You are the best suited vessel for transferring your DNA to the next generation. That is the meaning of life in the most specific sense. More generally, humans have evolved to help others achieve this goal, in the form of generosity and autism. At the purest biological level, the meaning of life is to have children and to help others of your species survive to have children.
This does not prohibit you from finding your own personal meaning of course, and I wish you the best of luck in doing so.
The fear of death is something engrained in life. For some, the fear of death is higher than the fear of suffering in life.
I'm partial to the idea that we're part of a larger organism. So essentially similar to cell parts but on a different scale. There's something above that, but we are as likely to figure it out as cells are able to figure us out.
What to do with that? I have no idea. In lieu of objective facts, I guess it's useful to pick the good instructions from religions -- usually the ones that they all share are the ones that are worth adhering to. Do to others etc etc.
you are the worst splinter cell agent i have ever seen OP
To explore this existence.
I don't believe life has a meaning. I don't believe that anybody has a reason to be here, in any kind of grand scheme of things.
However, if somebody finds something that they enjoy, they might find they want more of that feeling, and choose to stick around to get it.
Most living things want to continue living. Whether that's because death is scary and potentially unpleasant in a few different ways, or because they've become attached to something in the world.
That's why I think some people fight diseases to live a few more years. They might not be planning on anything specific, other than just not dying.
“Ambition is overrated. Whether a janitor or surgeon, being virtuous is what matters [1]. Avoid contempt and envy because we each have our part to play [2], powerless to choose our upbringing. Often there's more than meets the eye so hold off on passing judgement. Everything is borrowed [3], so avoid craving credit too. The meaning of life is sharing (and) laughter [4], helping each other through peaks and throughs. Bref, GLHF.
[Quoting my own website arscyni.cc because POSSE: "Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere."]
There is no objective meaning to life. Any meaning imposed by yourself or others is arbitrary and completely subjective.
As a human you are trapped on earth and nothing you do will affect the Universe in any way. Nothing the entire human race has done or will do will affect the Universe in any way. .... Ever
Purpose? Point? You make it sound like it's something inherently positive. Can you give me an example where it could be inherently positive? Because the purposes I can think of are all negative to me since I have goals of my own and any purpose in life would stand in the way of that. I don't want to be like a spoon (so humans can eat more easily) or a cat (To be human pets), so I'm really glad to have no point or purpose in life, as that means I am the master of my own destiny.
I have goals in life I want to achieve. That's why I want to live longer. And if people can help me achieve my goals, that's all the better.
If you want to find purpose in life, then I'm sure you can find another person in life that can give you one.
There is no point, no purpose, self replicating cells appeared and evolution led to where we are now.
Life has the meaning you choose to give it.
pet cats
Well, if you’re feeling philosophical I think you’d first need to address your presupposition that life has or is meant to have any meaning whatsoever.
Like, according to who? And how did they determine that? Would you be sad if it turns out there isn’t any underlying meaning?
Life doesn't come with a meaning, you are free to find one that speaks to you
For me it’s succeeding in ways that are important to me. For instance for me it was getting sober from drugs and stable from bipolar. And then using my experience to help others do the same. The point is to help others have a life that is stable.
Hedonic threadmill: it's the theory that we tend to a baseline level of happiness and on average, after some time, people who have won the lottery are as happy (or unhappy) as people who have gone bankrupt.
Look at us, we are apes, barely out of trees. We were fighting predators and cold and diseases that no longer exist. Just by being alive, we are the winners of millions of years of genetic lottery, through evolution, fights, love and ingenuity.
We have access to most of human knowledge through devices that fit in our pockets, can visit other countries that were legendary to our forefathers, instead of hunting wild beasts we have satellites that guide us step by step to the nearest McDonald's.
Imagine time-traveling a few generations back, describing our life to our grand-grandparents, seeing their eyes grow wide. Now imagine, at the end, telling them how ennui got to us and we can no longer find meaning in our life.
Other people.
Make connections in your little circle/tribe; make people happy. It's our biology, it's what we evolved to do, and it's what you leave behind.
Man, could you imagine if there was a single meaning to life? That would be miserable. Every single action you do would have to be for fulfilling that one single purpose and if you were doing anything else you'd be failing. Want to play video games? You're not fulfilling The Purpose. Eating, sleeping, taking a shit, sure, it's to keep you going for The Purpose, but it's also failing to work on it in that moment. Taking a vacation would be blasphemous.
