Discussion what do you think the meaning of life is? [read before answering]

[kocto]

sometimes i ponder what the meaning of life is. when i say this, i don't mean an individual's own life's meaning, as in their purpose, but i signify the overreaching meaning that applies to everyone and everything after being birthed. this includes the birth of ideas, too. what i am saying... it encompasses everything that has been brought into existence.

what is the point of the creation of man? other than to survive and develop(develop physically AND technologically), what is the overall goal? even though people's individual lives are so intricate, when you zoom out you see that everyone has their own little life and thats so many people across the earth (i forget the amount of people on earth).

so, still zoomed out, look at the earth. and then look at our galaxy, and zoom out to the billions and trillions of galaxies. was there ever a reason to have it all? what will REALLY be achieved by anyone being alive? and i dont mean "good experiences"... i mean overall looking at the big picture... whats the point?

if we all were dead or nonexistent we wouldnt have brains to think about any of this. we wouldnt be thinking about the meaning of life because it wouldnt be existent. i can only long for the peace that used to be back so many years ago before anything was in existence at all. and i do believe that that is a possibility, that there was nothing at some point.

many try to answer the question "what is the meaning of life" but tend to get the answer wrong not because of miscalculation, but because missing the meaning of the question entirely. what is really being asked is such a complicated question and cannot be summed up into such a simple sentence such as the "meaning of life". that way, it is very easy to confuse the phrase with the "meaning of a life".

examples of what one may incorrectly respond to the question of "what is the meaning of life" would be general things including "finding yourself", "meeting those that love and accept you for who you are", or even, for instance, "to create your own meaning". people are prone to answer this question with limited answers, only thinking in a one-person-world mindset. as in, answering the question as if it was a life goals bucket list, and not an open-ended question about life itself, the idea of LIFE, not one's life. that is becuase those answers are correct to THIS question- "what is the meaning of one's life" or "what is the meaning of a life".

i mean, think about it. a single particle is counted as life. i'd count a rock as life. not because it is alive (which it isnt), but because it was created along with everything that is here, therefore counting it as an aspect of life. "life" itself doesnt have to be physically alive beings, but everything that was created after there was nothing. but "life itself" is probably going to be considered as only alive things.

sorry if i make no sense

it's currently 2:28am as i am writing this and i am drinking a large cup of iced coffee. its what helps me think more clearly. as you can tell, i'm doing quite a bit of thinking... haha.

i'm not in a rush to find the answer to this question, and i dont expect to find it in the mere 5 days until i will be dead. i just thought it would feel nice to share this. it did as i was in the process of typing it!

even though the title of this thread is more about answering, you don't have to if you don't feel like it.

 

[Darkover]

the meaning of life is whatever your imagination can come up with because there is no purpose

 

[UKscotty]

Just a literally one in a quadrillion event with random elements coming together to spark life.

As for what it means, probably nothing. We have to make and find our own meaning. I think too many of us end up ill looking for meaning when we actually have to make our own.

 

[LaVieEnRose]

To have fun

 

[divinemistress36]

To learn and experience

 

[Forever Sleep]

Why does there have to be a meaning? That seems to suggest intention. That life was created in order to achieve a purpose. If you want or need that to be true- then I guess the logical thing is to go looking for the creator of life and try and figure out what they want from all of us. That I imagine is where religion tries to fill the gap.

Personally, I'd say it's just as likely- if not more likely that all of this was chance. I can't actually get my head around there ever being nothing. Conceptually, I find it easier to imagine there were always things floating about in space. If time has no beginning, in an infinite amount of time, the chances of something happening between stuff floating about seems more likely than nothing ever happening. We know about things like black holes that suck in matter and compress it under terrific pressure. To me- as a lay person, I could quite imagine how a sufficent quantity of volatile elements under intense pressure could explode back out- the big bang type of thing.

From then on, I'm quite content with the idea of evolution as to how we came about. I see consciousness and self awareness as another step in evolution. I think we benefitted from having enquiring and self realising minds. I don't think that necessarily means there is a deeper meaning behind it all- just because we are capable of asking the question.

