What is the meaning of life? Could it be simply to reproduce and keep the human race alive? Then why do we need conciousness? Do we need conciousness to overcome nature, to survive even when our planet dies? Or is nature telling us to survive because something is out there coming to destroy this planet, and we are just unconciously doing nature's will. It would make sense, considering nature has always been evolving towards the next form of intelligence as if there would come a day when that intelligence would be required to survive. It has happened before. The dinosaurs that roamed this planet before the ice-age, cold blooded lizards almost large enough to survive the freezing winters. Now time might be running out, now out there in the great skies above us there could be a meteor who's mass would fry this planet with more heat than a hundred atomic bombs, killing every living organism down to the smallest bacteria, melting the ice caps and flooding the land. Maybe the Earth is teetering on its axis and at any moment could flip causing lightning storms, hurricanes, and agian flooding the planet. What then? How could you survive on a planet that rotates on its side, the sun rising just over the horizon and staying there leaving only a speck of dim light. Some parts of the planet would be too hot to live in, some parts would be too cold and there would be no equator as we know it. The question isnt If this planet will be destroyed, the question is when. The meaning of life... is to escape the inevitable. To survive for as long as you can by whatever means necessary, survival of the fittest is an outdated concept. Survival of the intelligent is the only way survival is possible.

lol, someone needs o lay off the coffee

Im serious, even though i dont believe this will happen for some time, it is inevitable. Order always turns to disorder in the long run.

I will give two meanings of life, a scientific, and metaphysical.

Scientific: There is no true meaning. We are merely a complex organism taking advantage of the sound conditions earth has to offer.

Metaphysical: The meaning of life is to learn, to become enlightened. We as souls will all live many lives in order to evolve into high-grade entities. Everything is one.

I have no idea which one to beleive.

More intelligence translates to being more fit to survive (if you use that intelligence of course).

One possibility is that the existence of life (physical lifeforms in the universe) is simply natures way of emulating the eternal non-physical life that there MAY be. Afterall, I believe that the notion of life (experiencing physical reality) had to be initiated by some concept other than nothing just like the big bang. But then again, maybe everything did come from nothing - without a cause?

Different lifeforms (different intelligent levels) are just LIFE (overall as a unity) progressing from the low limit (no intelligence, single celled organisms etc.) to the upper limit - ultimate intelligence (understanding of why, how, knowing it all) - but again EMULATING with particles the next 'existence'. That to me, for now, seems to be the underlying purpose of life and ultimately the universe.

Meaning of life is whom precieves it as... as in if you were a religious person the meaning for your life would be to praise your GOD, or GODS.

The meaning of life is to live. No good to kick and scream, you'll die eventually. Take "Star Trek" for example, no matter how advanced we are, we still have to deal with death. And no fountain of eternal youth can save you, because the universe itself will 'end' (expand forever or contract). There's no escape - it's like trying to leave a room with no exits - so maybe the meaning of life is indeed, to enjoy it.

'Judge Dredd', as a movie, it's crap but it has one of the most interesting ideas:
- So tell me Rico, what is the meaning of life?
- It ends.

.... sigh what an earthly view on life.

He who has no doubts, may cast the first stone.

Why do we have to assign a "meaning" to everything?

YOU and only you can give your life meaning .Either by your actions or your beliefs

Don't expect the universe to do it for you

Sorry Kwai, I just could not help myself...



It's the bane of intelligence



Sorry, SOCIETY is giving my life meaning. Everything I encounter/do gives my life meaning with respect to the ideals/morals/en masse beliefs of society.



I am doing it for myself (obviously) but I am looking towards the grandest thing I can find - the universe - to find the meaning... I cannot simply look towards myself to find the meaning of my life since I have been born into a CONTEXT. My life is part of the meaning of my parent's lives, no doubt. And it undoubtedly affects the universe, I think

Er, I thought everyone knew this by now?

The answer is 42

this does not disturb me one bit, however, it seems to have hit a 'nerve' in your reality

If you want to believe life has no meaning that is your perogative, but I will believe what I can (so far) identify...I will not believe in god because I refuse to believe in blind faith (just thought I'd add that).

