Does Life Have Meaning?

[Collective Foal]

I wanted to see what people's opinions are on this. I, being religious, feel like life is a test to determine how good your afterlife will be. In an athiest aspect, life's meaning is harder to get your head around. My reasoning: Life is the only thing you truly know. You don't know exactly what's going to happen after you pass on. I don't believe that death results in being suspended in nothingness, because it's impossible to comprehend nothingness, so your mind can't be subjected to that. I prefer to believe in heaven as a vacation for your soul to rest itself for a while before you serve your time in your next life.

[Kirkreng]

I, being atheist, believe that life has a purpose. However not for the afterlife. I believe that each life has a purpose for other people. I believe that every life influences other people in a positive way. That the meaning of your life is to enhance other people's life is some way or another. Small enhancements or big ones, direct or indirect.

[Alyxx Thorne]

I don't believe one should spend his or her life worrying about the afterlife, but I believe that the meaning of life is to spend it making it as good as possible for you and others.

[ProHypster]

Well everyone will stumble unto this question at least once, I will firmly state my opinion and reasoning,

Yes, life has a purpose and a meaning in any religion or position as long as you think of one. The difference between atheism and theism would be that the theist would state that life's purpose or reason is known by a theist/thei and in some cases written in a book or handed down to earth in a script. However The atheist's purpose and meaning are his own given to the world, example: My life's purpose is to enjoy my life as much as possible. My life's meaning is to have offspring and protect them.

 

However, currently I'm a type of monotheist *Not the biblical god* but I believe there is a meaning/purpose in the universe beyond our own.

[Doublenature]

The meaning of life is to live it.

[Vapymid]

Is this a general question about the meaning of life in the Universe or is it about an individual person's life?

 

The answer to the former is that the meaning of life seems to be organisation of matter in a way resulting in reduction of entropy for as long as there remains free energy in the Universe. Presumably, before or at the moment the last energy is converted into work the living Universe must transcend into a new state (possibly creating a whole new Universe) where the process will continue... Alternative is that all life in the Universe will cease to exist (again, presumably, resulting in failure to achieve its transcendental purpose).

 

An interesting result of such argument is that one can identify entropy (chaos) with the concept of evil, giving objective definitions to good and evil. This then gives such concepts as morality an absolute, universal quality, quite independent from subjective, human-centric interpretations.

 

As for the latter question - well, the meaning of individual life should be to help the life in general to achieve its universal target without going extinct in the process. What that actually means may be completely trivial (like someone meant to become a birth accident statistics because you *must* have a birth accident statistics) or quite grandiose (as in being a Newton or Hitler or Ghandi etc).

 

This all is totally independent from the argument about whether or not there is God as it will fit either case (discarding of course the view of God as an old man sitting on a cloud - such "god" will not be God at all as he will be subject to the same laws of the Universe as any other object and will have to die when all free energy is exhausted).

 

However, if you assume that there is God, it may be argued that the purpose of universal life is to organise itself until it becomes equal to God himself, at which point it will transcend (and merge with God?). This hypothesis is impossible to prove or disprove at least until the moment the universal life reaches the point of "transcend"...

 

Regards

[ProHypster]

Is your hypothesis that everything is there and moves to the end for its' own beggining?

 

A looped sequence triggering itself making the meaning and purpose of life to start itself again?

 

Interesting idea and brings the question whether there is something outside our loop....

Meaning, is there other Circles like ours?

[Collective Foal]

To me, life in its physical form is completely meaningless. But in the spiritual form, life is made to create happiness and positive feelings in one's soul through its course. While science can cause problems (depression, etc.) I also believe in rebirth. Everybody gets another chance to do it differently. It's kind of like a game. Our spirits come into the physical world from what I will call for all intensive purposes "heaven." We inhabit life forms and when we die, we are punished or rewarded for how our life went. After that break, we come back in and live again. Another big meaning of life is love, to have someone to call yours (and reproduce with them) is life's greatest goal, spiritually and biologically.

[alphabetagamma]

I don't usually try to interpret or ponder what I can't prove or disprove, meaning to life being one of many things. Here's my most angry-logical interpretation though:

 

(Warning: The proceeding paragraph contains the opinion of an angry, tired and, at the moment, rather opinionated 16 year old that is mostly taking his anger out on the general population. You have been warned)

 

I doubt life has meaning. I don't believe in an afterlife just like I don't believe in life as most people seem to perceive it. Humans aren't that special, we're composed of the same chemicals that make up our environment. Nothing about the human consciousness is indestructible, otherwise you wouldn't change your whole life. What if I were to completely forget my entire life up to the present, I manage to build a new life but never remember my old life. The old me in essence died, what happens to my soul? Does it split in two for both my lives? If so, then wouldn't it split with every change? Everything that happens to you changes you, so would you have millions of saved static copies of yourself each slightly different from the one next to it, like a stop motion video of your entire life? Even if there is some resolution to my previous problem, would you really want infinite life? More a curse than a blessing.

