.

 

[DaBricks]

True happiness comes from within if you can find that all the rest is gravy

 

[Solipsis]

Personally I don't believe there is a revolutionary answer to what the meaning of life is, not some unimaginable discovery.
The point of life is to lead it, and lead it as pure as possible. And I don't mean do the right thing or follow certain rules, I mean developing yourself so that you become more liberated step by step. Liberation I guess is nothing more than learning not to complicate things for yourself by asking questions that seem like they have the utmost importance and gravity to get them answered. Don't ignore it all either, but accept it all and take stuff as it is. What could be better than living with fundamental acceptance? From this acceptance comes love which is our primary sustenance and provides vital life energy.
To me it makes sense that this is the highest thing in life. You could call it a type of understanding that is needed to base your life on this here, but other types of (intellectual) understanding cannot even be compared, that is infinitely less important as interesting as it may seem. I'm not saying: don't ever contemplate anything ever again because that could be very boring. But don't make yourself too dependant on it, be careful.

 

[Raw Evil]

"the more you try, the harder it gets".... man if i only had a dollar for every time i found/said/realised that.

I'll share with you all something I've been working on gradually:

On the classic mystery, "what is the meaning of life?", or "what is my purpose?" - What most don't understand is that these are senseless questions.

As life evolved on this planet, it became advantageous for organisms to have a control mechanism of some sort. This began as a central nervous system, which over time grew in complexity into what we today recognize as a brain. The brain's job in any organism is to read and process sensory input, build from this a simple model relating cause to effect, and coordinate an action to satisfy the most desirable outcome. In order to do this in the complex case of human logic, it must attribute a reason to its intended actions. Only once this intent or goal is decided upon can any course of action be deemed more satisfactory than another and a single action chosen.

"So," the reader asks, "how does this make the question of life's purpose senseless?" The answer is simple: purpose is only relevant when attributed to an action by an intellect. An object has no purpose until someone has an outcome they wish to achieve. A big stick is simply a big stick until a hunter decides that it is a suitable tool for killing their food. On its own, the stick would have remained on the ground, and decayed over time. In the same way, a purpose can only be attributed to a being by another being (or themselves).

Thus, there is no meaning behind life until it is assigned one, as arbitrarily as any other assignment of purpose. Searching for a pre-existing meaning is as useless as asking why a stick is a stick and not a rock.

 

[TheAppleCore]

Asking for the meaning of life is a bit of a loaded question - it assumes that there IS a meaning in the first place.


I do believe that life is quite meaningful - in that it is valuable, its existence is Positive, in an absolute universal sort of way. You get a glimpse into absolute Positivity when you feel happiness.

Computers, guns, knives, drugs, and silverware are all tools of humankind. In and of themselves their existence as inanimate objects is meaningless, but with the aid of human intelligence they can be used for destructive or constructive purposes. Happiness is not a tool - it's a construction, as sadness is destruction.

Humankind & all other conscious, emotional life on earth aren't some sort of tool of the gods. We don't have a meaning. We ARE the meaning.


Hope that made some sense. It's very late. I'll proofread after some rest.

 

[xexon]

The meaning of life is Disneyland for the soul.

You came here because you wanted to. For the human experience.

When you sign on the dotted line, you soul is encased in human form and deprived of it's omniscient, all knowing nature.

You job, is to fight your way out of the paper bag of belief of who you think you are.


x

 

[motiv311]

the mystery IS the answer, because it is through the mystery that all of our desires find their satisfaction. if the answer is known then our satisfactions are known and there is no more desire; the desire to live dies, and with it the meaning to life no longer exists. when you find the "answer" the answer stops existing, therefore there is no "meaning of life"

wow

i think this is what I was looking for..... amazing...

trying to answer "the question" is like trying to understand the sun by staring at it. You'll only get a headache or perhaps go blind...