About the rest of your argument, IT IS UNFOUNDED, because I was referring to LIFE in general (the progression of life - in whatever lifeform) not individual life! Individually we have 'alterier' meanings to our short lives but collectively there is only one.

But just to entertain your misinterpreted argument...


'YOU', I thought was directed at me, hence I answered personally 'my life meaning'. I had no IDEA you were going to go on about monks and what have you, but even so, if you were directing 'YOU' at the populus in general - then MY LIFE'S MEANING being influenced by the society DISCREDITS your 'YOU and only you can give your life meaning.' statement!



..yeaah, yeaah, individual life (me, me,me) - you've missed the point!

and BTW, I've lived at 42 for 12 of my 30+ years

Be Fair ! i never said life has no meaning i said the meaning differs from one person to another.There is no "one answer"

The thought that life has no meaning can be disturbing! Fear usually comes from ignorance the easiest way to eliminate that type of fear is to answer the question.

What if the greatest minds answered the question tomorrow and said "Life officially has no meaning!"" we have proved it"

Would you except their conclusion or would you continue to seek your own answer? And if so why?

Again you haven't hit a nerve! Just giving you one of my opinions on why we seek answers to why we are here

Of course my argument is UNFOUNDED (OOOHHH! CAPS) because any opinion on this subject is pure speculation.UNLESS(YEP CAPS AGAIN) you know something we don't..... Come on fess up!


Just because we differ in opinion doesn't mean either of us are right or wrong

EDIT : BTW wanted to add I'm a "Enemy" of blind faith. Question everything!

We appear to be doing and have done a pretty good job of fudging up the planet, rather than doing nature's will.

Zaus, are we discussing 'meaning of life' as in the context of evolution/universe & not just human life ?
Or, are we discussing 'meaning of your life' as in individually in the context of a human lifespan, values etc.

They are quite different I believe.

Kwai, I think we've gotten off on the wrong foot & wavelength, so let me clear this up...

with regard to 'meaning of life' (as whole) my opinion is in post #5 which IS before your post

I however tend to disagree with this statement:


it is false - the bible has been giving meaning to people's lives for centuries whether its content is lunatic ravings, chinese-whispers or just wild imagination.

I know you said...

...exactly right, so why make the statement 'YOU and only you' - unless everyone who reads your reply shares your view - which is not the case



...I would investigate the findings - poke, prod, test, retest - and if all other theories have not been substantiated whilst findings check out correct - I would most likely accept it - but that's my nature. I know some who'd swallow anything without checking it out.

This is my opinion, there is either NO true meaning of life or 1 true meaning of life but not multiple meanings of life. On an individual level we each perceive a PRESUMED meaning of life and these are very different to a MACRO (universal) meaning of life.

I never made clear what this tread was supposed to be about, but i like the direction its headed in. For one thing the universe exists for some as yet unknown reason, you exist for some unknown reason. Yet there's a reason the earth and planets rotate around the sun, and there is a reason why 2+2 equals four every single time. Or is the universe just here and we are cluelessly trying to find why, when there is no why.
What i believe to be the meaning of life is to just live a rich and full life, and experience everything(including drugs, but not to the point when they become your life) you can.

In the words of Dr. RockSolomon Valentine Pierce the first Esq.
"Make life worth dying for."

I thought the meaning in life was to make alot of money and plant you seed in many different people?!

If thats the meaning of life, i choose to ignore it. There has got to be more to life than what we currently know. The universe is big enough to keep us occupied in traveling it for who knows how long. Then there is the possibility of parrallel universes and extra dimensions that could be travelled also. Are we so blind and think of ourselves so highly that we believe there is only one universe? Noone knows, so how can anyone be so sure? I'm not sure whether there is only our universe, or there are multiple universes. But i keep an open mind to both, because either could be true. If there are multiple universes, would they work by the same physics that our universe works by, or would they have extra dimensions of time, or dimensions unexperienced by humans. Why is it that since we see the world around us look a certain way, we believe that everywhere in the cosmos looks identical?

this is the SOME 'human' meaning of life.