Meaning is something applied to things better by people, and I think I prefer it that way.
Being a good friend, finding what makes me happy while in some way better off, and trying to do those things.
Failing that, doing very bad things to very bad people.
Being alive is the only time when you can influence something, and as such, when your actions mean something.
When you're dead, it's over. There could be an opportunity for you to make something better for others or for your own enjoyment - but now all chances are gone.
So, why letting go of this amazing ability?
There's no meaning to life. We are an accidental self sustaining chemical reaction that has lasted for billions of years. There's no creator, no higher power, nothing waiting for us when we die.
We're also about to go extinct and are way past the window of being able to save ourselves. You and I are among the last humans that will ever exist.
And IMO that's extremely comforting once you actually internalize it. Focus on making you and the people around you happy in the short time you're here, don't worry about the far future because it doesn't matter.
That's the fun part! It's meaningless! All of it. It means you can do anything you want to do!
In my view, we are here because the universe wants to understand itself.
I find solace in that.
I hope this helps your existential dread.
the bad news: there is no inherent meaning. the good news: this means you get to create your own. each of us do! the harsh reality is we exist against our will. nobody chose to be here and the "purpose" appears purposeless. if you ask me, there is no such thing as destiny and there is no afterlife for a soul to ascend to, so the existence you are experiencing here on Earth is profoundly unique and should be treated as your one and only. you might spend your entire life searching for a grand meaning, but the saerch is part of the discovery, because along the way you are progressing as a person, and aging and maturing through life, so you're not remaining stagnant and unchanging. it's okay if you never truly "know" who you are or where you're going--just keep doing it. you'll end up somewhere, you'll become someone.
I read something recently that explained every moment was like a mini death (referring to how Change is the only constant) and as such everything we do is to understand and integrate death-like processes and to see them as one cohesive whole, if we extrapolate this pattern to the process of death as a human we begin to realize that our death is so much more likely to be some pattern like that where we must question if the life we had was ever so subjectively experienced to begin with, at that point we begin to realize that our death is not to be feared any more than we should fear taking off our clothes to change them when they are dirty.
I am the universe, and therefore the universe has a purpose in giving me consciousness for a lifetime. We get a lottery for what life-form we get created in (whether we're a human or a fish or a leaf) and most of that life will go just chasing the continuity of life (consuming energy, burning energy, reproducing), the rest is all made up rules of engagement in society (school, work, career, politics), all of which is "Leela" - a very believable illusion, like a game of monopoly or a very engaging play or a movie - believable, but not absolute truth. So back to the universe and why it gave me consciousness in the first place? It's just so that I can experience the universe, and see the beauty and oneness of all universe - not just the stars and the planets, but also the living forms of it - the flowers, the bugs, the pets, the wildlife, and all of the other humans on this planet, each one a unique fucking marvellous magical version of the same universe.
There is none. And that is incredibly liberating. Choose your own path and do what makes you feel good (without harming others).
Why do you believe life has meaning?
I personally don't believe life has any meaning, other than the one you choose for your own life. It's rather terrifying and freeing at the same time. If there is no meaning, and if there is nothing else, no higher power, then this is it. You get the time you get, running around as self aware stardust, and then it ends. Everything that is "you" flips off one day and there is nothing but oblivion as the stardust you were slow seeps away. But, that also means that you don't have to live up to anyone else's idea of what your life should be. You can make your own path, your own meaning, and fuck the people in funny hats who try to tell you otherwise. You are you and no one else gets to define what that is.
I was pondering why people fight so hard to beat diseases and live a few more years. What are they planning to do? Why exert effort just to be here longer when you don’t have a reason?
If this is all there is, if oblivion is on the other side of the door, I'll scrabble for every day existing that I can get, thank you very much. Sure, I have my own beliefs and things I would willingly accept oblivion for. But, if those aren't on the table, I'm gonna keep on existing as long as I can. It's one of the few things I'm pretty good at.
The meaning of life is to give life meaning
That's the beauty. Given that there is no goal, you are able to define your own.