Seeing as it seems likely that trees and jellyfish can't ponder the meaning of their own existence- as far as we know- does that mean they don't have a deeper meaning? Do they require us or a God to give them that deeper meaning? Do they live their life differently or wrongly because they don't know what the deeper meaning is and can't think about it? Do we? Does it matter in the greater scale of things how we live our life?

Is it only humans who have some deeper meaning or purpose? Why are we the favourites? Because we're God's children? Why did God bother with the dinosaurs then? They roamed this earth 165 million years compared to our 7 (for our earliest ancestors.) That's quite a long time to wait to put something on this planet that is capable of asking these questions.

Besides all of that, I suppose I find it curious. I understand when people want an explanation for the suffering in life. Why is it all happening? But truly- if somehow, you found out the purpose, would it actually make things better? Would you be happier with more rules in life? More things you needed to comply to and achieve?

I'd say- even just trying to ponder what the meaning or purpose could possibly be- we become unstuck. Let's go with a common theme in religion. We're here to learn and to live a good, pious life. To what end though? Is it purely to avoid being punished? Either in hell or being reincarnated over and over? Why? Why is it so important we live a certain type of life? Let's say we succeed. Is that it? We get a celebration in heaven forever or, we get decommissioned from being recycled continuously in reincarnation? Seems a bit of an anti climax really. Seems like a lot of effort for nothing much at the end.

So- are we training for something? What? Why would it benefit us to know how to live as pious humans? Is God recruiting for staff or something? I just find it hard to envisage what the meaning could even be. What would you like the meaning to be? Would it make your life easier? Are you succeeding in your own way with what you think it might be? Are other people? Do you think you should be punished if you don't succeed? How crucial is it that you and everyone else does succeed?

As I said before, some sort of deeper meaning implies intention to me. We don't assign intention to forces like gravity. So- to me that implies some sort of creator. Someone/something who initially decided what this deep, secret meaning should be. Presumably, they wanted their creations to live by this meaning- so- why didn't they make it clearer?!! Why don't they do that now? Maybe because that is the main goal. To try and riddle out what the hell the meaning is? Then what? Try and achieve it? Then what? It's either too big for our comprehension. It's all nonsense or, it's going to end up being some dumb, deeply flawed system.

 

[INTJme]

I've said this before and I'll say it again:

"Life is empty and meaningless; and it's empty and meaningless that it's empty and meaningless."

Life just is.

The sun just is. We chose to call it that and assign whatever meaning we please. Earlier humans treated it as divine, astrophysicists treat it as a subject. People living in the far North treat it as a source of happiness whereas those in the Equatorial region treat it as something to avoid. Every person makes a different meaning out of everything. There's no inherent or "one true meaning". There just isn't any meaning at all, but we make them because our metacognition selves cannot comprehend a life without it.

 

[pthnrdnojvsc]

There is no objective purpose to life. life is meaningless suffering. work all day at a job ,chores ,cleaning yourself and everything dealing with problems suffering all day stress worry . all this for no purpose and just to exist to risk something even more horrible as there are 1000's of horrible diseases, kidnappings tortures, accidents, old age, opressions, injustices, scams , that can befall a human any day.

repeat this every day for 60 years work all day , stress, problems , worry chores only so that old age can torture you even more with dementia, arhritis, trouble breathing ( see how many older people carrying oxygen tanks) , very high chance of stroke and cancer in old age. 40% lifetime chance of cancer . 25% lifetime chance of stroke and that's just 2 hells out of thousands. : know that you have to add the probabilities of each one . all this work , trouble risk for no purpose no reason.

cancer is unbearable pain. brain tumors or a blocked colon with cancer for example. see britney maynard ( brain cancer) and angelique flowers 2 young women. Britney suicided with Nembutal. Angelique wanted to but was too late and was tortured to death by colon cancer.

i worked in a nursing home.. most humans end up old suffering constantly like that in constant pain. dementia is torture. so is arthritis constant very bad pain. there is even worse constant pain. life is hell , torture , prison, slavery, a horrible imposition.