A macro (universal) meaning of life would be an observable purpose/trait/?? of ALL lifeforms. So to test how close your thoughts are to the universal meaning of life simply substitute ANY lifeform in your statement (I'm not just talking about the above statement) and see if it makes sense.

For example,

for a bacteria the meaning of life is to make a lot of money and plant your seed in many different bacteria

certainly bacteria will not give a damn about money but the progression (propagation) of life seems to be a consistent trait - but what about hemaphrodites ? (planting a seed in yourself) is this still consistent? probably

What is the meaning of life is a good question, but before you try to figure that out you have to know WHERE life came from. How did life suddenly spring to... um... life? Unless there are bacteria on all planets that we havent found yet, and they propagate very well on this planet because of the perfect conditions. Then agian maybe the planet as a whole is alive, and not just a chunk of rock. Unlikely, but then we've never seen whats under the surface have we? Or maybe life didnt exist here until an alien civilization decided to terraform it, give it an atmosphere, and plant the seed of life in the form of bacteria so that no matter what sudden or accumulative wheather changes(ice age, global warming) life would survive. Doubt that one too, but since noone knows how life got here it cant be ruled out as an explaination.

And before that we'd have to unambiguously define 'life'.

However as this link to wikipedia's definition shows it is not that simple...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life

my very simple defintion = being aware of your surroundings
in this way everything in our universe is ALIVE through gravity and various other fields.

ie earth is aware of its surrounding by the constant gravity tugging on it from close massive bodies (sun, other planets & in a much smaller way by everything in the universe) - this would be the entity's 'consciousness' so to speak. The only thing that differs from an organism is 'free will' - or does it (entanglement) ?

That is supposed to be the reason we are here (According to NDE research.)

To learn, grow, become enlightened, as all are one.

What i dont get is why people cannot just love eachother. Every single person gets about 80 years on earth, which is only a tiny time frame. Yet people fight and bicker and waste their lives fighting eachother. Everyone on earth right now will die within the next hundred years, so why dont people understand life is short and to the point. If you waste time worrying or fighting or mopping around and getting nothing done, you are wasting time you can never get back.

look

drink get drunk

eat and be merry

watch as many movies as you can

make 3 really good friends

and put down everyone else

hate everything that does not immidiatly affect you

in social groups, aim to be the most negative one.

dont smile alot

get a dog

not a cat

try drugs but dont make them a habit

honour thy parents

violence is a bad thing but talk about it all the time as if its what you live by

cars are to get from a to b, but have a great sound system

when you get drunk talk about hell as much as you can

in a group of people if your stuck for a topic, bring up how much you hate every remake ever made of any movie, and how no sequal has ever been better than the first.

learn to understand starwars

never ever pay for anything you can easily get for free

if it feels good, its right.

look i can go on... but i wont, this is the meaning of life.

Really, did you have to ruin an otherwise interesting thread by uselessly reading off random things because you have no real thoughts in your head that would be viable to this conversation and would just make you look like a damn fool? I have taken the liberty of interpreting your post into what i think you meant, if you meant anything that is.

The meaning of life is just to realise there is no exterior existence beyond what our intuition tells us is real, therefore we should actively search for material possessions, social interactions should only be used to b*tch about meaningless problems you have, and in the end you die anyway so why try to be happy?

I would think if im going to die anyway, i might as well enjoy my time on earth instead of being depressed my whole life and then kicking the bucket. Whatever, some people are just too stupid to think for themselves.

thats the only logical thing you said.

it took you this long to figure it out??

dont try to make sence of us being here.. you cant do it.

never put faith in other man either, they are all scumbags.