It doesn't have a meaning. "Meaning" is just a concept we made up to forever have something to chase after. You can endlessly ask "why" so it's like chasing one's own tail. It's the motor of the mind, fueled by the desire to finally be still.
Literally? There is no reason for life. Which scares people, so they develop superstition (theology) or ascribe it to emotions (happiness, suffering, etc). There is no reason, for life. The reason for life existing or how it came to be is certainly up for debate, but there is no why. We are alive, we are conscious. Eventually our bodies give out on us, and our life ends.
No meaning to life besides try to live your best one. We’re all just earthlings floating on a space rock sitting in a giant void surrounded by more exploding stars
At a macro level, it's the preservation of our species. On a micro level, it whatever makes you happy and doesn't hurt others (because that would conflict with macro).
Point? Like most gifts, there is no point. You just got it.
Thats how I treat my life: as a gift. Because what makes me me, existed as matter for eons. Inert. And by an insane oddity it got "infused" with life, thought, wonder but only for an extremely short while. And after that short period it will go back into that inert state. So i do nice things which are within my reach. Things that makes me feel good. And modern (western) society gives us a lot of time to do that. I know it doesn't always feel like that but if you look at it historically we have the most off time ever.
Nice things can be anything. Maybe meaningless on the Grand scale of things, but I like making my family happy. I love cuddling my stinky old dog(well, not that old), I hate gardening but love the outcome of it. And yes, I love wasting time on movies, reading, gaming, theater. Or hikes. Or travel in general. The smell of the sea. The feeling of being in a forest. That first time you played "The last of us". that one specific movie. Or read that one fantastic book. That feeling when you finished it. Or when you went to that insanely funny comedian. Or just hanged out drinking beers (or whatever )with friends or colleagues. Its all fantastic.
And most of the times I like my job and try to forward my little society with it. (I work for a municipality) Within my own little means.
So... meaning? Of life? Experience shit. Make up your own mind.
And please: don't use big tech socials. They're made so you don't feel good, get addicted to them. Get you hooked. It and it's goals (sell ads!) are evil.
I've been inert for eternity. I will not waste that little time I have. Experience something. Anything.
The sad part of existence is not having the choice. I literally wouldn't cared if I died tomorrow. I just don't want my friends and family to be sad. That's literally the only thing keeping me here.
it's your life, you decide. You can also decide not to give it meaning.
meaning comes from us
Philosophically, I think the pursuit of truth and the exercise of compassion are worthwhile endeavors.
But when that's too abstract, I remind myself that I have people who rely on me and benefit from my presence in their life. I work to make the world around me better than it was before, so that others can immediately, and in the future, have better lives.
Happiness.
I like to recall some wise words of Christmas in these dark times:
Here’s the deal, newbie. You can stuff your stocking with shiny little toys from now until you grow some testicles, but until that stocking is filled with friendship, loyalty, love and devotion, well.. it’s just plumb empty.
And no, you can’t purchase those things at Laura Ashley. And no, you can’t win them in the red book giveaway extravaganza. And, gee, I’m sure if these aren’t things that you can wind up and watch spin for eight hours.
Let me make this exceptionally clear. Christmas is about love. You can’t live without other people’s love. Not during Christmas, not ever.
So go spend this time with your friends and family. And if they laugh at you, laugh with them. And if they laugh at you again, hit them and go find some new friends. But for the love of god, jesus, Mary, and Joseph and his technicolor dreamcoat, don’t ever ever forget this, newbie. You have to give love to get love. So start giving. Now.
Why live? What's the meaning of life? What's the purpose of life? I hope I don't have to explain that people have been asking this question since we first were able to form words and start thinking. You're going to get as many different opinions to answer this question as there are people to write a response. You could spend a lifetime studying philosophy and not find a definitive answer. And in the end you just have to decide for yourself which answer most speaks to you. Are you atheist, materialist, spiritual, philosophical? Take your pick.
Personally, I like Buddhist philosophy for these kinds of questions. And I suspect the Buddha would say that we are here because of craving for sense pleasures, craving for existence, and ignorance of our true nature and the true nature of reality. We live because we want to exist, we want to have experiences and feel the things that are available to us as living beings. Whether it's food or sex or money or adventure or admiration or love we feel like getting the things we want will make us happy. The flip side of craving is aversion, where we feel like achieving separation from those things that are unpleasant will make us happy.