 

Humans have become very accustomed to seeing themselves as special, "meaning" to life is just an extension of that.

[Kirkreng]

Humans have become very accustomed to seeing themselves as special, "meaning" to life is just an extension of that.

I agree with that.

[Doom Shepherd]

Life has whatever meaning you give it.

 

As for the afterlife... I think most conceptions of it are fundamentally flawed.

 

There was a quote from House M.D from the first season that stuck with me.

 

Foreman: “you find it more comforting to believe that this is it?”

House:”No, I find it more comforting to believe that this isn’t merely a test”.

 

Given what I've seen these last 40 years, I have to conclude that if life is a test, then it's a terribly biased and unfair test, administered by a Professor who gleefully admits to helping some students cheat while giving others poor study guides with wrong answers, and who will give you a better grade if you suck up to him.

[Alyxx Thorne]

I don't really believe in heaven and hell. I believe our souls move on to another phase when we die, but not that the life we have now has any sort of real meaning for that. Life has meaning for itself, and I agree with House that the life you have now is what matters. I'm a very non-typical Christian at that.

[Axeldeath]

I don't think life has any meaning and I don't see any reason why I should. Any "meaning" to life is only what people give it to make themselves feel better.

[Koach]

i think there's a meaning in life. idk what it is, but imo everyone's life has its own meaning. as far as i know, i believe in the "cogito ergo sum" theory. which makes me wonder if everything, even life, exists, or if it's part of my own imagination.

[Axeldeath]

Solipsism is a bit of a silly philosophy. If the world exist only in your mind then you and the world are one and the same, there can be no real 'you'. Whether the rest of the world actually exists externally or internally is irrelevant. And it also relies far too much upon circular reasoning to be very insightful.

[Razor235]

The meaning of life is 42.

 

But seriously, I think life has a purpose. It is to find out what that purpose is. Oh, wait a second. The purpose I think is to live.

[Collective Foal]

Life has whatever meaning you give it.

 

As for the afterlife... I think most conceptions of it are fundamentally flawed.

 

There was a quote from House M.D from the first season that stuck with me.

 

Foreman: “you find it more comforting to believe that this is it?”

House:”No, I find it more comforting to believe that this isn’t merely a test”.

 

Given what I've seen these last 40 years, I have to conclude that if life is a test, then it's a terribly biased and unfair test, administered by a Professor who gleefully admits to helping some students cheat while giving others poor study guides with wrong answers, and who will give you a better grade if you suck up to him.

 

But the test isn't put on a grading scale like the way you seem to show. It's an experiment, almost. The professor keeps track of who got what materials for the test. If he gives someone a bad study guide and they confidently get all the answers wrong because of what they've been taught is right, they get a better grade than the guy given the perfect tools who doesn't even study them. People who are born with less are not expected to succeed fantastically, but they should at least try their best to do so.

[Ian]

In my opinion, I believe we are just a form of life in an endless universe consisting of very random events with no purpose or meaning.

I think our purpose in life is to survive and procreate.

I cannot explain cosmic purpose.

[Collective Foal]

Back there was philosophical me. Now get ready for scientific me.

 

We have no free will.

 

We are simply composed of atoms that chemically react with one another in such away that we have this illusion of consciousness. You're many differences from other people are caused by the little atomic differences in your DNA and your structure itself. The only thing I can't prove with this theory is that life has no meaning. If you constructed a mass of atoms with the same exact composition as me, It would still be a lifeless form. Though we are controlled by the many colliding atoms in our brains, we do have that special spark of life that puts everything in a different light.

 

But anyway, in theory, if you had the capacity to be able to recognize and identify EVERY atom in this lapse of reality, you could know everything that would ever happen through interpretation of physics and atomic electricity. You might know what would happen in 20 seconds, tomorrow's weather, the baby you will have that hasn't even been conceived, who you will marry, everything.

 

Does that take away life's meaning? No, it doesn't. Because we can't do that, so there's no real knowing. Life is like a movie. Already produced for us, but we've never seen it and it's playing out in front of us.

 

On other days, I do believe in free will and the magic of God and Life, but for now, that is how I feel, and it sure depresses the HELL out of me.

[Flyingamerboy]

Life has no meaning I think.