This sounds depressing to me, i think you missed my point. Let me elaborate on why you are a douche. You take a subject such as the meaning of life, put down what you dont actually believe(and if you do believe it you are truly a douche) and waste a perfectly good posting spot for someone who has something to say. Now im not even going to bash you on your own contradictions, but you would know how enjoyable life is if you had gone through sh*t. It makes you not take life for granted and not just b**** about meaningless infinitestimal problems your having. We are here for some reason, what that might be noone knows, but the earth goes around the sun for a reason, and everything in the universe works for a reason. Why would there not be a reason for us to be here? I say enjoy it while you can, smile as much as you feel comfortable, do your own thing and dont bother dealing with people who give you sh*t(i decided to voice my opinion, so you can shove it). Stop wasting my time, and your own time and get a life.

kinda skimmed thru what you wrote...made me bored quick though! kudos

lighten up slick have some humour...

keep believing that the truth is out there

and im sure your parents will give you a call at christmas

holla

Did you skim through it because it was boring, because you know your wrong, or because you cant read? just kidding(i hope). I was going for a discussion of possible reasons why humans are destroying their environment, but it ended up about the meaning of life. Oh well, you cant win all the time.

In truth, life in general, maybe serves a greater purpose (I doubt it though) Me thiks this life doesn't exist, that's it's just an illusion, sure, at times i may seem so real, but once, once, I was sitting in this same chair, and I felt reality, true reality, and at that moment, I felt like this "physcial" world I am in was like a very very clouded dream, and I felt my true reality was so much realer, and I can't shake off that from the back of my mind, sure a few of my colleagues ridiculed me, ok find, one of them did, and I told him off mind you I'm still 14 so that's what they do, but at times when I did something he'd just be like "it's all an illusion" god that got to be annoying, he didn't know the half of it, me tells him that if he ever says that again I will kick his ass, he shut up then, and I lost my happy feeling.. yup yup

My little theory on reality is that its a highly ordered dream. Nature always cycles through two extreme's. The chaotic extreme and the orderly extreme. Quantum mechanics and General relativity are the perfect example. When you look at a star you see it almost perfectly spherically and if you know its mass and spin you can easily calculate its gravitational pull. Our universe is highly ordered at this scale. You take a closer look at that star, and you see how completely non-uniform and unpredictable the components that make it up are.

Applied to reality it mkaes complete sense that reality is just another form of dreaming. Which is more real? We have no idea whether reality is "real", it just seems logical that when you wake up where you fell asleep and know who you are, it is real. Whereas in dreams you can be anyone and anywhere doing anything without realities limits. We call them dreams, but dreams and reality are entangled into something much more interesting than what we see before us.

It's to have fun and not worry about what happens afterwards...

Zaus... your applying something in reality, to reality, does that even work?

Is there a way to apply something out of reality into reality? My point was, the laws that govern nature govern everything. The pattern of nature moves from order to chaos. It applies to everything from bacteria to humans. In dreams, they can be ordered or chaotic. What if life was a dream? Not just you, but everyone and everything. The dream of another being with such high mental capabilities it produces ordered and humungous worlds. Then the people in our dreams may have dreams of their own, which in turn have dreams. Within the chaos of dreams, our full potential is unleashed.

Dolphins know the true meaning of life,and their not telling us!

Lets beat it out of them!

This is why some of us study metaphysics. I also love physics, BTW, even if all of it after 1905 has cracked foundations. Metaphysics is based on the experiences of mystics, and on the symbolic revelations from the deep. Neither should be taken on faith. It was the American philosopher William James who discovered that there is reproducibility in mystical states, but not in other kinds of religious experiences.

The mystic says everything is ONE. Thus we are all gods, part of divinity. This is also the metaphysics of Hinduism. I myself am opposed to all religions, especially the religion of science. Science itself is not a religion, but scientists as people have a religion, a set of assumptions grad students must accept if they ever wish to get grants or tenure. Reduction of everything to atoms and the void. A pretty bleak worldview, if you ask me.

According to the Seth Material by Jane Roberts, 1970, the nature that seems so real to the scientists is actually created by Self, by minds if you like, but higher levels of consciousness than the normal ego we use here on the earth plane. So if this universe ends, we will just go find another. Or build one.

The meaning of life is to realise Jesus doesn't love you, God will not save you, and the only way to get to heaven is to devote your life to not being a do*che. Then and only then will you become enlightened and realise it wasnt worth the time to become enlightened.