Volumes have been written about this and it's impossible to summarize well in a single post. But if it speaks to you there's a lot more to say about it.
are we just amusing ourselves until death?
Yes. That's arguably neither a good nor bad thing; a life with a prescribed meaning or prescribed expectations would be scary in a different way.
There's been philosophers that got famous arguing it's actually great and we should be excited, even, but "your mileage may vary".
he idea of this came to me because I was pondering why people fight so hard to beat diseases and live a few more years. What are they planning to do? Why exert effort just to be here longer when you don’t have a reason?
There is a thing called quality-adjusted life years. To make decisions about certain things like transplants, and to measure the effectiveness of health policy, they absolutely will factor in how much time you'll get from treatment and how much it's worth living.
Nations like mine will also help you peace out gracefully.
It has same meaning as summer breeze, or warm rays of sunshine. We make things to be more complicated than they really are. Enjoy experiences you are given, live thru pain, be a human. Existence is a weird, yup.
Everything is meaningless, nothing matters. Therefore whatever you decide is important is all that matters.
You can look up optimistic nihilism if you want
Why not?
There is no intrinsic meaning to life, we are a random chemical reaction that is really, really good at propagating itself, and we've evolved to be so good at pattern recognition that we psychologically need to see patterns like meaning where none exist.
My response to that state of affairs is that I get to define the point of life for myself. Some days the point is to advance human knowledge. Some days it's to protect people I care about. Some days it's smoking enough weed to make a cloud visible from space. None of those have to sound even remotely reasonable to you because they are things that I've seen as the point of my life at various points in the past. Yours can be different, but I bet if you spend some time analyzing your values and what you believe in as a person you can probably identify a few things you find important enough to consider the point of life, even if only temporarily
On a fundamental level there is absolutely no meaning to life, it happened randomly over great great spans of time.
On a human level the meaning of life is enjoying it to the best of your ability.
First of all.
Life has no inherent meaning; there is no grand plan or objective purpose to your life or any other persons.
Thus; what you choose has meaning is objectively meaningful (to you).
On a grander scale. As far as we know currently, we are the only example of advanced intelligence in the universe. We are almost certainly not; but we have no evidence at this stage. This is objectively meaningful; for humanity as a whole, if you choose to participate in ensuring the continuation of the only example of intelligence is totally up to you. As long as some people choose to continue the species intelligence continues in the universe.
I think I have found meaning in kindness and beauty. Anything I do to make life more worth living for other beings makes my life more meaningful. Finding beauty, wherever it may be and whatever form it may take, gives my life meaning.
I often say that the meaning of life is the smile in a dog's eyes when you pet it, and I think that serves nicely.
Essentially I think you're right, we are amusing ourselves. The point is that we seem to be built to do that - we come with a nice set of compulsions that give us happy feelings when we do certain things, and if those feelings are an illusion so what? They feel real.
There's no right answer.
By that, I mean everyone dies with regrets: regrets about living too wildly, regrets about living too conservatively, having kids, not having kids, missing out on an opportunity, or risking too much.
You're going to reach the end of your life and believe it's unfinished, it seems.
I have no advice. Make the best choice at the moment, with all you know at the time, and then forgive yourself for it, I guess.
I work at a hospital and most of the patients there are definitely older than dirt people getting surgeries just to extend their life a few years or even months. Most of the time it is family members making those decisions because they don't want or know how to say goodbye. We have had patients that effectively died, but the family insists on keeping their organs alive with machines in the hopes that they wake up.
As for the meaning of life? I think it is 100% to entertain ourselves until death. Even if there was a greater meaning created by some deity, we're probably not able to understand it anymore than a donkey could understand calculus. I personally could never trust any human to tell me who or what god is and/or wants. And god has yet to reveal theirself to me...
Idk if there is really a meaning. I think it's all kinda chaos. So much of life is out of our control, and I think meaning is something people assign to themselves to gain a sense of control.
Try to be grateful for whatever you have, embrace the things you enjoy doing and maximize your time with other people that get you. When you find yourself doing something that you enjoy doing try to really be present in moment. Think about how you're feeling and why you're feeling that way. Even the way your body physically feels in that moment.