There is pain and suffering so bad that it makes everything else meaningless.

just one need: constantly hungry for food have to feed yourself 3 times a day , groceries, cooking, washing dishes , cleaning kitchen trash brush teeth go to bathroom all just to fulfill one need. the human or other animal has a constant need for food because 60 trillion cells are begging for energy and protein and the brain needs to be powered. 30 trillion human cells are constantly copying the same DNA ( a monstrous thing and so ridiculous) and 30 trillion other microorganisms in and on a human.

massive amounts of evidence for evolution says a human is just another animal, and that first cell. what purpose does a fish , monkey, frog , fly , bug, cell , have? none and a bug or fish or cell doesn't have a soul or aftelife neither does a human which is just another animal.

this is montsrous. this is happening in each of 30 trillion cells in your body right now: how could evolution do something so ridiculous to have 30 trillion copies of the same DNA in each cell? and to constantly keep copying it wtaf? . of course there will be errors in copying which is why cancer and many other diseases can form and brain cells are particularly vulnerable

 

[iloverachel]

My view on life is that it is pointless, meaningless garbage and there is no guarantee in life except suffering

 

[FuneralCry]

Humans only ask this as they have the ability to be conscious and aware unlike animals, I could never see a point or meaning to the abomination that is existence, to me it's just a horrific tragedy that has caused endless amounts of harm, cruelty and torment as a result. Existence is just a hellish imposition and more than anything I wish I never existed at all, I see it as so horrible how life had to exist when the absence of everything is perfection, there was never a need for existence at all, it's unnecessary, meaningless and senseless.

 

[AshH]

Surviving by hoarding ressources and reproducing to propagate the specie basically.
It has always been like that and will continue to be.
There's no need to overthink it, we are all here because our parents were horny and did what they did.

 

[pthnrdnojvsc]

My view on life is that it is pointless, meaningless garbage and there is no guarantee in life except suffering

and another guarantee certain Death which frees one from suffering for all time

but Death is seen as bad or something to fear .not to me . it's my only comfort that i will die anyway and not exist forever never any pain, problems ,suffering nothing bad happening to me ever again , no bad memories etc.....

 

[unabletocope]

To make the most of it, if you can. If you can't then there is no meaning

 

[Ociv]

I think asking this question is like asking a chess piece what is the purpose of the board. or even asking the chess board what is the purpose of the wood it is constructed from.

As we understand it currently, the universe is comprised of four fundamental forces: Gravity, Electromagnetism, Strong Interaction, and Weak interaction. every single thing that exists and every single thing that happens to those things arise from one or more of these fundamental forces. "existence" is the chess board, and those four forces are the pieces. it could be said that the universe only exists to allow those four forces to happen, as they could not happen without space and time.

This doesnt really answer the question of a purpose from a human perspective. The idea of a "reason" behind existence implies an intelligence that designed existence for a purpose. and if that is a case, then bam. you have your reason. its "Because [blank] wanted to". if you dont believe in that stuff, then there would be no intelligent reason.

However, from the perspective of life, in the biological sense, you could argue there is a very clear purpose. all that living beings ever try to do is reproduce. every single function they have is either to produce more of themselves, or to survive so they can produce more of themselves. anything beyond that is purely an arbitrary human construct.

Did I interpret your question correctly?

 

[tsumihoroboshi]

there is no "meaning", there only exists what just "is". stars and planets cant comprehend their own existences, humans weren't meant to either. humans evolved away from animals which allowed for certain biological functions that animals and plants simply don't have.

humans assigned names and meaning to things and everyone adapted to those meanings. the meaning of the passage of time, rules set out by those who gained power, war, jobs, schooling. humans did this. humans and animals and plants are supposed to reproduce to keep the world alive. there is no deeper meaning than that.

some of us chose to go against the grain and that makes us the "outcasts" despite the fact the world existed just fine without all these man-made social constructs and morality. if we exist to reproduce, why do we die? even stars die. organisms like us are able to ponder these questions through evolution alone. that's just life came to be.

life just "is."

but i also may be too stupid for these kinds of questions. i'm not smart enough to participate in philosophical conversations.

 

[billie]

For me there is no meaning of life
I was born to die