If you want to find an easy meaning or purpose try to remember even little waves can travel pretty far. Try to be kind and patient with others when they make mistakes, leave things a little better than they were when you found them, that kind of thing.
This is a fun question to ponder, and you'll get a thousand different answers from a thousand different people.
I think the more important question (and much harder to find an answer for) is What's the meaning of the universe? Why does the universe exist? How was it created? Why was it created? What was before the universe was created? What comes after the universe?
And you can join those two questions together. Are the two related? Is the universe's purpose to create life? Is life's purpose to experience the universe? Would the universe exist if there was not life to experience it?
Nothing lasts [...] are we just amusing ourselves until death?
It seems to me like you are of the opinion that the finiteness of life robs it of meaning. If so, why not contribute to longevity research? It's only been a couple decades since we learned how telomeres relate to senescence. If enough people work on the problem or donate to it, we very well might be able to crack immortality before you croak. At the very least, that will give you a few more centuries to figure out what the meaning of life is.
You might object that immortality would lead to great wealth inequality, and you'd rather live a finite life than an unfair life. You can only believe this if you believe that the finality of life does not ultimately make life worthless. In which case, why not contribute to the cause of socialism?
To laugh at the absurdity of it all.
And if you ask Vonnegut; to fart around.
Absurdists unite!
You get to create your own meaning. It becomes challenging when your meaning isn’t the default societal milestones, in the western world it’s - college, promotion, marriage/kids, house, retirement, death. If that progress doesn’t resonate, then it means that you have to connect to yourself on a deeper level to figure out your purpose/your life theme.
My purpose is organizing my internal world for self alignment, I do it through self expression using art, language and diagrams. I live for self expression.
The “meaning of life” is dependent on the scale.
On an intergalactic scale, practically nothing, unless you’re someone involved in some way in intergalactic travel (like Musk, potentially). On a planetary scale, your life as a political or corporate leader or humanitarian could impact generations of others. If you’re a doctor or lawyer, your life may impact tens of thousands or even generations of people. These are scales based mostly on space.
You could also look at a scale based on time. If / when the planet explodes, maybe someone like a Musk will be the only one alive today who genuinely has an impact on the human race long into the future. If you want to look at the time span of a country’s existence, someone like a Julius Cesar, a George Washington, or Adolf Hitler will have certain meaning for hundreds of years.
Your life’s meaning may yet to be realized. The point is to live your life day to day in a manner that has a positive impact on the lives that surround you. If you don’t have the impact of someone like political or corporate leader or someone like a Greta Thunberg, maybe the point of your life is to be a supporting player for someone else.
It gets difficult to find meaning if you live an isolated life. Without a family of your own, a fulfilling career, without traveling to engage with others outside your regular week’s schedule, it’s easy to say your life is meaningless. Because you haven’t made an attempt to give it meaning.
Your life doesn’t have to have meaning. But if you’re asking this kind of question and expecting someone to tell you there’s some inherit “meaning” bestowed upon you at birth, you’re not going to get a hopeful answer. That’s not to say you need to go out and look for it. It’s to say that “meaning” comes from the impact have on something, by choice or otherwise.
TBH, yeah, that's what I consider the point of my life - amusing myself until death. Whatever I do will not matter in 100, 1000 or 1000000 years which is all just a blip in the scale of the universe. So basically, I'm just trying to have fun and help other people have fun. Of course I realize that I'm incredibly privileged to live a life where I don't have to worry about too much and I can think about fun and not surviving. I experienced difficult periods in my life and the answer to this question was much, much harder back then.
Understand that most of the answers you’re going to get on Lemmy are self righteous. “There is no meaning of life.” As if they can also know there isn’t. I encourage you to look at the philosophy of this question over the ages and how others have answered it. You won’t find many other thoughts on it here since they believe that if you can’t see it, it’s not true. We know so little in all of existence that it’s incredibly arrogant to think we can answer this with any certainty.
Yes! Do what you enjoy as long as it’s not harming others. Whatever that is
It's what you make of it. Some people don't make anything with theirs.
Personally, for me it's to form community and to leave a positive lasting influence on others. Except fascists, they can rot in hell. For others, it might be to learn as much as they can or to impart their wisdom onto their children.
top 100 comments